Lightening Damaged Intercoms

Here in California we don't have a real problem with lightening and lightening storms.  I think that people from other parts of the country would laugh at the kind of lightening we have.

I've talked with so many people from the Mid-West, Southern States and the East Coast where lightening storms are a real problem.  I spoke with a homeowner last week who had a actual lightening strike on the roof of his home, causing thousand of dollars of damage.

Lightening damage to electronics is real and it does effect intercom master stations all the time.  The real problem with lightening damage is that it does not follow any particular pattern in regards to where the damage occurs.

Lightening can damage components that normally would never fail on their own, it is particularly hard on Integrated Circuits (IC's) which almost never fail on there own in intercoms.  Sometimes the damage is subtle, just a random amount of static in the background noise of the system, or it can be strange operational problems that don't follow any normal patterns for that model.

Newer models like the IM(A)3303 and IM(A)4406 use micro-controllers and logic IC's to manage the operations of the system.  If these micro-controllers become damaged due to lightening, the set is unrepairable unless a replacement board can be found.

Update on Tuesday, May 20, 2014 at 4:47PM by Cindy & Christopher

When Lightning Strikes

I had a IM4006 selivered to the shop a week ago.  The house where it's installed was actually struck by lightning and the IM4006 went dead during the storm.

Here is the most telling picture of the damage.  This is the amplifier IC and you can clearly see where the high-voltage from the lightning mad it's way into the amplifier circuit and blew a piece of the plastic case off the IC.