Surge Protector recommendations - Page 25

[u]
Really? You must be prescient. :-)

I like it when you actually post something that can be discussed in this thread. You could be a real help in understanding series mode technology.

Surely you don't believe that electrolytic capacitors do not degrade over time. If so, can you comment on this?

Your choice of a passive LC speaker crossover is a good example of what happens with electrolytics. A two-way or three-way crossover might be a better example than a subwoofer crossover, though. The electrolytics in them do degrade over time, usually decades. The parameters can change enough over time that they affect the sound or just fail. I have resurrected numerous old crossovers, TVs, aircraft avionics, etc. where the only failed part was one or more electrolytic capacitors. The electrolytics in the avionics didn't last nearly as long as the ones in the speakers because of the harsher conditions they were exposed to (aircraft parked on a ramp year round).

As I said previously, the fact that electrolytics degrade over time is not a significant issue. I agree with you that properly selected and applied, electrolytic capacitors will have a long service life. Your company can afford to warrant your equipment for 10 years because of that. Properly selected and applied MOVs can have a long service life, too. That is why at least some manufacturers of MOV based devices can afford to warrant at least some of their devices for 10 years. Neither technology, however, will last forever.

I am curious, however, about what happens as the electrolytic capacitors in series mode devices age. My guess is that the electrolytics are chosen so that they have a high probability of adequately handling those 6000V, 3000A surges for at least 10 years. Care to explain it to a layman? Does the let through voltage increase? Why or why not? Does the size of the surge that can be handled decrease? Why or why not?

I assume that series mode technology does what you claim it does, that is it provides a lower let through voltage (zero of close to zero excursion from nominal in the latest versions) and doesn't create a surge on the equipment grounding conductor. My only question is why should I care if less expensive MOV based devices, properly selected and applied, will give me adequate protection. Based on what I have read by Martzloff, as mentioned above, they will. Is he wrong? Did I misunderstand him? If so, please explain.

As I stated long ago, I don't doubt that there are applications where series mode is the way to go. I would really like to know what were the driving factors for engineering savy customers to select SurgeX products for particular applications. I can imagine one might be that in mission critical applications that SurgeX might be chosen over other devices simply because the cost of a failure might be so great that even a small improvement in reliability would be worth the cost. Care to give us any others?

It is informative to hear what you have to say about the difference between Furman and SurgeX. You certainly need to protect your trademarks. You don't want them to wind up like corn flakes or refrigerator. It did seem to me that the series section of the Furman product was less robust than the SurgeX product. And the necessity of the MOVs did seem questionable with a series device. Care to elaborate?

Why not answer some questions and educate us? We are really not out to get you. Well, at least I am not... Who knows, you might get some customers out of it.

after reading through some of these long post.... head started spinning lol...
I'm building my home theater system, and i need a good surge protector/power conditioner, if anybody can please suggest something.

I've been looking at panamax, surgeX, monster & others... i dunno what else is good anymore, any help would be great

I've come to the conslusion that a surge protection device at the house service entrance is step #1.

After that, it's mostly for looks, but could provide a slight benefit.

+1

Note that means not just AC, but all ports, including TV, cable, satellite, telephone, etc.

What do you guys think of this surge protector by Belkin? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812107196 I would probably be using 11 of the 12 outlets on the protector for my HTPC. After reading some of these post I just want to do everything possible to prevent disaster. Should I install a GFCI outlet at the wall as well? Thanks.

Look for a unit that has the UL 1449 rating as a minimum. At least the unit has passed the fundamental tests for safety with standard waveforms.

BTW...I don't see the rating on this unit.

It is listed on the UL site.

Is this a decent model?

http://www.amazon.com/APC-Outlet-252...8428529&sr=8-2

I've been looking for something decent for my apartment that isn't too pricey that will also indicate if the outlets are safe to use.

If anyone has any superior suggestions please let me know.

I used to swear by the Surgemaster series, but the new Belkin models are horrible (minimum of 400 clamping voltage and no UL listing on most).

Why do you think 400V is horrible?

If you search the UL database, I think you will find your favorite Belkin product is listed.

Well Belkin's older models featured a clamping voltage of 330 and the cheap APC units offer even less (according to their site).

Where is the UL database? I visited their site and had a bit of trouble finding a list of models.

UL database is here. Enter the company name and enter "surge protective-devices" for the keyword. If the company in question used a NRTL other than UL, the info won't be here.

400V is not a problem. Almost all equipment is inherently protected to 600-800V. No surge protective device has a UL-1449 rating of less than 330V. Under UL-1449 3rd edition, ratings may be higher than previously due to changes in how the devices are tested.

Cool thanks for that info...

What are your thoughts on that APC unit?

I really hate to jump in this warzone of a thread, but I'm really thinking of installing an Environmental Potentials EP2050. It was mentioned in another thread along time ago and the owner was participating as well.

I'd like to know what this big conglomerate of surge protection minds here think of it. The whole deal is that they "clamp and absorb" as opposed to shunt to ground. The link to their stuff is here: http://www.ep2000.com

The patent, which I've read through, is number 7446436. From what I've gathered, and I'm no EE, the circuit is a MOV shunt into an RLC circuit basically. The L is a nanocystalline core type which seem to be made by a handful of manufacturers. The RLC basically oscillates until the surge is gone.

It sounds great in theory. Its between this and getting an Eaton IT PTE/PTX for me.

I'd get the Eaton IT product, installed at the service entrance.

If I had money left over, I'd consider the EP unit for a home theater or equipment rack subpanel, although it could also be located at the service entrance ('P.O.E.').

12.5 kA seems kind of small, for the EP device, to reduce damage from a nearby lightning strike.

The EP product seems to be a variation on the technology used in the series type devices, except it is totally parallel to the load. It doesn't have the claimed zero let through of the series type devices. It functions the same as any MOV based device in that respect. And its surge current rating is far less than even inexpensive whole-house MOV based devices. I see no advantage to the EP device if you are going to install it at the service entrance because the ground contamination issue doesn't exist there and the surge current rating is too low. Maybe it would be applicable as a type 3 device, with at least 20' of wiring between it and the service entrance.

Thanks for the input gents.

Would ground impedance be any sort of problem for any of these units? From just researching sources online, it seems like it could be as high as 5ohms. Would that put untold stress on the MOVs? There's tons of literature on these industrial rated units lasting for a very long time. I would hazard a guess that their grounds in an industrial setting are better than our residential ones.

If you read back in this thread, I think there is a post somewhere quoting Martzloff saying something like without an adequate ground even the best surge protective device is useless. Industrial grounds are often superior to residential grounds for a variety of reasons. Modern residential construction that uses a Ufer ground embedded in the foundation should be entirely adequate. Older construction that uses a driven rod may be less effective, but seem to be adequate if the grounding electrode and associated wiring are up to snuff.

NEC calls for impedance of less than 25 ohms. I have seen folks recommend much lower for surge protection. I suspect that the impedance seen by a surge with a fast rise time is much different than the impedance measured when testing a ground per NEC, though.

After reading a lot of posts on this thread from people who seems to be professional, it looks like the "standard surge protectors" are useless compared to something like SurgeX

So, why does Belkin has a warranty of $250,000 for connected equippement on its surge suppressor like Pure AV ? If they stand so much behind their products, i would expect that the surge protector can resist to almost anything...

http://www.belkin.com/au/p/P-F9A823-2M

Well, then, I would say you don't understand the threat or the technology very well...Series mode devices like SurgeX claim certain advantages over MOV-based devices, which may or may not be important for a given application, but MOV-based devices certainly aren't useless.

Companies can offer extravagant connected equipment warranties because the odds of you collecting are very small.
Edited by Colm - 1/30/13 at 1:11am

Yup. Read the fine print of the actual warranty and what it takes to go through the claim process.

Has there ever been a documented case of anyone getting money from a surge protector company?

And what are those advantages ?

Is it really worth the difference of price in hundreds of dollars ?

Problem is that i also need at least 14 outlets and apparently daisy chaining on a SurgeX wouldn't be recommended...

SurgeX, and other manufacturers of series type devices, make three claims: their devices don't wear out like MOVs, they have zero or very low let through voltage, and they don't contaminate the equipment grounding conductor. Yes, MOVs degrade over time. The voltage that they turn on at will get lower and lower, until they are triggering on peaks of normal AC and self-destruct, blow a fuse, or trip a breaker. But a properly sized MOV will last tens of years. And for a point-of-use device, this is really easy to achieve because the biggest surge experience by such a device is only about 90J. Yes, ground contamination can occur with 3-mode MOV-based devices that have MOVs connected L-G and N-G in addition to L-N. They can actually create a surge on the equipment grounding conductor that wouldn't have been there otherwise. The issue can be avoided by using a single mode MOV-based device which does not shunt surges to ground. But even 3-mode MOV-based devices are not a problem if you understand what can happen and use the devices appropriately, or just plug all your gear into a single 3-mode device. So that leaves let through voltage. Most CE devices are inherently protected against surges of 600V or even more. MOV-based devices are capable of providing protection to lower level than that.

There are three down sides to series type devices: they cost more than MOV-based devices, they only protect against surges entering on the AC lines, and there isn't a whole-house product because the cost of such a device would be prohibitive.

So, the question for you to aswer for yourself is, are you willing to pay the extra price for the features of a series type device based on what you know.
Edited by Colm - 1/31/13 at 11:50pm

Thanks for the infos,

So if i understand correctly i will not really get a better protection with a SurgeX, it will just last longer ?

Also, how do i know if the MOV is "proprely sized" ?

I'm a newbie and not very familiar with the tech terms.
Basically, i'm just looking for a decent surge protector with around 16 outlets... Trying to figure out the best thing to buy.
Any suggestions ?

In some sense you get better protection with SurgeX. The question is: do you need that protection? It is kind of like what kind of car you need to get to work. A Fiat and a Ferrari will both get you there. Most of the time the Fiat is adequate, but there may be circumstaces where you need the Ferrari.

Considering that the maximum surge a point-of-use surge protective device is likely to see is around 90J, any device with a rating of a couple thousand joules is likely to last a very long time.

Hi new poster, figured I'd post here instead of creating a new thread. I just purchased a new hdtv, my 1st , I've been using my crt philips since 03 thought it was time to get into the future . So I bought a panasonic tc-p60u50, and since I'm bought the tv I wanted to make sure I have some type of proper protection for it. I did alot of reading concerning surge protectors and honestly feel overwhelmed. I know from reading that for secondary protection non-mov is the way to go.

So I looked around and came down to three surge suppressor 1.SurgeX SA966, 2. ZS 8R7.5W, 3. ZS 8R15W. So I wanted to see if I could get any opinion's on which one I should choose. For the most part I plan on running my 60in pana, my 750w custom desktop comp, my cable box, dvd player and a lamp, nothing more. Will any of the above be able to handle those with a problem?

Price wise I would like to go with the ZS 8R7.5W but zero surge says on their website that "7.5 amp capacity. Protects one typical computer system or applications with up to a 7.5 amp load." So I'm guessing I can't run both the panasonic and my comp from that?? Can the other two handle both my comp and tv? I live in socal so we don't have alot of lightning nor do we have many power spikes. Put I have had the rare spike that has fried older computers even with "surge protectors" so I want to protect my electronics. Thanks in advance.

If a 7.5A device won't hack it, the odds are an 8A device won't either. The 15A device should do you.

Hello - We hardly get any lightening in southern California coastal area. However my house is near distribution lines and I hear "loud spikes" through my speakers from time to time. I am guessing these are due to electrical surges.

Given that we don't get lightening much, could I just do with Eaton CHSPT2 Max/Ultra or is it still advisable to invest in something more expensive like XT 40 at the point of entrance to the home?

Thanks in advance

bad guess?

I'm a moron when it comes to the "technical" differences with these things, but would this surge protector be sufficient as just a general surge protector for my parent's setup?
http://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-TLP810NET-Protector-Outlet/dp/B00005T3Q2/ref=pd_sim_sbs_e_3

I'm not really following the differences between all of them, but what I need...or in their case, what THEY need is something:
-inexpensive
-provides some level of protection
-has a coax hookup(is it needed?)

I realize this isn't some nice $300+ device, but being the newbie about it, the joule rating seemed decent, it's 15 amp(assuming that's better than 12A), and supposedly has some form of noise filtering....not sure if it is the same noise filtering they use in their Isobar series, but even if it does a little bit, that's a plus.

The setup they will be having after I hook it up all the way is:
-65" Vizio LED LCD 100ish watts?(not my choice )
-Yamaha YHT-397 surround system at 500-600W
-The sub is active and plugged in separately
-Vizio blu-ray player
-Samsung digital cable box(Time Warner)
-Phono Pre-amp
-Turntable

Now, the other problem is that they have an older home with "Meh" wiring. If the lights are on, and you turn on a sweeper, the place just about goes dark when you turn the sweeper on, so that's one big concern about the surges. The other problem is that they have most of this plugged in right now into a 6-outlet power strip, then plugged into a 99 cent extension cord, using a cheater plug, that's ungrounded into an ungrounded outlet. I'm a moron on this stuff, but that throws red flags all over for me. I'm presuming I will just have to endure with a cheater plug, but is there any suggestions as to what would be best to ground the ground attachment on the cheater plug to in the house? I appreciate the info and help.