What Are the Commonly Used Lightning Protection Components?

External lightning protection system, consisting of lightning rods (or lightning conductors), down conductors, and grounding system, is mainly designed to protect buildings from lightning strikes which can cause fire accidents and endanger human safety. Internal lightning protection system, on the other hand, is designed to prevent lightning and other forms of overvoltage from causing damage to equipment, which cannot be guaranteed by the external lightning protection system. To achieve internal lightning protection, cables and metal pipes that enter and exit each protection zone must be connected to lightning and overvoltage protectors, and be equipotentially connected.

The external lightning protection system of buildings, such as lightning rods and lightning conductors, can be directly struck by lightning, causing dangerous overvoltage at both ends of the grounding resistance, introducing grounding wires into the equipment, and causing equipment damage.

The whole lightning protection system is huge and involves a lot of materials. Here, we will talk about what lightning protection components the lightning proof surge protector has.  The commonly used lightning protection components mainly include varistors, spark gaps, and TVS.

1. Lightning Arrester Device Component: Spark Gap (discharge Tube)

Used for AC power supply, when the overvoltage exceeds the spark-over voltage of the gap, short-circuit discharge current is formed by gap discharge, limiting the voltage and quickly releasing current, and lightning arrester devices respond and produce an arc-extinguishing at zero crossing under AC, and recover high impedance.

2. Lightning Arrester Device Component: Varistor

Made of semiconductor materials, this nonlinear device can cause its current to increase sharply when the voltage exceeds the threshold voltage of the device, and the high impedance drops sharply with a slight change in voltage, quickly discharging the lightning surges, and restoring to a high impedance state after the response.

3. Lightning Arrester Device Component: TVS

TVS is a device that uses the forward and reverse voltages of a diode to limit the overvoltage. Its response time can be as short as picoseconds, and the action voltage can be set very low, making it suitable for overvoltage protection of communication lines. Most power surge protector modules generally use varistors, while signal surge protectors use discharge tubes.

Shenzhen Techwin Lightning Technologies Co., Ltd focusing on lightning protection for 18 years, specializes in lightning proof surge protector, signal surge protector, antenna feeder arrester, new energy lightning protectors, smart spd, grounding isolation suppressors, surge backup protectors and other lightning protection products. Covering many industries such as petroleum and chemical, security monitoring, rail transit, and communication base stations, as an outstanding lightning protection solution provider in China, Techwin hopes to cooperate with more excellent lightning protection contractors, distributors, wholesalers, agents and large-scale projects.