Syntrillium Backup Forums :: View topic

post78 · Location: USA

Hidy ho.
I'm looking for recommendations on a good surge protector for all of my equipment. I wan't something that won't catch on fire, char, smoke, fail, etc (unless it takes the full blow of a lightning strike, and only if it protects my investments!). I'd also like to spend under $100 *if* possible. I'm not sure exactly how a power surge works, but I'm going to be in a metal (insulated) building in Washington state, so... Black Eye

I need to power a computer, monitors, a couple of guitar amps, PA, and a very few small outboard processors (sound cards run off of computer power).
I'm not totally sure how protectors work. Do they have multiple outlets (like a power strip), or is it just a box that you can place between an outlet and power strip (which I'd prefer if it makes no difference)? Whatever it is, I need it. ;)

Recommendations would be great! Thank you.

VoodooRadio · Location: USA

Hey Post,
A quick look on EBAY (to get an idea of cost and manufacturers), turned up this;

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1386394803

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=910766161

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1386834498

I typed in "power conditioner" and as you can see, most of them (O.K. pretty much all of them) offer "surge protection". They range in price from very affordable (that's a nice way to say CHEAP) to, extremely expensive. (which is the only way to say EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE!)

Of course, keep in mind that if you have (and I'm quite sure you have) amassed a large "KIT" (as the Englishmen like to say), then you should justify spending whatever is necessary to ensure that it's protected. I use Trojan brand! Cool

post78 · Location: USA

post78 · Location: USA

It looks like the Furman PL-8 (~$130). Anyone using this thing?
Thanks for your help Voodoo, this looks like exactly what I need!

VoodooRadio · Location: USA

Hey Post,
I am using a Furman PL Plus, as my main power source to my equipment and then each rack of gear has another rackmounted power supply in it. I have never (thank somebody, anybody) experienced a lightening strike or equipment damaging surge. As I mentioned in the previous post, pretty much all of them offer "surge protection". The others that I have are 2 Rackriders and 3 Juice Gooses. They don't have the "conditioning" feature of the PL-8, but they do have 8 plug jacks and a fuse. If you really want to spend some cash.... check out the UPS power back-up units. They not only provide "power conditioning" and "surge protection", but in the event that the power goes off... they will continue to power your equipment for a period of time (based on the amount you spend Big Grin

) to allow you to shut everything down "properly". YMMV

VoodooRadio · Location: USA

** NEWS FLASH FOR POST **

I JUST looked in the latest (I got it a couple of days ago) sales rag from Guitar Center. They are promoting their October "Monster Deals" sale. On lucky page #13, they are having a sale on 3 different models on Furman RP power units (all rackmountable). The lowest price I've ever seen.... you should get up..... GET UP, from your computer and run immediately to the nearest Guitar Center and tell them that Voodoo "from Houston" sent you (that ought to get you the "rock bottom" deal). Do it, do it till the cows come home! Tongue

Syntrillium M.D. · Location: USA

Just chiming in...

Post, 'power conditioning' is definitely the way to go, but there are many choices, and not all are specific to what your potential needs may be.

For most studio applications, you want a combination 'regulator' and 'line/noise conditioner/suppressor'. These can run a bit more, but you'll be thankful that you sprung for the extra bucks.

These units (that offer conditioning and noise suppression) also typically offer fewer inputs, but you can chain power strips to them.

Most UPS devices are really just for backup/surge protection. Sometimes thats enough, and if you've got clean-power where you live/work, it may not be that much of an issue.

Either way, the Furman units are proven workhorses, so check it out.

---Syntrillium, M.D.

Andrew Rose · Location: United Kingdom

Anyone got a good source of these sort of things in the UK?

post78 · Location: USA

Voodoo, thanks AGAIN!
Actually, usually when Guitar Center/Musicians Friend has a big sale, I find that less than a month later those are the average street prices. That is good news my friend! 8)

Graeme · Member Location: Spain

AndyH · Posted - Fri Oct 11, 2002 2:13 pm

Unless I am not reading carefully enough, no one is pointing out that power conditioning and surege protection are not at all the same thing. Surge protection alone, without any other facilities, is generally significantly less expensive than power conditioning equiptment. This is not to say anything against power conditioning, except that to also get that, you do need to spend more.

Also, the term power conditioning, and varioius alternative spellings, can be applied to a wide range of concepts. The type of EMI filters often attached to the inside-the-case end of equiptment power cords is much less expensive than most of the stand-alone conditioning units (although it is actually the only thing inside some of them). For conditioning, as contrasted to surge protection, one of these (less expensive) units will really go a long way towards smoothing out any problems (if you have any problems to begin with).

AndyH · Posted - Fri Oct 11, 2002 2:19 pm

Also, power conditioners are rated for how much equiptment load they will support. They usually include surge protectors, but those have a separate rating.

Surge protector ratings have to do with the amount of frying energy they will shunt out before it does its equiptment cooking act. You should not waste your time and money on less than 1800 joules (the stand-alone surge protector will also have a rating for how much equiptment load it will support, just as any power cord or junction box has).

post78 · Location: USA

So you're basically saying that these specs are no good:
http://www.furmansound.com/PC15A.html

�Maximum surge current: 6,500 amps
�Maximum spike energy: 80 joules per mode, 240 joules total protection

Syntrillium M.D. · Location: USA

AndyH · Posted - Fri Oct 11, 2002 3:57 pm

Its virtually an everyday experience, but I don't usually display it to everyone: I open my mouth and I get in trouble.

I don't have any reference books here, and it has been too many years since I have had to do any figuring of such things. Joule is a measure of work in the metric system; you cannot get there directly from an ampere rating, but perhaps there is enough additional information about the unit to allow calculations. In the U.S., consumer units are rated in a standard way, expressed in joules, but I don't know the parameters of that standard.

The 240 joule figure sounds very low, but perhaps it is measuring something different than the U.S. consumer values; the 6500 amp value is only one number necessary for a calculation. I have seen multi-outlet surge (only) protectors rated at 1800 joules for less than $50. These generally come with failure insurance policies (e.g. $5,000-$10,000). Being as this particular company is not following U.S. consumer standards, and I am unable to remember how to evaluate other figuring, I should probably just shut-up. My tentative guess, however, would be that a profession product that claims surge protection probably has adequate surge protection.

AndyH · Posted - Fri Oct 11, 2002 4:23 pm

Another thing you might want to look into, before buying: Surge protectors are like fuses and motorcycle helmets. They only do their thing once (more like the helmets), then they must be replaced; they don't have exchangable parts. I don't know, however, if this is true for the more expensive units; maybe some function over and over again.

post78 · Location: USA

Teddy G. · Posted - Sat Oct 12, 2002 1:33 pm

If I missed the mention earlier, sorry.

http://www.surgex.com/

makes some nice points about surge protection. When i have the bucks(more than 100) I'll go for it.

Havoc · Posted - Sat Oct 12, 2002 2:11 pm

Just some background info. Protection comes in 2 flavours: over-current and over-voltage. It's the over-voltage we are interested in here. Basicly there are again 2 sorts, those that absorb the surge and those that clamp the voltage. The former consist of heavy variable resistors that turn the surplus into heat. They are fast, but absorb only a finit amount (in joules). Once they get hit it takes time to recover and if hit hard again to soon, they will fail (quite spectacular!). The second sort, the clamps, just short the line and rely on a fuse to break the connection.

To remember: like Andy said you have to check your protection after it was "used". And you can put several in series to enhance the performance. So you could use a big one at the entry point, split with a distributor and use smaller ones there.

ALWAYS BUY THEM CERTIFIED ACCORDING TO YOUR LOCAL LAWS!!!!!

post78 · Location: USA

Havoc, thanks, but are you sure that's correct terminology? Voltage is current.

Graeme · Member Location: Spain

Havoc · Posted - Sun Oct 13, 2002 5:06 am

No, there is a distinction between protection for over-current and over-voltage.

An over-current protection (like a fuse) does not care about the voltage that comes into your circuit. Only when your circuit breaks down and starts to draw more current than possible by design, the fuse acts to protect the rest of the net (and your house from burning down) by disconnecting your already broken device. When a fuse acts it is to late.

Now the over-voltage protector acts when the voltage is above a designed limit, before your device is stressed to much. It mostly starts to draw so much current that the fuse breaks, and then your device is disconnected and protected from voltages that may go even higher.

On its own, the voltage protector cannot cope with it, it can only dissipate a limited amount of power. Thats why it is always designed together with a current protection. The voltage protection protects the device, and the current protector protects the voltage protector against long fault conditions.

SteveG · Location: United Kingdom

Andrew Rose · Location: United Kingdom

Many thanks to you guys for starting this thread. (I'm on the side of voltage and current being separate things, BTW:)). I've finally gone out and bought some decent surge protected, RFI-filtering multi-plug thingies, and replugged everything with the intention of reducing and killing the mains hum which from time to time has afflicted my system.

I recently bought a Musical Fidelity phono amp which seems to be particularly susceptible to humming mains adaptors, of which I have several, now operating together off their own power strip. It seems that the orientation (in three dimensions) of these transformers dramatically changes the amount of hum picked up (you could almost play the plug strip like a Theramin!).

Then just when I thought I'd got it licked I switched on the PC and gained about 30dBs of fresh hum that I'd not had before - so it was back under the shelves and more re-plugging until this was finally eliminated.

However, I'm still stuck with a low level background hum. At some point I'll try a different amp, but as I'm now only using my Pioneer A400 largely as a routing system between sources and the PC (it's one of those with separate listening source and recording source knobs) I do wonder whether it's contributing. For the most part this hum reads at around -70dB, though does drift up slightly with the phono amp to the low -60's.

If anyone has any good fixes for this I'd love to hear more!

Havoc · Posted - Sun Oct 13, 2002 1:54 pm

I could have made it a bit clearer by saying that over-voltage protectors just try to blow the fuse by generating a controlled short or if the fault is short enough dissipate the extra power but Steve was faster for that.

If you really want to know more than is good for you, do a search on: varistor, crowbar, gas discharge tube, transil and the like and start reading Smile

good fun for the long winter evenings. Be amased at the curent levels involved (yes, you will be reading specs in KILOamperes for ordinary equipment).

Andrew: I have to say that mains hum is a very popular topic right now!

post78 · Location: USA

Hello everyone. Thanks for clearing that up, but to be completely honest I really just had a brain fart. I was thinking of amps, not volts (I even wrote a paper on the subject years ago when I took electronics, which was really fun BTW). It was an honest mistake. :blush:

So, I'm looking for maximum voltage rather than amps, correct?

AndyH · Posted - Sun Oct 13, 2002 7:35 pm

Since this thread started out about protecting your equipment, I will relate what I saw when visiting a general purpose department store today. In the hardware section was a line of multi-outlet surge protectors made by the conglomerate Fiskars. They ranged from 200 joules to 1440 joules. The largest was labeled the "silver series," which probably indicates the company also make heavier duty ones. It carried a $20,000 equipment guarantee. It sells for $19.95.

In the computer accessory department was a larger selection, from several manufactures. There were three or four with ratings above 1600 joules dissipation, the heaviest duty being 2650 joules. That one carried a $100,000 policy, and cost $29.95.

All seemed to be rated for supplying 15 amperes. The transient current ratings of the better ones were in the range of 75,000 amperes to 100,000 (on each of the three poles). These figures are making that professional equipment seem much more concerned with "nice" power rather than with protection.

These units also contain EMI/RFI filtering. One of them states that noise is reduced 58dB, others just noted that they contained "sophisticated" filters. While this is simple filtering and not the involved manipulations some of the more expensive power conditioners go through, it probably covers many potential problems. The more "expensive" ones also have telephone line and television antenna/satellite line protection. Wide spacing for plugging in several wall wart power supplies is common. Some have unit failure indicator lights, and one has an indicator for "wiring or ground faults" although it did not elaborate on that, at least not on the packaging.

These units also state that they have a limited life span, from 1 nanosecond (lightning strike) to several years, depending upon main line conditions. They always fail in an open circuit, still providing protected, if temporarily non-functioning, equipment.

post78 · Location: USA

Thanks Andy. I'll look into Fiskars.

jonrose · Location: USA

Well, I'll ramble here for a moment...

Every quarter (that'd be three months) I grab a soldering iron, go through all my racks' surge suppression units and replace all of the MOV's, whether they need it or not. Call me cautious, but I don't take chances.

By the way - if you ever win the lottery, or you're otherwise feeling rather flush, try looking here for balanced power -
http://www.equitech.com
these units are great.

Best... -Jon

AndyH · Posted - Thu Oct 17, 2002 5:55 pm

Granted that MOVs get "used up," what information do you have that makes you think three month's is a reasonable limit?

Some of the units I looked at said that if the MOVs are depleted, or get hit with an overpowering surge, power flow is discontinued. They rather explicitly claimed that this prevented any possibility of equipment damage. At least one of them had a warning light that was supposed to come on if the unit was no longer reliable. Do you believe their claims are unlikely to be true?

post78 · Location: USA

Oh yeah, I can afford that. Chump change. Yep. I mean, my girlfriend will have to go without food for a week or so, but as long as I keep her in the cage it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

"And I'm sailin', yeah... Oh yeah..."

AndyH · Posted - Thu Oct 17, 2002 6:13 pm

I am quite interested in what jonrose has to say, but I believe the normal expectation for these things is several years of use, not just several months. However, fasting is not only good for the soul, it is the only know way to extend both average and absolute life span (in every species test so far, over perhaps the last fifty years).

post78 · Location: USA

I suppose I should point out that I was joking, just in case. Wink

Andrew Rose · Location: United Kingdom

SteveG · Location: United Kingdom

AndyH · Posted - Fri Oct 18, 2002 1:52 pm

I wasn't joking, but decisions should not be coerced.

post78 · Location: USA

jonrose · Location: USA

AndyH · Posted - Sat Oct 19, 2002 8:00 pm

Is it not possible to test the device, or is it just not worth the trouble? I am just trying to understand a little more about them. Maybe you would just prefer to drop the subject; if so OK.

What I read on the package did not attempt to explain how it did its thing, it just said that the entire unit ceased to conduct anything at all once the capacity was reached. If this functionally was reliable, it would probably be cheaper, and less work (from my point of view) to do maintenance only when the unit indicates it is necessary. This approach obviouls has the potential to require intervention just when you really need to use the attached equiptment for serious work.

Havoc · Posted - Sun Oct 20, 2002 3:33 am

Andy, the problem with mov's is that if you do not know for sure they have been hit (while there was a storm, your tv blow out), there is no certain way to tell they have been taking lots of small peaks. If they have been greatly overstressed, you notice, they blow apart in a shower of white powder.

Now this is normally not a problem, and you don't notice it because there are mov's in about every electrical appliance. And they are designed for it. But if you want to be sure it is still protecting all your costly stuff, it can make sense to replace them from time to time.

Now I don't know the quality of the mains and the frequency of lightning and its influence on the mains where jonrose lives, but every 3 months looks a bit like waisting time and money to me. Not to speak of the risks you take on the pcb by repeated desoldering. After a storm that resulted in breakage in the neighbourhood, I may be a save bet to do so.

A far better way to protect your equipment is to install overvoltage protection there where the mains enter the house. Right at the bord some heavy duty GDT's straight to the main earth point. Then smaller things like mov's at the equipment.

PS: GDT qas discharge tube.

jonrose · Location: USA

Andy, I really don't know of any way to actually test an MOV without further degrading it, since you effectively must hit its conduction point in order to measure its response.

Also, as Havoc points out, GDT's are great where the power comes into your building, but I'd be hard pressed to put one of these into a mobile rack with any degree of success - you'd need a good grounding point. And, much of my recording gear is portable, including the main studio computer. So in my case, it's not a waste of time and money - it's just cheap insurance, as I sometimes end up recording (or performing) in places were the power is... well, to put it nicely... dicey.
;)

Everyone's mobile/live rig ought to incorporate some overvoltage protection, since you just never know what you're getting into, sometimes!

Best... -Jon

AndyH · Posted - Mon Oct 21, 2002 2:16 pm

I have no more information than the promotional stuff on the packaging, but I looked at several of those packages again this weekend. I don't know if they are true, but they state clearly and unambiguously that the units know when the MOVs have been used up. The entire thing supposedly shuts down - stops conducting power through to the attached equipment - when the MOVs can no longer provide protection. They clearly state that your equipment will be protected (by being disconnected) even if there is no surge protection left in the device. This is supposed to happen when the MOVs die from ageing, as well as when they die suddenly from a large surge.

If there is any truth in their claims, there must be some way, some so not very expensive way (total unit price $20 - $30), to tell when the MOVs die. I suppose that does not necessarily mean that this measuring technique can be easily applied to other surge protection units, those without this function built in.

If I had the problem, I think I would be inclined to make some sort of easy maintenance plastic box that would go in between the wall socket and everything else, perhaps with only one output plug. I would attach the replaceable parts (the MOVs and ???) with spring or screw clamps. That would make changing them easier and faster, and require maintenance in only one place (or two or three, if more basic wall connection points are required). Any surge protection in the power conditioning equipment could then be long lived backup.

jonrose · Location: USA

Hi Andy,

If these units are indicating when the MOV's are 'used up', then I'd say they're probably using some parallel circuitry and/or device(s) that accumulate overvoltage information, either by actually logging it, or by degrading another, parallel device which will cause the whole thing to shut down when its predetermined limit is reached. As noted before, the only way to really test an MOV is to hit its conduction point and observe its response.
Smile

All the best... -Jon

Havoc · Posted - Tue Oct 22, 2002 3:37 am

More probable a simple fuse with a neon indicator over it.

AndyH · Posted - Tue Oct 22, 2002 3:32 pm

So somehow that simple fuse blows when the MOVs reach capacity?

Havoc · Posted - Tue Oct 22, 2002 11:04 pm

Mov's can sink huge currents (kA's). So if the fault take to much time, the fuse blows. This is a design issue. If you take a fuse that can handle less energy (it takes some time to heat the wire to melt it), so that it blows before the mov blows (because it has absorbed to much energy) then your protection is perfect. But in this case if the fuse blows, you are sure that your mov has taken a lot of abuse. That is unless you blow the fuse by shorting the output of your protector.

Designing this is far from easy!

AndyH · Posted - Wed Oct 23, 2002 2:40 pm

The packaging is very clear with it claims (whether truthful or not): The unit will cease to conduct if the MOVs reach capacity from every day piddling stuff. It can simply die from old age, so to speak, it doesn't have to ever get a large surge.

Havoc · Posted - Thu Oct 24, 2002 11:28 am

Don't know then. You will have to believe them on their word.

jonrose · Location: USA