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Thread Number: 47409
Is there any real protection from power surges? |
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Post# 688546 , Reply# 1 7/10/2013 at 20:24 (3,935 days old) by wayupnorth  (On a lake between Bangor and Bar Harbor, Maine) |
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Power surges
I hope if I get a power surge I am home and can shut off computer, tv, etc and close windows, which are never open or turned on when not home. Regardless of the surge protector, I always run around and unplug them totally if its really bad or forcasted to be bad and NOAA radar says watch out basically. so far, so good after 18 years here.
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Post# 688552 , Reply# 3 7/10/2013 at 20:35 (3,935 days old) by DADoES (TX, U.S. of A.) |
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| Post# 688555 , Reply# 4 7/10/2013 at 20:43 (3,935 days old) by classiccaprice (Hampton, Virginia) | ||
 Huh! My parents were always really careful with thunderstorms. I can remember going around the house and unplug the tv, stereo, computer and microwave whenever a big storm was approaching. I still do this to a lesser degree to this day. In the 70's my great-grandmother's house was struck by lightening. She had one of those electric organs that were popular then and the keys were all blown off it. | ||
| Post# 688558 , Reply# 5 7/10/2013 at 20:46 (3,935 days old) by danemodsandy (The Bramford, Apt. 7-E) | ||
I'm Trained....
....By years of dealing with Georgia Power, who will not spend a single unnecessary penny on infrastructure.
When I'm not home, air conditioners are both off and unplugged. So's the TV. Back in the '80s, I lost my A/C, my refrigerator and my TV all at the same time due to a transformer going wonky - it cycled the power off and on quite a number of times in a short time, ending with a surge that sent blue sparks out of outlets. Georgia Power's response? "Too bad, so sad." Not even my insurance company could budge them. Feh. | ||
| Post# 688560 , Reply# 6 7/10/2013 at 20:51 (3,935 days old) by norgeway (mocksville n c ) | ||
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People dont realize... On the other side of that transformer on the pole is 7200 volts with enough amperage to instantly fry whatever it comes in contact with...you included!!as with all mechanical things,problems can happen!!Those big metal towers you see thats upwards of 30,000 volts! | ||
| Post# 688568 , Reply# 9 7/10/2013 at 21:09 (3,935 days old) by danemodsandy (The Bramford, Apt. 7-E) | ||
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Kevin:
It's bad enough to do that to customers in a rural area, but Georgia Power is the major provider of electricity to freakin' Atlanta - a megalopolis of nearly six million people.
When I moved from Atlanta proper to its bedroom community of Marietta in '05, I went from Georgia Power to Cobb EMC. Life was instantly blissful, with the power steady as a rock. Iowa has been pretty much the same. And this is the Midwest, where the storms can be awe-inspiring. | ||
| Post# 688571 , Reply# 11 7/10/2013 at 21:13 (3,935 days old) by xraytech (Rural southwest Pennsylvania ) | ||
We had a very nasty storm here this evening, I was at church conducting choir practice and we didn't know it was storming until the lights started dimming and the organ started sounding funky. I must say I couldn't flip that switch off fast enough. Hope the organ is alright.
Went to grandmas from there since it is only 1/4 mile away and the power there was only half voltage so I had to unplug the air conditioners and decided to sit through the storm on the veranda | ||
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Post# 688589 , Reply# 14 7/10/2013 at 23:17 (3,935 days old) by kb0nes (Burnsville, MN) |
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Absolutely you can protect almost 100% from spikes and impulses. But its not as simple as just plugging in a surge supressor between your device and the wall. There are a lot of variables and unknowns in play here and you need an engineered system.
I'm not sure what caused your damage, you had brownouts (voltage dropouts) and maybe overvoltage events. Often the over voltage can be caused from inductive kicks from the transformers, especially big ones like the pole mounted jobs. Sensitive items like computers need to be plugged into an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). A UPS has a large rechargeable storage battery and at the first sign of difficulty they isolate the load from the line and generate the AC power from the battery. This will allow the load to continue to function while being isolated from the hysterics the power on the line is experiencing. You will have a finite time on the battery but it would give enough time to properly shut down the computer etc. (many UPS's have a cable to the computer that will shut it down automatically). My rule with computers and UPS's is that ANY computer I care at all about will ALWAYS be on a UPS. If I don't mind losing that hard drive then maybe I don't care then. Side note all my UPS's are always the APC brand. The surge supressors you mention are simply power strips that have solid state devices (MOV or Metal Oxide Varistors) in them that will conduct electricity when a certain voltage is reached. The idea is if the voltage starts to climb from a surge or a spike, the device will shunt the extra power to the neutral or ground line preventing the energy from reaching your device. These aren't a bad thing to have and they do work well, at least the decent ones. The Triplite Isobar brand is likely the best you can get and they have additional filtering in them that others lack. Note that these suppressors do NOTHING at all for power brownouts and sags. Bouncing power is the most common reason for failed or corrupted computer hard disks, you need a UPS for computers! The best impulse suppressors wire into your power entrance panel (breaker panel). These have much greater surge current protection and they attempt to shunt the energy at the panel where it enters your home. Ideally these can be a first line of defense and your power strip suppressers can be the backup at your devices. The whole home models will protect everything in the home from spikes and overvoltages within the limits of their ability. Again they do nothing for any under voltage events. Finally the last thing to keep in mind is that all connected lines need to be at a common ground potential. Its common to have your TV etc plugged into a power strip protector, but unless the cable entering the TV is also tied to the same ground at that point you are opening the door for dissimilar ground voltages and that can open the door for damage. Phone lines and computer network cables are other lines that can have differing grounds and cause the protection to be compromised. I maintain a number of radio repeaters that are installed on various local water tanks. We have had direct lightnings strikes to our equipment and when its protected properly it never knows the antenna was just blown into pieces! See the attached photo for some damage found at one of my sites. Note there is steel that was vaporized next to that outlet. The equipment that was plugged in there is still working today :) 
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| Post# 688629 , Reply# 15 7/11/2013 at 02:48 (3,935 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea)) | ||
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Post# 688659 , Reply# 19 7/11/2013 at 07:25 (3,935 days old) by polkanut (Wausau, WI ) |
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Kevin, | ||
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Post# 688667 , Reply# 20 7/11/2013 at 07:56 (3,934 days old) by countryguy (Astorville, ON, Canada) |
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Post# 688691 , Reply# 22 7/11/2013 at 08:39 (3,934 days old) by Frigilux (The Minnesota Prairie) |
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I am blessed to live in an area with very few irregularities in power. I've never experienced a "brown-out", which seem to be more common in densely-populated/urban areas. Our main threat is lightning. Personally, I'm an unplugger. If there's even a small chance of a thunderstorm while I'm away from the house, I unplug my computer/wi-fi/printer, which are all on a plain old power strip.
I used to unplug the two TVs, but they're both so old (one 14, the other 20) that I just don't care. It would give me an excuse to upgrade. Amazingly, both those CRT televisions have endured very close lightning strikes with no damage! A close strike a couple of weeks ago caused a temporary loss of power (only a few seconds). The next morning I loaded up the Frigidaire Immersion Care washer, pressed the cycle knob to wake it up and...nothing. Uh-oh. I unplugged it for a few seconds and it fired right up after that. The Frigidaire front-loader, oddly, wasn't bothered even though it was plugged into the same outlet. Good luck with your television, Kevin! | ||
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Post# 688704 , Reply# 25 7/11/2013 at 09:49 (3,934 days old) by DADoES (TX, U.S. of A.) |
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I have been hearing commercials from companies that offer whole house surge protection. These companies also talk about customers that get insurance deductions for installing these systems....Brent, yes the protector is typically installed in the main power panel. The electric coop here offered whole-house units for several years but has discontinued them. They're considered a one-time-use situation, same as the outlet-cube protectors ... they no longer protect after a surge has occurred and must be replaced. The whole-house unit I've seen beeps or buzzes as a signal when it has "gone bad" but of course someone must be in a position to hear it and be aware what the signal means. | ||
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Post# 688708 , Reply# 26 7/11/2013 at 10:02 (3,934 days old) by kb0nes (Burnsville, MN) |
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I do disagree with "unplugging is the only sure protection from lightening strikes" but I wholeheartedly agree that it is HIGHLY effective and extremely low cost!! The problem is that most electronics don't work well when unplugged so its not an answer for items that need to be up 24/7. Truly effective protection does exist but it costs money and must be properly implemented.
Hard wired telephone lines indeed do cause a LOT of headaches for folks due to lightning energy. I think this is because there is typically nothing significant done to protect the line inside the home. Years ago the Bell System would place a carbon static bleed protector at the demarcation point in a building. This would bleed off slow rising voltages (static) but they did little for anything quick or high energy i.e. lightning. Phones of the golden era tended to be robust so they just worked. Also until about 1980 or so the only thing that generally connected to your Telco pair was a passive WE phone. Just try to kill an old Bell 300 phone. Today the phone has to interconnect with many devices, answering machines, modems, fax machines cable/satellite boxes and many phones themselves plug into AC also. This opens up the door for having separate strike energy paths with dissimilar grounds. Years ago a buddy of mine had a tree next to his home hit by lightning. Because his Telco entrance was on the opposite side of his home from his AC power entrance (both grounded to separate ground rods) they had different ground potentials. As the strike energy is absorbed into the soil around the tree (imagine pouring water on the ground and watching it soak in) the voltage potential of the ground rod for the Telco rises, but the power ground rod at the other side of the home didn't. Electricity took the path of least resistance through the Telco lines and across to the AC through every interconnected device in his home. Scads of damage was done and everything was on surge protectors. At my home I still have a twisted pair Telco line that provides my voice and DSL service. Bonded to my power panel ground I have a Polyphaser telephone line protector. The Polyphaser can take a strike that will vaporize the 24ga wire into it and not pass more then ring voltage out. I have no fear of any damage from my Telco line. I do inspect the MOV modules from time to time in the Polyphaser. The photo below shows a Polyphaser Telco protector with its replaceable shunt modules. This piece of mind costs about $75 For any of us with large amounts of sensitive equipment a panel mounted impulse suppressor only makes sense. I like the idea of catching the transient and shunting it to ground ASAP instead of allowing it to run roughshod through the home. Remember that we can't stop the energy, all we can do it to divert it away from sensitive equipment. This is better accomplished at the panel as there is less ground resistance there. Finally, expecting any compensation from the power company for damage is ludicrous. I'd bet that somewhere in the fine print they absolve themselves from any liability. This will fall under home owners insurance in most cases. Its really up to us to protect what we have as best we can and rely on insurance after that. 
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| Post# 688711 , Reply# 28 7/11/2013 at 10:11 (3,934 days old) by mark_wpduet (Lexington KY) | ||
VintageKitchen
We had storms in Lexington yesterday but there were no power outages at least here where I am. But the other week we had a REALLY BAD one like 1 am. I was still up and on the computer and the power went out for 3 seconds, then came back on.......Everything was plugged in and nothing was damaged. I was amazed. The only thing I have plugged into surge protection is washer, TV, Computers, everything else is on its own. This area of town I'm in is newer and the all lines are underground. Back in 2003 ( I think ) we had a major ice storm and a lot of the city was without power for over a week. This area of town never lost power during that. That's actually the first time I've noticed a power flicker since I've lived here even in terrible storms.
I guess if there is a bad storm coming I will unplug everything I can think of. | ||
| Post# 688712 , Reply# 29 7/11/2013 at 10:12 (3,934 days old) by mark_wpduet (Lexington KY) | ||
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PS | ||
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Post# 688817 , Reply# 31 7/11/2013 at 19:40 (3,934 days old) by kb0nes (Burnsville, MN) |
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Old generator
Matt, just because your generator is old doesn't make bad. The only thing that it could do to cause serious damage to electronics is have voltage regulation problems, especially over voltage. Generally old engine driven altranator gensets have very "clean" power although the frequency may vary a bit. Most loads are pretty insensitive to minor line freq variations.
If you have a Kill-A-Watt meter plug it in and see what you get. For really sensitive loads like a PC etc use a UPS in front of the load to provide protection. I like your suggestion of isolating your house during a failure by turning off the main breaker. Only trouble could come from it tripping from inrush when you turn it back on if you have a lot of active loads. Indeed the bouncing power that goes with many outages causes a lot of damage. All air conditioners should have a delayed relay for the compresser to prevent stalls and possible damage from trying to restart with head pressure. | ||
| Post# 689518 , Reply# 33 7/15/2013 at 11:09 (3,930 days old) by DaveTranter (Central England) | ||
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Constant Voltage Transformer One of these may help to limit 'spike' energy fed through to the load, and will minimise the effects of short 'brownouts' and/or longer 'sags'. Obviously, no protection from actual 'outages'..... Still far cheaper than a generator/UPS. Can be had from Ebay, etc. All best Dave T | ||
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Post# 962222 , Reply# 34 10/12/2017 at 21:54 (2,380 days old) by DaveAMKrayoGuy (Oak Park, MI) |
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--And the Audio-Phile! | ||
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Post# 962241 , Reply# 35 10/13/2017 at 01:32 (2,380 days old) by thomasortega (El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles de Porciúncula) |
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Real, real, real protection.... and low cost... and really reliable Unplug absolutely everything. AND NEVER PLUG THEM! ducks and runs | ||
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Post# 962263 , Reply# 36 10/13/2017 at 08:09 (2,379 days old) by DaveAMKrayoGuy (Oak Park, MI) |
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I have a multiple-plug outlet that actually has surge-protection for my stereo equipment, so reeling back a little, I think I can rest assured that my stuff is safe (even given that there is one plug unused, and saved only for my occasional window fan)...
--Yes, I am at the point of over-load: I have a portable CD that operates via AC adapter and a DVD, that occasionally gets unplugged for my "video tree" plugged into a small power bar that's hitched into that thing, in addition to my mainstream, consisting of my stereo rig, phono (plugged into an aux. equip. outlet in the amp/tuner), cassette, a table lamp and CD... Just wondered & thought back if there were ever a time I would have gotten a "clipped" sound, or if even the cheapest, modest equipment (audio & video) might have any built-in protection (well, an old TV screen could get fuzzy) from that... -- Dave | ||
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