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Surge Protection

Pghpooh

Pghpooh

Senior member
HI
Looking for help and info.
What do you use for surge protection on your equipment?
Any links out there explaining how surge protection works and so on?
Going to replace a older tv and audio system and want to protect it better.

I have thought of adding whole house surge protection to the ac service panel but feel the extra surge power strip will help too.
 
Most utilities recommend whole house surge + extra surge protection for devices like tv, so you have the right idea.

There are a lot of ways to do surge protection, the main ones are :

MOV - it is a part smaller than a dime that when a voltage threshold is reached starts to conduct electricity . If I have one rated for 150VAC then at 150VAC it will short the hot to ground. These are cheap , about 50 cents each . The downside is the more surge they take the less effective they become and will eventually fail providing no protection.

Spark Gap - put two wires extremely close together inside a tube filled with a gas like nitrogen. When the voltage gets too high it will bridge the gap and short to ground. Cheap also, about $2 and last almost forever unless hit with a large surge . Downside is they don't work for low surges like 150VAC on a 110VAC line.

Crowbar - A circuit that contains a part called a SCR. SCR conduct electricity but instead of just burning out from the surge they get rid of the excess power as heat that can be taken away by a heatsink . The cost for a crowbar circuit is much higher because it requires about 5 different parts + a heatsink . They can handle very large surges though and tend to last a long time . They have the fastest acting suppression of any method and can be set to trigger at any voltage difference from 1volt over normal to 100volts over.


Those are the main terms to look for in a surge suppressor. Price isn't always a good indicator but if you see a really cheap model for under $20 you can bet it isn't a crowbar circuit inside.
 
Pghpooh said:
HI
Looking for help and info.
What do you use for surge protection on your equipment?
Any links out there explaining how surge protection works and so on?
Going to replace a older tv and audio system and want to protect it better.

I have thought of adding whole house surge protection to the ac service panel but feel the extra surge power strip will help too.
Click to expand...

Whole-house surge protection protects from outside surges, but it won't protect against problems with in-house wiring or with low voltages. If you have good, consistent voltage, then you're probably OK with an MOV, but it's probably best to get one that will indicate when it needs to be replaced. If you want the best surge protection, then buy a brickwall. You can still connect a UPS or AVR (assuming they aren't surge protectors in and of themselves) to the brickwall to have the benefits of both.

I personally have everything I can connected to a UPS (especially my computers) and everything else connected to an AVR. My house has dirty power and will send lower power when something like the A/C kicks in (as shown by all the lights dimming at that time). The UPS and the AVR regulate the voltage and won't allow it to dip and spike from variations in my crappy electricity.
 
Combination of APC UPS(s) and a cheap Monster Power Conditioner (no I did not pay retail price for the Monster Power... they are extremely overpriced with very high retail mark-ups, which is why the retail stores love to push them on customers because they are usually 50% or more in store profit).
 
HI
Thanks for the info!
I will start with whole house surge protection and as I add new components add surge protection on them or a UPS.
Thanks
 
It's not really necessary to put all your electronics on a UPS. For anything data related, like a PC or HTPC or maybe a DVR it's a great idea, but just for your normal HT and HDTV it's kind of overkill. If you get a good power filter/surge strip for your HT make sure it's rated high enough to handle your total maximum watts on all the components combined.

While Monster power protection is priced higher than most cheaper brands at retail, they can be found at 50-75% off their suggested retail prices doing some internet searches, which makes them very competitive with other brands.

And their warranty service is simply excellent. I had them replace a retail $300 HT power filter strip I paid $150 for that hung on my wall that the power display stopped working on with a newer rack mounted model that cost $1200 retail. I kind of doubt most other companies out there would be that generous on a warranty service upgrade.
 
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Be careful if you are depending on a UPS for surges. The most important two things with surge protection are the response time and the power rating. response time is how long it takes for the protection to kick in , . With a UPS they often are designed with power loss situations as the priority and surge protection added on.
Dedicated surge protectors have a response time of 1-2ns where as a UPS can be as high as 15-20ns.remember this is electricity that moves at the speed of light That means using just a UPS you could have the surge going through the device 10X as long as a dedicated surge protector.

If people don't want to spend much I recommend at least using these, they use an MOV and that MOV will burn out , but when it does the light goes out and you can just toss it and get a new one:
http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-MasterC...054012&sr=8-35

The other thing you can do is when there is a thunderstorm or bad weather don't sit on the couch watching tv expecting the surge protector, ups or luck to save your tv. Unplug it.

Also mark a day each month on a calendar as a reminder to see if the light has gone out on the surge protector that is located on the floor behind all those cables and equipment where only the dust bunnies notice if it is on 🙂
 
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