A Second THANK YOU

Ditto on what Pat Shirkey just posted, this group has awesome information that I appreciate everyone taking the time to share.

I was just about to post that I am now the happy owner of an 80W Speedy 360 :D and maybe someday I'll be able to add a smidge of knowledge to SMC! Yesterday was the install and training, after 5 hours straight my old brain is certainly in overload, but in a good way!!

We just did a temporary hookup of the Harbor Freight 1hp fan which will eventually sit outside in a deck box like others have constructed, but the rep said it worked great and I am sooooo excited to start making stuff!!!

Thank you again for everyone's recommendations, ideas, support, etc.

Barb

Congratulations on your purchase. There are a lot of Trotecs on this forum so you can just about get help 24/7.

Congratulations Barb on your new Trotec 360, its a nice machine and will serve you well for a very long time. Last week I was at an event in South Carolina and had the opportunity to spend several hours with Don Mayhew. always a pleasure to talk shop with Don at Jim McGrews Aspire Camp.

I don't unplug mine and haven't had any issues in an area where we get frequent and nasty storms. About 15 years ago lightning struck a tree about 20 feet from the house and that zapped my power supply, some telephones and a couple other electronic items.

Always unplug your expensive machines when there is a thunderstorm in your area or if you don't plan to run them for several days. NOTHING can prevent lightning from destroying anything it can touch via the electrical network, a natural ground of the static it generates.

We spent millions and millions of dollars installing lightning protectors on the main breakers at power plants and they didn't work at all. Monster lighting rods and huge ground rods worked the best but even they couldn't stop a direct hit.

A few years ago my neighbors home had a direct hit from a lightening bolt that fried every electrical appliance in his home. It also traveled into our house and zapped several TV's and a few other appliances plus it damaged our cable TV cable. Years ago when we were living in Spotsylvania County a Round lightning ball went into our attic vent and came out the vent on the other side of the house. There wasn't any direct contact with the house wiring in the attic but the static charge from the lightning destroyed several of our kitchen appliances and blew the siding off of the exit side of the house.

Thanks, Keith and Mike!! Those are far too scary stories for me. Just to be on the safe side I'll turn off the main power switch and unplug!

Unfortunately old fat fingers tried to edit and ended up deleting my question. I tried to edit my mistake about our panels being 100 amp, we have two 200 amp panels, and I couldn't resurrect the post.

Thanks again!!