The aim of this section is not to develop an exhaustive and detailed explanation about the characteristics of the PROTOTAL^® protection elements, but to provide a simple and clear vision on the basic function principles and effects.

Until now, the only means of protection which has existed against atmospheric discharges, was designed to provoke the discharge and to direct it towards a determined point. The device used to achieve this, is the badly named Lightning-Finial ,also referred to as , Conductor-Rod. However, instead of finishing or stopping the Lightning, it attracts them. Its object is to canalise the major part possible of this enormous instantaneous energy produced by the discharge, trying to avoid in that way grave primary damage being caused to the building and its occupants. This mission is not always possible however, because so many factors here depend on the magnitude of the discharge, cadence, conditions and dimensions of the whole of the Lightning- Conductor installation (electrical resistance, the path the earth cable takes as it runs down the building, and the state of effectiveness of the connection to earth, etc.). On the other hand, the Lightning-Conductors do not offer protection against the secondary effects of the Electro-magnetic Induction caused by the huge amount of energy which is transmitted during the discharge by the Lightning-Conductor  itself, where all electrical conductor materials in existing installations, whether electrical such as Telephones, Communications, Computers, Electronic equipment, Gas or Metal fences all feel the effect to a greater or lesser degree. 

PROTOTAL^® offers a real permanent protection system against Lightning and its effects.  In the case of a direct fall (primary effect), the Inhibitor from PROTOTAL^® is able to avoid the natural formation process of Lightning in the area under protection. When the Lightning, in order to discharge all its energy, searches for some point where the corresponding discharge channel has formed, the Inhibitor converts the protected area in “transparent”.    PROTOTAL^® avoids, with the Lightning-Inhibitor, the formation of the discharge channel through which the Lightning would have been produced.

The principle of the physics in the functioning of the Inhibitor from  PROTOTAL^® consists of impeding the formation of the channel through which the atmospheric discharges travel. The time of a Lightning fall will last between 10us and 100ms, practically instantaneous, but the process of the formation of the discharge channel can last even minutes.  During this time the Inhibitor electrically discharges the environment in the zone, by way of, Micro-discharges produced within the equipment´s Head-Set. In the moment in which the atmospheric charge drives towards the ground, the peak of the channel charges directed towards the cloud, do not ascend,  therefore not being able to find and coincide with the descending peaks coming down from the cloud, in which moment the creation of the discharge channel  finalizes and the Lightning can not be produced. 

From the above explanation it is clearly evident that the PROTOTAL^® system truly is a Lightning stop system and does comply with the etymologic term, Lightning-finial. PROTOTAL^® is a Lightning- formation Inhibition System^®.

As a consequence of the secondary effects produced by a Lightning fall at a certain distance, PROTOTAL^® offers an Earth protection system, Induc-Control.  This protection element has the effect of absorbing or softening the induced voltage surges through the ground towards the earth contact of the protected building.

To obtain more detailed information about the Physics of the working principles of the PROTOTAL^® products, consult the corresponding section in the Detailed Report.