To protect your office equipment—like your poor copier—from the wrath of lightning and power surges, here are some smart precautions you can take:
- Surge protectors: Make sure all your valuable equipment is plugged into high-quality surge protectors. Not all surge protectors are equal—look for ones rated for lightning-level protection.
- Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS): These devices not only protect against surges but also keep your equipment running temporarily during an outage. It gives you time to shut things down properly without damage.
- Wi-Fi fallback plans: Since your Kyocera now runs on Wi-Fi, make sure your router and modem are also surge-protected or backed up by a UPS. If they go down, so does your printing.
- Routine backups: If a strike fries more than just a NIC, you want your files backed up. Consider cloud-based or offsite backups for critical data.
- Network isolation: Use managed switches or VLANs to help isolate devices. That way, damage from one network component doesn’t cascade through everything.
- Lightning arrestors: For buildings in storm-prone areas (hello, Houston!), investing in building-wide lightning protection systems could be a smart long-term move.
- Physical disconnection: If there’s a storm brewing and you won’t be using the gear—power down and unplug. Old-school, but effective
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