On Saturday we had a rumble of thunder and some lightning. Shortly afterwards I realised that the house internet was down. My Balance 30 runs firmware version 8.x and it is connected to 3 lines. One is a feed from a 4G modem, which passes through a Ubiquiti wireless link, so that it is connected to the Balance by ethernet. The other two are xDSL lines. The Balance is connected to the house’s switch, from which lines run off to LAN sockets in each room.
I found that one xDSL modem is apparently dead, though the other seems fine. The Balance red LED status light is flashing. If I reboot it, it goes solid red for about 60 seconds, then flashes. I cannot seem to reset it by using a paper clip to hold down the reset for 15-20 seconds.
Is my Balance dead? Is there some way to interrogate it? (Currently I have removed it from the attic and it is sitting on my desk).
TIA
Dan
@middleofnowhere
Please open support ticket to allow support team to verify on it.
https://ticket.peplink.com/ticket/new/public
Sound like hardware issue due to the “thunder and lightning”. Do you “grounded” your equipment ?
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Hello @middleofnowhere,
We have seen this situation on lots of equipment, most likely your equipment is Toast (excuse the pun).
If you’ve had a close call with lightning, you are best to replace all of your DSL modems, balance router and your wireless links. If you have good insurance, then you may have protection against fire/fusions and may be able to claim on that.
When you get the new equipment, consider lightning protection on all connection points, lightning protection is available on:
- Power Supplies
- DSL/PSTN Lines
- Ethernet Connections
- Coaxial Connections
In Australia, we recommend the Belkin Mains Surge Arrestors for power, for DSL/PSTN we use carrier approved surge arrestors, for ethernet we use Transtector & Cambium Networks, for Coaxial we use Times Microwave. We ensure all of these are correctly earthed to remove the surge away from the equipment.
In order to help protect our business, suppliers and most importantly our clients we now inform our clients that if they choose to not having full lightning protection on systems, they also may lose the option of warranty from the manufacturer and costs from their insurance company on the solutions.
When you go to replace the equipment, we suggest ensuring that you put in adequate lightning protection, here is a previous post on this topic with links for you:
The extra cost may be more than the equipment in doing the lightning protection correctly for smaller installations, though the longer-term savings from looking after a system are tremendous (especially the more remote or difficult the location is).
Happy to Help,
Marcus 
2 Likes
Marcus, thank you for your helpful comments. As you say, for a small home installation such as mine the cost may outweigh the cost of the equipment being protected, so I have to watch that balance carefully. On the other hand, because I work from home, I also need to factor in the opportunity cost of time spent fixing things in the event of such a strike.
Fortunately we don’t get have major lightning issues at this location. I have been here five years. I lost a DSL modem the first year, and a switch last winter, which I replaced with a decent new Netgear. The apparent loss of the Peplink (Support also believe it to be toast) is a bit of a blow. The equipment in that cluster is all protected by an APC UPS, so I had assumed it was OK, but I forgot about the phone line itself.
Currently the system is trundling along quite well on only the 4G link. I would like to replace the Peplink, but given that we are managing OK without it for now I don’t want to purchase and install anything expensive until I have put measures in place to deal with possible future lightning strikes.
I am thinking of this kind of device (a “Tupavco Ethernet Surge Protector (PoE+ Gigabit) Gas Discharge Tube for Full Protection”) to insert somewhere in the link between the 4G modem and the house equipment to protect the latter.
As for the ADSL line, Surge Protectors UK Ltd offers this device that costs £87.20, while on Amazon I can buy something like this for a lot less, but they seem to be of dubious value.
I’m happy to pay for quality - the problem is assessing that quality.
Regards,
Dan
This is probably a dumb question.
Is there a reason the balance 210 doesn’t include a wire to ground it through the power adapter?
A quick look on Amazon didn’t turn up a good cheap premade ground wire to plug… I have the balance plugged into a small Eaton UPS that doesn’t have a separate ground screw. Is it recommended to connect a wire from the ground screw on the Balance 210 case to the ground pin of an outlet?
(have Ethernet cable running through the Eaton’s ethernet protection.)
