difference between surge protectors and overkill?

[Leonard Caillouet]

Hi,
I think lightning strike is an issue. Where I live, rarely we have a
strike. My house has very good ground system. I am a ham operator.
Tony, VE6CGX

I suspect that few areas experience the severity that we do here. My
business easily doubles or triples in times of thunderstorms. In other
areas one could probably get by with no suppressors and never have a
problem.

Leonard

 

[Watson A.Name - \"Watt Su]

"Tony Hwang" <dragon40@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:7qE9c.36283$li5.764@pd7tw3no...

Leonard Caillouet wrote:
Well, people can debate the value of MOVs and discharge tubes
forever, based
on theory and assumptions, but I have to rely on many years of
experience.
Having run service shops and worked in dealers that do lots of mid
and high
end installations of consumer audio and video in Louisiana and
Florida, I
have learned that good surge suppressors appear to be useful.

We install Panamax protection on most of our systems. In the five
years
that I have been with this dealer, I have rearely had a system on
one of
these where I suspected was due to a line surge or lightning. I do
get the
same brands of equipment for repair all the time that people report
as
rarely failed during a lightning strike or with the typical signs
such as
violently blown fuses, burned circuit boards, ground foils on the
inputs of
audio systems cooked, multiple circuit damage with no internal
failure that
explains it, etc. Funny how we never see these things on the
systems that
we put the surge suppression on.

The way I see it is that it is pretty obvious from some of the
failures that
we see in coordination with lightning storms that surges damage
consumer
electronics. An MOV or gas discharge tube simply gives another path
for the
current to take other than through the equipment. w_tom may think
that he
can explain away the variables that suggest the need for component
level
protection, but the reality is that it seems to work for lots of
people.
I'm glad most people don't use good suppression and verify the
integrity of
their grounds, however. Summertime storms in FL make for lots of
repair
business.

But compared to the repair biz, a whole lot more money is made from
selling cheap, ineffective surge suppressors. And you pay a lot for
essentially _no_ protection. And good luck trying to collect on the
$thousand warranty! It probably has an exclusion clause that voids it
during lightning storms.

Leonard

"Dr Engelbert Buxbaum" <engelbert_buxbaum@hotmail.com> wrote in
message
news:c45vfe$h9i$00$1@news.t-online.com...

Richard Freeman wrote:


Well Actually they are not really surge protectors - more spike

protectors.

What do you want to protect against exactly ? the best all round
spike
protection tends to be a 1:1 Transformer - but these are heavy and
expensive. In reality AC MOV based 'surge' Protectors provide
little

extra

protection than already exists in the power distribution system and

built

into equipment already.

From bad experience, I do not quite agree. Once upon a time I was
operating scientific equipment in a university where the electrical
system (like in most universities) was heavily (over)loaded.

The equipment consisted of a robotic motor supposed to drive the
syringes of a stopped-flow system. A surge on the power line led to
the
inadvertent start of the motor at the wrong time, leading to the
destruction of the syringes and the contamination of the lab with
their
radioactive contents.

Appart from a day of my time wasted in the cleanup the value of the
destroyed equipment totalled several hundred dollars.

Bolting the barn door after the horse had run, I installed a a power
strip with surge protector between wall outlet and the maschine. No
mishaps ever since. YMMV.



Hi,
Does the utility power cables run overhead in the air or underground
in
your area? It's all underground in my area. For past 30 years never
suffered any damage.
Tony

 

[Mike]

In article <106g8prf5sn3534@corp.supernews.com>,
Watson A.Name - \"Watt Sun, the Dark Remover\" <alondra101@hotmail.com> wrote:

essentially _no_ protection. And good luck trying to collect on the
$thousand warranty! It probably has an exclusion clause that voids it
during lightning storms.

One exclusion clause is (reasonably) that the device must be used as per
the instructions, and that all devices in the connected "system" must be
powered through the UPS/protector.

Hmmm.

Problems with this include audio interconnects to amps/hi fi gear, UHF TV
feed to capture card that comes from a video, which is connected to a TV
and a satellite decoder: All part of the connected "system", and yet not
powered through the UPS. Oddly enough, because that would constitute an
overload.

Obviously the UPS is intended to run one PC and one monitor, connected to
(at most) a modem (which should be routed through the UPS). No network.
No external cabling of any kind. Then you might just manage to comply with
the warranty terms

Back to reality ...

This is why proper protection systems treat the whole house as an
interconnected "system", with a couple of external connection points (mains,
phone).
--
--------------------------------------+------------------------------------
Mike Brown: mjb[at]pootle.demon.co.uk | http://www.pootle.demon.co.uk/

 

[Noel Bachelor]

On or about Tue, 23 Mar 2004 00:28:12 GMT, James Sweet allegedly wrote:

"Gaikokujin Kyofusho" <gaikokujin_kyofusho@mindless.com> wrote in message
news:991c4d67.0403221513.401dacee@posting.google.com...
Hi, I need to get a travel surge protector. I have looked around at a
few but was wondering how necessary it is to have an industrial
strength protector vs a not so industrial one. I will be traveling
quite a bit in Eastern Europe and will use it mostly for electronics.

a good example between possible protectors would be these:
http://www.walkabouttravelgear.com/surge.htm

Any ideas, commentary, etc would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers

-Gaiko

In my experience surge protectors are mostly useless, I don't even bother
with them anymore unless they just happen to be incorporated into a power
strip. You can get really good spike absorbers but for the most part small
surges are harmless and big ones will just smoke the surge protector.

In Darwin, your electronic gear would be considered very lucky to survive
one wet season without a surge protector. We have enough wild storms that
unprotected things get blown up regularly. Meteorologists come here from
around the world to study tropical storms because they are so common. In
some places you may only see a nearby lightning hit once or twice a
lifetime. Around here you can have strikes within 100metres several times
a year.

Any electronic repair shop here will show you examples of smoked gear, and
the rubbish tip sees many. I've seen a couple of places showing off surge
protectors that have melted from the hit they took, while the gear
connected to it survived. I've had unprotected gear get worried by a
nearby hit, and my surge protectors have taken hits several times, but no
important gear has died while properly protected on all cables that
connect it external of the building.

One time a supply neutral failure (weaked by a previous lightning hit) saw
over 360volts across our mains when the next door neighbour turned their
oven on. The ceiling fans whirled very fast and lights grew extremely
bright. That was taken by the surge protectors (which needed repair) but
the gear hanging off them was safely protected.

Like many things, they tend to sell for more than the bits cost, and there
are some fancy dressed up ones that sell for much higher prices because
the packaging looks fancier, while the internals are no better than a
basic protector. Most will do the job though if connected properly.


Noel Bachelor noelbachelorAT(From:_domain)