On Mon, 26 Oct 2015 13:31:06 -0700 (PDT), westom
wrote:

On Monday, October 26, 2015 at 12:55:46 PM UTC-4, wrote:
When the power comes back on, particularly in those storm situations
where the power never really goes "out" but the lights blink - THAT is
when you get real "surges" - not to confused with the high amperage
high voltage "spikes" created by lightning. They can damage sensitive
electronics over time.

Surge is a subjective term used to describe low voltages, low currents, high voltages, radio frequency noise, and low voltages. The 'surge' discussed here is a current from a current source that will increase voltage on anything that might try to stop it. That is not the 'surge' you have described.

But that IS the surge most surge protectors protect against, quite
effectively. They are not DESIGNED to protect against lightning
strikes. They are designed to clean up the transients in the power .

That type surge is already made irrelevant by what is inside appliances. For example, computers has a safety lockout. This lockout must be cleared by disconnecting its power cord from the wall. No protector claims to or will even discuss this 'surge' that is irrelevant to the topic.

Pardon??? Computers have a safety lockout??? If a computer power
supply gets hit by enough transient spikes, the power supply WILL
fail, and it will fail without ever being "locked out". Particularly
with the industry standard and very common "ATX" power supply.

Yes, they have transient absorbers on them - designed to keep the
noise generated by the power supply itself from exiting into the AC
power system. It is also SOMEWHAT effective at keeping noise out of
the computer - but not nearly as effective as an external surge
protector. What is in the power supply is called an "emi filter", not
surge protection.

As far as "appliances" most have NO transient or spike or surge
protection built in.

If inductive loads are creating surges on AC mains, then AC power switching off 120 times a second is also creating surges.
No, there is a resonance in a 60 hz power supply that tends to keep
the sine wave steady and clean. When a temorary short in the power
grid, say, from wires clashing together in a storm, which causes the
lights to flash, but does not blow fuses in the grid, there is aften
a very real and measurable surge or spike when the short opens and the
power comes back on. The dt/dv or instantaneous rate of change in the
voltage doesn't follow a nice clean sine wave in these conditions and
with inductance and capacitance in the circuit the voltage can lead or
lag the current
Once we include numbers, those inductive generative surges (high voltage) do not exist. Those surges are slightly higher current often associated with a reduced line voltage.

What happens when that type anomaly occurs? Depends on numbers. Some are so short that no electronics sees the short power loss. Other are so long that electronics simply power off - then restart. In both cases without any hardware damage.

This anomaly could be a problem especially with electronics in the 1950s and 60s when hardware was not as robust. Today's power supplies profit from over 100 years of design advancement.

And they also suffer from decades of experience by the bean counters
in reducing the cost of products to the bare minimum by providing only
the absolute minimum protection. If it has a 90% chance of lasting
through warranty they'll take another 3 cents out of the cost.

In one of the offices where I work, before they moved into the
building they are in now, we were a block from a large Weston's Bakery
and a couple other smaller industries, and untill I put all the
computers on protection we were averaging a power supply every month,
and hard drives were failing at a rediculous rate. I put in real cheap
UPS units with pretty good surge protection, and out power sopply
problem virtually dissapeared - down to less than one a year - along
with the hard drive problems. (an office of, at that time, 27 PCs and
a server (which was on a Dual Conversion UPS and never had any
issues). We had a power quality analyser (dravitz?) on the line for a
week, and the power quality was "terrible"

The office moved into a brand new build ing, on a brand new power
system, with no nearby industries, and when the cheap UPS units gave
up and needed batteries the "boss" said don't bother replacing them -
and we have had virtually no power supply or hard drive issues due to
power problems.

You can say what you like - you sound suspiciously like an engineer. I
on the other hand live and work "in the real world" as a technician.