Surge Protectors

Basil1234

alanwjones wrote: »

I don't pretend to know a lot about surge protectors, But I can confirm what I said in my previous post, I had a fault which caused the surge protector to cut out in a puff of smoke and a huge flash, There was a strong smell of burning from the surge protector, but the laptop was safe, I surmise had the fault that caused the cut out reached my laptop it would be well and truly fried,
OH, concerning Belkin warranty etc, I called them to report what happened and a New unit was shipped out overnight and was delivered 8.30 following morning,
I have complete confidence in the Belkin brand . Alan.

well ulimately thats what they are designed to do worse case they fry themselves to save the equipment and your equipment is saved.

westom

Basil1234 wrote: »

well ulimately thats what they are designed to do worse case they fry themselves to save the equipment and your equipment is saved.

'Frying' means a surge is abandoned; left to confront appliances. Fortunately protection already inside appliances is so robust.

MOV manufacturers are blunt. No MOV must ever 'fry'. In fact, the spec numbers for MOV failure is degrading. Its voltage changes by 10%. Frying inside a protector is violation of "Absolute Maximum Parameters" at the top of page one for every MOV manufacturers - because frying must never happen.

How to get the naive to recommend obscenly profitable, ineffective protectors? Grossly undersize it. Then the naive will declare, "My protector sacrificed itself to save my electronics." Posted here were more examples.

The informed and most fire department understand why this is a human safety threat - see the scary pictures. One protector that 'fried' also took out an entire apartment building in Boston. A NC fire marshal describes why that threat exists. Those who learn this stuff, for example, by reading MOV datasheets know a fried protector protected nothing AND was a threat to human life. Retail salesmen learn that same failure gets the most naive to increase sales.

See scary pictures of protectors so grossly undersized as to be recommended by the naive. However the system does not permit me to post the URLs. You must reconstruct them:
Triple w dot hanford.gov slash rl/?page=556&parent=554
Triple w dot ddxg.net slash old/surge_protectors.htm
Triple w dot zerosurge.com slash HTML/movs.html
Triple w dot t i n y u r l dot com slash 3x73ol
Triple w dot cw56.com slash news/articles/local/BO63312/
Triple w dot nmsu.edu slash ~safety/news/lesson-learned slash surgeprotectorfire.htm
Triple w dot pennsburgfireco.com slash fullstory.php?58339


Effective protectors - costing tens or 100 times less money per protected appliance - earth direct lightning strikes and remain functional. Only the naive would see a fire threat. Then recommend that scam to friends.

Effective protector has one always required connection. A dedicated and short connection to single point earth ground. Protection is always about where energy is harmlessly dissipated. No damage even to the protector.

A protector is only as effective as its earth ground. Does not sacrifice itself to promote myths.

D.K.

My computer suffered from components especially the power unit failing. Despite getting better power units the problem was solved by getting a UPS.
Way back someone mentioned a dedicated earth. How do you go about doing that?

kwikbreaks

A UPS offers excellent protection against voltage fluctuations on the mains and is a far better choice than a surge protector if you suffer from this sort of thing. You can get cheap ones for around ~£40 but at that price they won't last long as a power supply should the mains fail.

westom

D.K. wrote: »

Despite getting better power units the problem was solved by getting a UPS.
Way back someone mentioned a dedicated earth. How do you go about doing that?

A UPS connects a computer directly to AC mains when not in battery backup mode. How does that UPS - a direct connection to AC mains - protect any hardware?

Dedicated earth is required in all electric systems. First because it is necessary for human safety. Then, if installed to exceed code requirements, that earth ground also provides surge protection. A protector is only as effective as its ground connection.

What is the protector circuit in a UPS? View its specs. Compare those numbers to a £40 protector. That £40 protector is typically a £2 power strip with some 10 pence protector parts. Protector circuit inside a UPS is typically even smaller - less joules. Manufacturer numbers say why a UPS is even less surge protection - near zero protection. Those numbers explain why a plug-in UPS will not list protection from each type of surge.

Show me. Show me those spec numbers that claim protection and that say a UPS must be better. If the UPS offers 'excellent protection', then the post must also have numbers. Subjective claims - no numbers - is classic junk science. If 'excellent', then how excellent? Where is the number?

Observation proves that Holy Water obviously is the best protection - using same subjective reasoning.

D.K.

I'm only saying that the UPS worked.....don't really care how Weston, if Holy Water does the same then I'd be happy to use that instead because it is the cheaper option.

westom

D.K. wrote: »

if Holy Water does the same then I'd be happy to use that instead because it is the cheaper option.

If holy water is stolen from a church, will it still work? I don't know. Typically destructive surges occur maybe once every seven years. Even holy water evaporates too quickly.

Is there such a thing as holy mineral deposits or holy water stains?

banger9365

do they work yes or no it's simple
they work for the poeple thats had some thing wrong with there electric ,
so they work ,has they beleave
i got two belkins on my pc and tv stuff and never had a blown item

cit_k

westom wrote: »

A UPS connects a computer directly to AC mains when not in battery backup mode. How does that UPS - a direct connection to AC mains - protect any hardware?

Only the cheapo ones do, the offline ones which use mains until it fails then replace with battery powered mains. The better online UPS devices are online and always supply 'generated' mains, some supply it in the form of stepped wave to approximate a sine, some output better sign waves, these devices never supply direct AC, its inverted down, then inverted back up again.

An example belkin UPS picked at random would give a maximum Surge / Spike protection of - 6,500 Amps / 6000 Volts

westom

banger9365 wrote: »

do they work yes or no it's simple
they work for the poeple thats had some thing wrong with there electric ,
so they work ,has they beleave
i got two belkins on my pc and tv stuff and never had a blown item

How often have you lost dishwasher, clock radio, bathroom GFCIs, furnace, air conditioner, microwave oven, dimmer switches, etc when your TV and PC did not die?

So you have invisible protectors everywhere? Or reality. You have never had a surge large enough to damage any appliances. Protection already inside all appliances (that you never knew existed) did all that protection.

To promote scam protectors, they order everyone to believe surges are hourly events. Reality. The surge necessary to blow out smoke detectors and portable phone base stations is typically once every seven years. Can be even less frequent even within the same town. How many portable phone base stations and smoke detectors died when your Belkin was performing a miracle. Doing what even Belkin's numeric specs do not say it does.

Well I sprinkled holy water on my PC and it did not fail. Using your logic, holy water is clearly a superior surge protector. Because a surge that would damage nothing else would have destroyed my PC - if not for holy water. Do you routinely deceive yourself with that logic?

We who even do autopsies to learn what did and did not work ... the plug-in protector even made damage to powered off computers easier. How often did you locate and replace semiconductors to trace that surge. How often did you replace semiconductors to make all computers fully functional? Never? Then how dare you post any **knowledge**.

You *know* because you converted wild speculation into a confirmed fact. How often have you designed hardware. How often did you literally trace the surge path? Never - I guarantee. Plug-in protector manufacturers need you to recommend ineffective product here.

For your logic to be accurate, invisible surge protectors must exist on every appliance - including the door bell.

Do you really have invisible protectors? Or are you just posting only because you were told what to believe? Shame. And reality. Protection already inside all appliances protected all those appliances. To know that, you must dispose of apparent brainwashing so commonly promoted by Belkin.

Amazing how the Belkin also protected digital clocks - on the other side of town.