Lightning and Cart games

[Niku-Sama]

i was wondering, after having a thunder storm roll through here at an odd hour this morning.

can a lightning storm mess up carts?

i mean if its strikes close by. lately we've had a few out of the ordinary thunder storms where hundereds of hits were in town. usually they arrent but i was wondering

[Blitzwing256]

only if they directly strike a cartridge.

[Niku-Sama]

hmm....idea!

[Vectorman0]

If your other electronic things go unharmed, then I would bet the other stuff is safe.

EDIT - Thinking about it more, there would be a small magnetic field around the lightening bolts, but I doubt it would ever be strong enough or close enough to do anything.

[Niku-Sama]

yea i was kinda thinking they do put off a sort of weak EMP...well not weak but its not very long distance

[ozyr]

Only way they would mess up a cart is if the lightning spiked your power line, and then messed with your console and/or cart. This would be a very rare thing to happen, but I don't see why it couldn't.

Personally, - knock on wood - I've never had anything zapped by a storm. Of course, I use surge protectors on lots of my stuff. Guess that helps to some extent, but I'm not an expert on this type of thing.

[Ed Oscuro]

The electromagnetic field from a lightning strike is HUGE.

Anyway, chiggity chekk it yo:

http://www.arcelect.com/lightnin.htm

A couple excerpts for your enjoyment:

...lightning induced surges usually alter the electrical characteristics of semiconductor devices so that they no longer function effectively. In a few cases, a surge may destroy the semiconductor device. These are called "hard failures." Computer equipment having a hard failure will no longer function at all.

In several instances, a lightning-derived surge may destroy the printed traces in the printed circuit boards of the computer equipment also resulting in hard failures.

The most obvious one (a worry for anybody playing a Famicom Disk System during a thunderstorm ):

Along with the voltage source, lightning can cause a current surge and a resultant induced magnetic field. If the computer contains a magnetic disk then this interfering magnetic field might overwrite and destroy data stored in the disk.

Pertaining to ROMs:

Finally, there is the effect of lightning on program logic controllers (PLCS) which are found in the manufacturing environment. Many of these PLCs use programs stored in ROMS. A lightning-induced surge can alter the contents of the ROM causing aberrant operation by the PLC.

I think that refers specifically to writable ROMs, however, as a PLC is by its very nature programmable. But then there's the fact that the ROMs themselves still contain semiconductors.

people may never, or rarely, experience, direct lightning strikes on exposed, in-building cable feeding into their equipment. However, it is not uncommon to find computer equipment being fed by buried cable. In this environment, a lightning strike, even several miles away, can induce voltage/current surges which travel through the ground and induce surges along the cable, ultimately causing equipment failure.

There's also a section about the necessity of grounding...I'll leave that to you to read. Get a surge protector, and make sure it's connected to an outlet properly grounded. That should fix things.

[Flack]

Lightning struck the roof of my friend's apartment complex one time. The strike went through the building, into my friend's computer, and fried his modem. I saw it afterwards; it was quite black and toasty.

Applying the same logic to a videogame system, I would say that it is possible to fry a PCB that is plugged in should a spike come down the line looking for you.

[Niku-Sama]

it hit his computer but only fried his modem?

modem but have been the pint of the best ground then...did the rest of it still work?

[tholly]

it hit his computer but only fried his modem?

modem but have been the pint of the best ground then...did the rest of it still work?

i replaced a modem for my neighbor that that happened to....the modem was the only thing that was messed up by the storm...

[Sothy]

I tazered the pins of an ecco the dolphin cart once. I didnt work after that.