Back to my specialty, repairing electric underground dog fence.. I had a close to property lighting strike, which found it's way into my fence controller. Manufacturer says that's common, and only a "sacrificial lightning protector", made by them can prevent damage to the controller. Sending back my damaged unit recoups a core charge. Ive had problems with this system in the past, but really good customer service has kept me around. More on the old system later.

so I opened up the most current controller and found a little 1 amp fuse, popped. Nice. So now thinking they know, and like to refurbish units at the cost of a fuse. I can fix this, and will just wire in an easy to replace fuse, so I dont have to take it apart.

new question. I want to find this part,but font know what to call it. Part number didn't bring much results.


this is the only part that seems to be upgraded from the old unit I have, that partially works. Anyone know the correct terminology for this thing?

could a lightning protector be anything more than a tiny fuse?

the system transmitter uses a 22 gauge wire standard as the antenna and after striking, the wire is in perfect condition. it can't be a huge amount of energy I'm dealing with. Is it? Talking near strike, not direct.

 

Transformer.

 

CKEE-1 - Cenker

I couldn't find that actual one, but I also didn't look too hard

 

Isolating transformer, most likely a custom component.

edit: I wouldn't muck around too much with that if you don't know what you are doing. Isolation transformers provide safety protection.

 

Could also be a flywired inductor. They may have been saturating the core or something on the last one and needed to flywire it due to space constraints.

ref des is a "T", so probably a transformer.

 

The data sheet for the part says it's an inductor, not a transformer.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...=1536514150939

The "11mH" rating on the top confirms this. Inductors are measured in millihenries, transformers are not.

Ryan, is there a reason you're interested in this specific component?

 

yes, but only because I dont know anything. Holding a new and an old board (one pictured(, this is the only component that is different. The newer model has been much more reliable and weather tolerant. Wondering if it had anything to do with this.

moving on though, my quest for my own lightning protection is on. A sacrificial protector sounds like a fancy case around a fuse, to me. But I has the electricity dum.

 

EE16 is the core geometry. It looks like an inductor because no other windings go to the pins that solder it down.
The red insulation looks like high voltage insulation; I don't know why it would need particularly high voltage withstand.

To make a board survive lightning transients would require it to be designed in. You place devices called GDTs (gas discharge tubes) and TVS's (transient voltage suppressors) on all lines that enter then board that may be exposed to transients.
They would have to be selected to be invisible to the normal voltages that appear on said lines, and clamp the voltage transient to be within the capabilities of the circuits connected to those lines.

 

And then still fail because mother nature always wins in the end....

Sometimes it's cheaper to replace something more often than engineer it to withstand an extreme condition that it might see.

 

Amazing information. Thanks for reading and responding

 

I was gonna say a choke.