Protecting that expensive TV from power fluctuations

[desura]

So I had a little power outage recently and now a very expensive plasma television will not work.

So in the future...how to best protect against this happening? Do cheapo surge protectors work just as well as more expensive ones? How to tell?

Also, I'm thinking about just going over the internals of the TV with a multimeter to try and figure out which circuit board needs replacing. Any tips on that?

 

[sdifox]

http://www.tripplite.com/en/products/model.cfm?txtModelID=3343

 

[Zivic]

So I had a little power outage recently and now a very expensive plasma television will not work.

So in the future...how to best protect against this happening? Do cheapo surge protectors work just as well as more expensive ones? How to tell?

Also, I'm thinking about just going over the internals of the TV with a multimeter to try and figure out which circuit board needs replacing. Any tips on that?

I lost a lot of electronics a couple yrs back due to power.

short answer -> nothing other than unplugging them completely will protect them. don't buy into all the BS

 

[Anarchist420]

cant there be variations between pure sine waves? isnt one with an amplitude closer to zero than one with an amplitude further from zero (or something like that)?

anyway, i really wish they'd put better caps, better quality circuit boards, better quality wires, and better vrms in tvs than the crap they use (that they dont even tell us about) since we have to use sh***y ol' ac input... i just cant stress enough how much i wish ac input had never been invented because if dc had been the norm or if there had been no standard, then you would have control over everything (as opposed to your power company) and dc input could be just as efficient overall in terms of resources as ac input is.

 

[Crow550]

You can consider something like these: http://www.monoprice.com/Category?c_id=109&cp_id=10907

I'd suggest getting a UPS to protect against brown outs. A basic one should due. Just as long as it can switch to battery when it happens you should be fine.

Also check and make sure the ground of your House is good.

 

[sdifox]

I lost a lot of electronics a couple yrs back due to power.

short answer -> nothing other than unplugging them completely will protect them. don't buy into all the BS

my UPS has protected me from many power failures. I lived closed to a substation coming in from the nuclear plant and they kept resetting it to fix power issue of other substations :awe:

 

[sdifox]

cant there be variations between pure sine waves? isnt one with an amplitude closer to zero than one with an amplitude further from zero (or something like that)?

anyway, i really wish they'd put better caps, better quality circuit boards, better quality wires, and better vrms in tvs than the crap they use (that they dont even tell us about) since we have to use sh***y ol' ac input... i just cant stress enough how much i wish ac input had never been invented because if dc had been the norm or if there had been no standard, then you would have control over everything (as opposed to your power company) and dc input could be just as efficient overall in terms of resources as ac input is.

...not when your power is supposed to be fixed frequency and voltage.

 

[Crow550]

That's another reason I'd say to get a UPS as some places have power outlets that either output too much or too less juice.

I recall HD Nation giving some pretty solid advice: http://revision3.com/hdnation/5-new-home-theater-tips#rev3PlayerStart

 

[Meghan54]

...not when your power is supposed to be fixed frequency and voltage.

Not to mention that there were distribution problems that DC couldn't overcome, back when the power grid was in its infancy. AC was the only solution back then and it's not going to change now.

 

[ImpulsE69]

We have issues with high power spikes that have wrecked things in the past so I got one of these for my home theater setup:

http://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-AP41300-10/

You can set the voltage you don't want it to go over and it will kill the power to everything hooked to it. (you can set them individually and other settings)

You can get it cheaper than what is listed on there. We've had it in use for about a year and it does what it's supposed to. I don't think ANYTHING will truly 100% protect you, but it's a bit of additional safety.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I go with companies that put their money where their mouth is. This is why I have APC UPS units on all my TVs, blu-ray, receivers, amplifiers, and computers. Depending on the unit, they are backed by lifetime $500,000 equipment failure insurance due to power surges and brown-outs.

Yes, nothing will protect you 100%, but there are things out there that will replace your gear if it still manages to get fried through their protection systems. That doesn't mean the gear still can't get fried by say a bolt of lightning hitting your house, traveling through the wall to the electrical wires, as well as jumping from those wires to other nearby wires or electronics in search of ground. Only way to protect from that is a Faraday cage.

 

[Crow550]

+1 for APC. Even there cheaper lower battery powered UPS's will protect you against brown outs....

 

[JackBurton]

One of the best power protection units you can get for your HT equipment:

http://www.amazon.com/APC-S20BLK-Net.../dp/B000WV5K48