Nate Nagel wrote in
:

Hi all,

I was awakened last night shortly after going to bed by what I assume
was the sound of a transformer exploding, followed shortly thereafter by
the gentle beeping of every UPS in my house. Power was restored about
half an hour ago, after I returned home from work, and I found that
several items were not working. I found three tripped breakers; one for
the general basement receptacles for which I have no explanation (the
only items plugged into that circuit was a surge suppressor for the
stereo

the surge protector shunts the overvoltage to ground,acting like a
temporary -short-,thus it snapped the breaker.That's why many surge strips
have an integral breaker or fuse.
Depending on the particular surge protector,they should be replaced as they
suffer some damage when they absorb surges.The bigger the surge,the greater
the damage.They may seem to work,but their surge protection will be
diminished or gone.

and TV, which I'd switched off last night, and a lamp.) That one
reset OK. Another was a utility circuit in the basement; it would not
reset. I unplugged all devices and reset it. Everything went back
online OK except for of course the most expensive device plugged into
it; an electrostatic air filter for the furnace. Attempting to start
that back up resulted in an alarming blue flash and a tripped breaker.
I assume it's fux0red.

It could be just a dirt problem and the elements need cleaning.
I'd try that first.

Last was the upstairs circuit, same procedure,
found everything OK save for a surge strip in the bedroom. Don't have a
spare to reconnect everything but the odd thing is that it had one of
those Ionic Breeze things plugged into it. (yes, I know they're
somewhat useless, but I didn't buy it, and I can't throw it out.) The
surge strip itself smells suspiciously like smoked electronics.
Finally, I had a Siemens TVSS breaker installed in my breaker panel; it
did not trip but the "protected" light for one leg is now completely out.

It sounds like one branch of the transformer let go,and the second branch
fed an unusually high voltage to your house,on one leg of the feed. Thus
the failure of the surge protectors;they did their job the best they could.

Two questions; first, are electrostatic devices especially susceptible
to power surges, or is it just coincidence that I happened to have two
problems directly related to electrostatic devices?

They have a power oscillator circuit to step up the line V to high
voltage,a few 1000 volts,and that circuit may not have much input surge
protection. so,it's likely a diode or bridge rectifier shorted,and possibly
the power transistor itself.(very likely,IMO)

Secondly, has
anyone had any luck with going through the power company to pay for some
of this damage (the air filter is maybe 6 mos. old) or is homeowner's
insurance the place to start? If the latter, I might be tempted to pay
out of pocket to avoid a rate increase.

No experience here,but I would contact the power company first.

Fortunately, my (laptop) computer seems to have survived OK, and I
assume that SWMBO's did as well as it was plugged into a UPS which was
switched off. Also fortunately, my basement appears to be dry even
though it's been raining for several days and last night's storm was
somewhat torrential (the road to my office was flooded this AM if that
gives you any idea.)

...a somewhat unhappy
nate


Meanwhile,here in central Florida,we have a drought and several nasty
forest fires burning up people's homes.

We coulda used that rain!

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net