Power conditioners - Page 2

usually between a second and a minute. i wasn't really concerned with the length of time I had if I was on the battery, as much as any problems there might be with plugging the Haley power conditioner into a UPS. It's funny, I can't remember the power ever going out while I was watching my home theater, it usually happens during the day when I'm at work.

Hey, thanks for that tip! I have been looking for a solution to the triggering/sequencing problem when using pro amps and other equipment that has no 12V trigger. I saw the "smart strips", but they are incapable of managing turn-on and turn-off delays, and the outlets are not configurable. I downloaded the manual of this power conditioner, and it has a really flexible arrangement with triggering (or not) and delay (or not) of each bank of two outlets. I think I'll be getting one of these just for the startup/shutdown sequencing and prevention of thumps.

I have a question for you guys. I live in an older house and the breaker pops once in a while and not sure if a power conditioner would be something i need. i have a pioneer vsx 1021 panasonic plasma klipsch referance speakers and sub12 and custom built htpc and it scares the crap out of me everytime it happens. any suggestions? i do have my system plugged into two basic 20-30 dollar surge protecters.

Mikeclough24,

you might be overloading your older power lines with that equipment. A pansonic plasma can be a very power hungry display. It's not uncommon for plasma Tv's to burn through 600 or 800 watts by themselves. Add in a computer and a home theater system, with a couple subs + whatever else is on the circuit and it won't take long to max out a 15amp circuit with that gear.

If you are maxing out the circuit a power conditioner, or UPS won't help the issue.

If a breaker is tripping, it's doing it's job.

A breaker trips for one of two reasons, ... a short circuit, or an overload. Do you know if the load is too much, .. ie, the total amperage is excessive? You may feel if the breaker is warm, that would indicate an issue with overload, or loose connection.

I'd contact an electrician.


The cheapo surge protectors do absolutely nothing,....if you saw the inside, you'd chuckle.
No, you don't need any power conditioning.

Cool, thanks guys.. It only does it if I don't have my space heater on at the same time then run the toaster or microwave along with all my home theater haha. Roommate doesn't like me using the ceiling heat lol.

Well, huh ... never woulda guessed ...

So would a power conditioner get rid of the buzzing sounds on my plasma when it switches from darker picture to lighter ones and all the little buzz sounds that come from the picture?

No. You are hearing the audible harmonics from the switching power supply transformer as the load changes. The fundamental switching frequency is probably around 100khz. Plasma screens pull a lot of current at high brightness.

This is quite common. I have two Plasmas at home and they both do it too.

Well I'm just glad there's nothing wrong with it haha. I have two that both do it as well. Thanks

Not true. Living in a bad area for thunderstorms and power surges I've been protected by "absolutely nothing" multiple times.

A power conditioner can't make power out of nothing, and that is what you would need to avoid those occasional circuit breaker trips. If you got a power regenerator type of power conditioner it would probably make things worse because its efficiency is les than 100%.

There is really only one good solution for your problem and it probably involves an electrician. If its an old house the circuits are probably 15 amp max. Upgrading to 20 amps would probably do the job for you but it takes new wires and a new breaker. Your power panel may be old and replacment/upgrade breakers may take some research to find.

It is possible that the old breakers are just getting tired and replacing them could help. Any work like this requires an experienced electrician. Any new circuit would require pulling a permit and getting an inspection.

If that's the case, then you really need a whole-house surge protector.

You might have been protected by absolutely nothing just as well as by an "absolutely nothing" surge protective device. The need for surge protection is extremely over-hyped. CE equipment has a certain inherent level of immunity to surges. And the prevalance of damaging surges isn't nearly what the manufacturers would have you believe. How did our gear every survive before surge protective devices became common?

I am guessing FOH is poo-pooing those "absolute nothing" surge protective devices because they have relatively small MOVs in them. Well, the maximum energy a type 3 (point-of-use) device is likely to be exposed to is around 90J. And it doesn't take a very big MOV to handle that, even repeatedly.

If surges are a problem, then a tiered, multi-point approach may be the best advice.

It's just so difficult to determine if one's been protected, or actually relatively immune to said issues.

I've got the ubiquitous and over-rated/over priced Monster PowerCenter HTS 1000, the big 8 outlet gold color piece. It was thrown in 10 years ago or so in a big purchase at my local Ovation Audio retailer. Does it protect my gear? Who knows, but I've used it in various capacities ever since I brought it home. Surprisingly, it actually seems to filter some noise when present.

I've experimented with balanced power, also built a custom power isolation system, with multiple inter-isolated, RFI/EMI filtered circuits. It should be of no surprise to anyone that some simple steps taken to isolate one's gear from potential powerline garbage, can be quite beneficial. My interest and additional experimentation led me to seek out even more knowledge and experience. Living in the pro audio world for some time, and being in and out of studios illustrated to me than there is considerable benefit to a prudent approach, and considerable mis-information,...even at the highest levels of the trade. Over the past couple years, I've been in email contact, and then in person, spending some time discussing these issues with Art Kelm. This guy, who very likely knows more about power quality for audio systems than anyone I'm aware of, is the ideal combo of hands on and theoretical smarts.

Art offers Plitron based iso products, quite similar to the sister company Torus offerings. I got a quote for his gear, but wow the big toroids are expensive,...even when purchased and executed in DIY fashion. I opted to continue rolling my own for now.

The electronic aspect of audio playback, stripped to it's core, is merely manipulation and modulation of the wall voltage your gear is supplied with. There is merit to addressing power quality issues, from surges as we're discussing here, to isolation, conditioning (whatever that means), re-generation, etc.




I didn't intend any disrespect, and I'm glad you've been happy with their use.





Interesting, I wouldn't know. Are you saying (within the MOV genre) the cheapos are as good as it gets?

I prefer series mode, SurgeX etc. Being in a position to spec elements of large project (~700mil), with a significant amount of pro A/V, I wanted all series mode SurgeX or equivalent, protection on critical items,...they went for it. Not an enormous amount, but maybe a couple hundred units. However, against my advice they went with the smallest, cheapo "brick style" battery back up/surge protectors, made by APC. Junk,... so many failures. They were employed in hundreds of HVAC control cabinets, we had hundreds of failures, ... even prior to commishioning! Oh well. Live and learn.

Sorry for the OT


My take, surge protection may or may not be important. But the easiet way is simply both employing it within one's isolation solution, and globally at the service. Whatever you do, don't cause more issues, ie, current limiting in some manner.


Good luck

Not at all. I am saying that it doesn't take a very big MOV to survive the maximum credible energy (90J) a point-of-use device (at least 30' of wiring away from the service entrance) will see. Buy a device rated an order of magnitude greater than that, and it should last a long time. FWIW the limited energy seen by a point-of-use device is the only reason you can buy series type surge protective devices that are affordable and of a reasonable size. They are designed with this number in mind.

I agree that a global approach is best. Provide adequate protection for all conductors (not just AC) at the service entrance, and keep sensitive electronics off circuits used for things like air conditioning, and you probably don't need any other surge protection in a reasonable size residence. You also avoid having to deal with some of the potential problems that come with using multiple 3-mode MOV-based surge protective devices.
Edited by Colm - 4/7/13 at 5:01pm

Gotcha

Your contributions are always appreciated.

I don't use any kind of surge protection and never had a problem. Once I had a direct lighting strike and I don't think anything would have protected my home from that. Been here for 35 years. I have zero faith in MOV's. A lightning bolt is hotter than the surface of the sun. But if you guys still believe in using some kind of protection, check out the whole home stuff from Joslyn. Hope you guys don't think my thoughts are crazy.

Was at my friends home in Florida a few weeks ago and while looking at his service entrance, I seen this little 2 in. by 2 in. black box plugged into his meter socket. I asked what is that? He said that's my whole home protection and just laughed. It was put there for insurance reasons.

Surge protection isn't about protecting against damage from direct lightning strikes. That requires a whole different approach including air terminals with appropriate down leads. A proper surge protective device can, however, provide protection against the some or all of the effects of a nearby strike.

The reason that 2" x 2" box suffices is because it really doesn't need to be any bigger. If the surge is beyond what it can handle, there is going to arc-over at the service entrance or panel which will itself limit the surge seen downstream. Such devices typically have surge current ratings in the tens of thousands of amps, which is sufficient for the purpose. Devices with higher ratings will just last longer.

We have in winter frequent power outages by big 16 wheelers from the oil patch running into power poles. I almost lost a computer and everything on it because during almost a minute the power went from outage to brownout in very short cycles, shutting the music server down and restarting it again. I just managed in time to shut the power switch on the server off to prevent serious damage.
I was able to do a system restore later, but still lost some files.
After that I installed a UPS with over 1000 watt backup, that really protects against brownouts and spikes. The power is supplied by the UPS constantly from the batteries trhough an internal dc/ac converter, so no direct connection to the electrical net exists for the hooked up system. The UPS is set to shut the computer down five minutes after any outages, hookup to the server via USB.

For the last two years I have not have problem with my system (the amp, hypex AS 2.100 is also connected, as is the plasma TV and the various external HDDs) despite several brownouts and outages.

How to the batteries charge?

An online UPS is directly connected to incoming power when it exists, the inverter is supplied by DC from the charging circuit, when incoming power fails, current to the inverter is supplied by the battery.

The batteries are of course charged from the electrical outlet.
The power from the inverter comes from the battery, supplying the system 110V outlets, otherwise the inverter would be not necessary during normal operation.
I go by the manufacturers specs which stressed that this is how the unit works, separating the outlet ac from the input ac though the batteries as a buffer.
The unit - as can be seen from the control panel - measures the output in watts from the batteries.
Because the unit always supplies power from the batteries, temporary brownouts are not passed on to the system.
The unit is a 1500W Cyperpower, priced reasonably at about 300$ when purchased three years ago.

Maybe one could doubt the manufacturers claims, all I can say that during some major brownouts with short cycles none of that affected my system, and the only way I knew that brownout conditions occurred was severe dimming of the lights in the house, and the UPS's alarm going off.

In a broad sense, yes the wall outlet charges the batteries and the batteries run the inverter. But it's not quite that simple. You could not charge the batteries fast enough to keep them topped off with a load on them. What really happens is the incoming AC is rectified to DC with the same wattage capacity as the UPS unit. That DC is run though a diode to the inverter input. The battery is also run to the inverter through another diode. The diodes keep the wall outlet derived DC and the battery DC isolated from each other. Now there is also a charging circuit that goes from the wall derived DC directly to the battery to charge it but it is current limited not to charge the batteries too fast.

This is how a double conversion UPS works. There is also a Delta conversion system which is more complex, offers less line isolation, but is more efficient. These however are only found in big 50kw+ systems.

You can't charge a battery and draw current from it at the same time.
The charging circuit supplies the inverter and keeps the batteries "topped up".

? The inverter supplies the output AC...it's an oscillator that uses DC form the 'charging circuit ' during normal operation, and current from the battery during an outage.

perhaps you didn't quite understand the marketing

Maybe but Glimmie explained it quite well
Anyway, the unit works in my environment and kept the server and all other equipment hooked up to it safe so far.

Then how is the battery charged if they're isolated?

It's a very simple circuit. The charger feeds the inverter and battery in parallel, when the incoming AC drops, the battery provides the current.

This is how small and large online (100KW+) UPS work.

I explained that. The charge circuit connects to the battery before the isolation diode.

Think about it. If the battery is dead or drained and the wall power comes back, without the isolation diodes, the full operating voltage and curent would be placed across the battery terminals.

Can't do that. You need to limit charging current yet still run the inverter at full capacity.
Edited by Glimmie - 4/9/13 at 10:13pm

I have, and I've seen the schematics.
You need to think about it a little more

I downloaded an APC 450-1400 VA UPS service manual from here:

http://elektrotanya.com/apc_450va_1400va.pdf/download.html

The text is Russian but schematics appear to be a universal language.

And I have the schematics for the Liebert GTX series. The battery is connected through a diode pack (paralleled parts for current capacity) to the inverter. That doesn't mean every manufacture does the same thing.

So how does your unit's schematic limit the charging current to a safe value while still providing full VA capacity to the inverter? If it's a small <1000VA unit perhaps they do just hard wire the battery to the rectifier. But in larger systems that practice presents a problem. If you have another topology example, tell us about it. And I also noted that delta converters are completely different in how the battery and rectifier is interfaced.

P.S. I highly respect your knowledge and posts here. You're a pro with a similar background to myself. Let's not turn this into future hard feelings. If your experience with UPS's is different I am open to listen.
Edited by Glimmie - 4/10/13 at 8:21am