On Sunday, September 29, 2013 10:32:46 PM UTC-4, Ashton Crusher wrote:
On Sun, 29 Sep 2013 09:48:38 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:
On Sunday, September 29, 2013 1:12:47 AM UTC-4, Ashton Crusher wrote:
On Fri, 27 Sep 2013 18:51:19 -0400, Metspitzer
wrote:
Most of us have more devices than we have plugs in the wall, which is
why you'll likely find a surge protector behind most people's
televisions and under our desks. However, not all surge protectors are
alike, and some even put your gadgets at risk. We talked to an
electrician to sort out how to tell the good ones from the bad ones,
and how to use them safely.
Charles Ravenscraft (yes, that's Lifehacker writer Eric Ravenscraft's
brother) is a licensed union electrician,
Why would an electrician be any kind of expert on surge protection?
Maybe he is, maybe he's full of crap.
My vote is for crap, not just for him but for the whole bloody
nonsense about surge protectors. It's a giant industry to protect you
from something that basically none of you have to worry about.
There was a guy in my computer club many years ago who worked for one
of the main companies that built surge protectors. He said it's all
nonsense as far as anyone really needing them.
What makes you think this person knows anything more than the
electrician you just criticized. Was he an electrical engineer,
familiar with surge protection concepts, or did he work
the company phone?
The transient spikes
are damped out in just a few feet of house wiring, I think he said 6
feet.
BS. Relevant documents from NIST, IEEE have been posted
here many times and they sure don't say anything like that.
Maybe you can explain to us the physics behind how 6 ft of
house wiring stops a surge.
So unless you have really crappy wiring in your house with bad
grounds and such and the outlet your computer is plugged into is the
same outlet as your 40 year old refrigerator uses that draws 20 amps
to start and dims the lights then repeats 6 times before finally
starting, you are chasing a mirage.
Refrigerators and similar appliances in the house typically don't
create the surges that need to be protected against.
About the only thing you might
need to worry about is lightening striking but if it does your little
surge strip isn't going to protect anything anyway.
Well that's true if the lightning bolt directly hits the TV
sitting in the living room. But that is almost impossible.
The surges from lightning that damage appliances in a house
are typically from lighting striking nearby,
eg hitting the utility lines along the street, the service
cable going to the house, etc. That creates a powerful surge,
on the lines going into the house, but it's a small amount
of the total energy from the lightning strike. Surge protectors are
effective in dealing with those surges. If they are not,
why do you think companies that have electronic eqpt
to protect, eg Telco, cable company, etc all use surge protection?
I've been buying the cheapest power strips I can find for 30 years and
have never had a problem with a power "surge" and I leave my system on
24/7. I did have lightening strike once and it blew the **** out of a
radio and computer and clock, fried a couple breakers, etc. No surge
protector would have stopped that motha.
Good grief. Read the IEEE guide. If you had decent surge
protectorion, all that damage could have likely been prevented.
Read what the IEEE panel of engineering professionals says:
http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_lhm/IEEE_Guide.pdf
That's lightening protection, not the "surge protection" the scammers
are selling.
"Where do you think most destructive surges seen by appliances
like a TV or PC come from? Did you bother to even read the IEEE guide?"
1. INTRODUCTION
This guide is intended to provide useful information about the proper specification
and application of surge protectors, to protect houses and their contents from
lightning and other electrical surges. The guide is written for electricians,
electronics technicians and engineers, electrical inspectors, building designers,
and others with some technical background, and the need to understand lightning
protection.
Surge protection has become a much more complex and important issue in recent
years."
Lightning is the most common sources of these destructive
surges. As Bud pointed out there are other possible sources
from utility events as well. You, in your post, basically
dismissed the possibility of protecting against lightning surges.
"I did have lightening strike once and it blew the **** out of a radio and computer and clock, fried a couple breakers, etc. No surge protector would have stopped that motha. "
The IEEE guide discusses exactly that situation. They show how
a lighting strike to the utility lines near a home creates
a surge at the appliance and they show a tiered
protection strategy that would have prevented the above damage
that you had. That strategy includes the use of multi-port,
plug-in surge protectors.
Also note that nowhere does that IEEE guide
written by several industry engineers who are experts
in the field say that 6 feet of wire will stop the typical
destructive surge, that plug-in surge protectors are useless, etc.
Did 6 ft stop your surge? Good grief.