Bad voltage spikes

Where we live we have regular electrical outages due to a number of problems. Last night, however, we had a new experience. It must have been something like a voltage surge. it blew out a drive of mine, my PC speaker system and screwed up our wireless home network pretty good. All electricity to the house went off for a few seconds and then turned back on. I guess the electric company had a backup system of sorts that took over.

I did have so-called surge suppressor outlet strips to which our comps were plugged in. They were useless against whatever it was that happened. I'm amazed my battery backups for the computers are still working. I'm thinking we need some kind of really strong voltage control item on our comps and a few other things around here. Any suggestions?

Reply to
ken
Loading thread data ...

Hi, Sorry to hear that. Don't you have insurance coverage for that kinda damage? Regarding good suppressor individually or at main power entrance point you have many choices but like anything else, case of you get what you pay for. I moved out here from Ontario in '70. Since total power outage altogether does not even equal 3 hour caused by grass fire in the spring of some years ago. All our power, phone, cable are under ground nothing over head in my neighborhood. Only steel street lamp poles fed by under ground cable stand along the streets.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

working. I'm thinking we need some kind of really strong voltage

First a heads up. surge suppressor outlet strips are typically one shot one time protection (and poor at that).

We had industrial grade (typically multiple surge) suppressor installed in the breaker box. Again this is not 100% but much better than plug strips.

I would check with your insurance (if you saw fire and or smoke) you may have coverage. For surge that's iffy.

Second I would try to file a claim with the power company.

Last a Ferro resonance voltage controller may help. Increases the power consumption by~ 15% but does give a added protection for voltage surges.

We have all our computers running on heavy duty inverters using large (think golf cart) batteries on three state float charges. Short of one *hell* of a hard lighting strike real close we're safe.

Reply to
NotMe

*Were there any lightning storms in the area at the time? You could try calling the power company to see if they had any incidents during that time period.

Basic protection against future events would be to install a whole house surge protector and also to make sure that your grounding electrode system (water pipe, ground rods, bonding jumper) has good clean, and tight connections.

Reply to
John Grabowski

Been through this. Have surge protectors and battery backup on computers. As other point out surge protectors are only good for one shot. They will work but not protect. Usually a light goes out. Insurance can cover big costs - I have a $500 deductible. Power company here always claims act of god and will not pay.

Reply to
Frank

Those power strips did exactly what they claim to do. They protect only fr om transients that typically do no damage. And are so grossly undersized a s to fail even on transients that are too small to damage other appliances.

Utility equipment can detect faults (ie a lightning strike). Temporarily disconnects power (ie because voltages are out of spec). And then automat ically restore power a few seconds later after the fault has cleared. That would be what you observed.

Protection from such transients only works where AC wires enter the build ing. Nothing inside the building will or claims to protect from such anoma lies. Protection from such anomalies has been routine for over 100 years. But most are, instead, educated by advertising. For example, purchase pow er strips that do not do that protection. But sure are profitable.

Destructive transients occur maybe once every seven years. Typically may be hundreds of thousands of joules. And are not averted by any 'box'. Un derstand what does the protection - what absorbs hundreds of thousands of j oules - earth ground. Either you connected every wire inside every cable t o the single point earth ground. Or that transient was inside hunting for earth destructively via appliances. The adjacent protector sometimes gives that transient even more potentially destructive paths.

Even the power strip needs protection provided by earthing one 'whole hou se' protector. That protector (the box) is not protection. It simply conn ects a surge (maybe 20,000 amps) to earth. But only if the connection is l ow impedance (ie 'less than 10 feet', no sharp wire bends, well separated f rom other non-grounding wires, etc).

Every facility that cannot have damage uses the 'whole house' solution. You have learned the hard way why those facilities do not waste money on ad jacent magic boxes.

And finally, protectors are simple science. The 'art' of protection is e arth ground. Most of your questions should be about what does the actual p rotection - the art of earthing.

Routine is to have direct lightning strikes. And nobody even knew a surge existed. Because even a protector does not fail. Because a protector is only as effective as its earth ground.

Reply to
westom

The insurance of a few hundred dollars is moot. What about all the data that could be lost? I have an external HD connected to my computer. I only turn it on when I back up the internal HD and then I turn it off.

Regarding good suppressor individually or at main power entrance

Reply to
willshak

from transients that typically do no damage.

Good grief, Tom's back folks! Mention surge protector and wham!, there he is. Show us where plug-in surge protectors claim to "only protect from transients that typically do no damage". It seems to me it would be very hard to sell them if they made that claim...... That alone should put everyone on guard that you don't know what you're talking about

mall to damage other appliances.

That would be something, because those other appliances all use MOVs, just like the plug-in surge protectors. The difference is that the MOVs inside the appliance are much smaller and can only handle smaller surges than the plug-in protector. The other obvious difference is that each surge degrades the MOV a bit. Which MOV would you rather have fail? The one in the $2000 TV or the one in the $25 surge protector? And the rating of that $25 one is typically higher than that of the ones in the TV.

ly disconnects power (ie because voltages are out of spec). And then autom atically restore power a few seconds later after the fault has cleared. Th at would be what you observed.

While lightning is the most frequent cause, you have no way of knowing what caused this specific event.

lding. Nothing inside the building will or claims to protect from such ano malies.

The IEEE tutorial on surge protection strategies disagrees. They clearly show plug-in type surge protectors being used as part of a tiered protection strategy. So would all the appliance manufacturers who almost all include some surge protection inside the appliances they manufacture. And they use the same components and method that the manufacturers of plug-ins use. It's just that the MOVs they use are even smaller than those in the plug-in.

You start with a perfectly valid premise. That a whole house surge protector is the best first line defense. The IEEE agrees with that and so do I. But then you go astray by this crusade against plug-ins offering any protection at all. There we disagree. And you fail to recognize that not everyone can install a whole house surge protector. Those living in a rental house, rental apartment, etc.

Protection from such anomalies has been routine for over 100 years. But m ost are, instead, educated by advertising. For example, purchase power str ips that do not do that protection. But sure are profitable.

Again the IEEE, among other authorities, disagrees.

ay be hundreds of thousands of joules. And are not averted by any 'box'.

My whole house surge protector is in a "box". Have you actually seen one?

Understand what does the protection - what absorbs hundreds of thousands of joules - earth ground. Either you connected every wire inside every cable to the single point earth ground. Or that transient was inside hunting fo r earth destructively via appliances. The adjacent protector sometimes giv es that transient even more potentially destructive paths.

The myth repeated that surge protectors are what cause destruction.

ouse' protector. That protector (the box) is not protection. It simply co nnects a surge (maybe 20,000 amps) to earth. But only if the connection is low impedance (ie 'less than 10 feet', no sharp wire bends, well separated from other non-grounding wires, etc).

A powerstrip uses MOVs. If you look inside a TV, PC, electronic oven, etc you will almost always find an MOV. An MOV that is smaller than those used in a plug-in surge protector. If they are useless, incapable of any protection because they are not directly connected to an earth ground, are all the appliance manufacturers just dumb and wasting their money?

You have learned the hard way why those facilities do not waste money on adjacent magic boxes.

The plug-in work by clamping all the voltages at an appliance together. If there is a 1000V surge, all the voltages going into the PC then rise together so there is no potential difference to cause damage. That is why for a surge protector for a PC to be effective, anything connected must pass through it, ie power, phone, cable. At the same time, they provide a path for the surge to ground.

It would be interesting to know if in the case of the PC damaged, what all it was connected to and what passed through the surge protector.

earth ground. Most of your questions should be about what does the actual protection - the art of earthing.

Nonsense. Damage that occurs as a result of surges is rarely a direct lightning strike. It's usually lightning hitting the electric utility somewhere nearby, eg out at the steet poles with overhead wires.

And nobody even knew a surge existed.

If you're house took a direct lightning strike, it would most likely be obvious.

Because even a protector does not fail. Because a protector is only as e ffective as its earth ground.

Which is not true either. The whole house surge protectors also use MOVs. They are typically larger. But with each surge their capability also degrades. It's part of the basic physics of the devices. And over time, with enough surges, they will fail.

Reply to
trader4

That is why I have one of the external drives that plug into the USB port. I plug it every day or so depending on what I am doing with the computer. It will automatically back up the internal hard drive. I then unplug it. It colst less than $ 100 for about a 500 GB drive. You can get larger ones now, but my hard drive is only around 200 GB. I also keep a copy of most of my data and pic on a netbook computer. Usually have a 32 GB thumb drive with me that also has most of the important data on it. That way if the house goes up in smoke I will have a copy of the pic. I used to leave it at work but have retired now. Always good to have an off site copy of any computer data.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

I live in Alabamastan and we have a pretty good power company, Alabama Power and I've had damage due to aberrations in the power at times and on one occasion, I had a really bad power spike blow out some equipment at my business. I had to get past the nice lady customer service rep in order to speak with one of the engineers to explain what happened. He agreed with me and the power company paid for my damaged gear. ^_^

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

The best chance to get a PoCo to help you out with a surge is to buy their surge protection package. (protectors in the meter base and an evaluation of your grounding) Usually that will stop most of them tho. You want all of your surge protection connected to the same ground electrode system, preferably at the same place. That needs to be a robust grounding system too., Then when you add point of use protection at the devices that need it. protecting all inputs, you have a comprehensive surge protection scheme.

Reply to
gfretwell

The power company here offers a whole house surge protector that plugs in behind the meter. Then the customer is definitely covered for voltage surge damage to their equipment. ^_^

formatting link

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

On 6/19/2013 6:44 AM, westom wrote: > On Wednesday, June 19, 2013 12:45:08 AM UTC-4, snipped-for-privacy@I.don't.have.a.clue.com wrote: >> I'm thinking we need some kind of really strong voltage >> control item on our comps and a few other things around here. >> Any suggestions?

Excellent information on surges and surge protection is at:

formatting link

- "How to protect your house and its contents from lightning: IEEE guide for surge protection of equipment connected to AC power and communication circuits" published by the IEEE (the IEEE is a major organization of electrical and electronic engineers). And also:

formatting link

- "NIST recommended practice guide: Surges Happen!: how to protect the appliances in your home" published by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology

The IEEE surge guide is aimed at people with some technical background.

======================== From the description this was something more like crossed power wires. That is not a "surge", which is, by definition, a very short event. As JohnG wrote, ask the utility if they had an 'incident'.

Complete nonsense.

More complete nonsense.

Contrary to westom's beliefs, which he compulsively spreads all over the internet, both the IEEE and NIST surge guides say plug-in protectors are effective.

When using a plug-in protector all interconnected equipment needs to be connected to the same protector. External connections, like coax, also must go through the protector

A lighting strike is not a fault.

Sounds like a "recloser", that does open on faults and may reclose several times.

Service panel protectors are very effective against very high current but very short duration surges. They will be rapidly burned out by the much longer duration of a crossed power wire. See the IEEE surge guide pages 11, 15 and 25.

The same is true of plug-in protectors. There are supposed to be plug-in protectors that disconnect on overvoltage - I haven't seen them. A UPS may disconnect and provide protection (and apparently they did). (Disconnecting to protect from a surge doesn't work because a surge is too short an event.)

The author of the NIST surge guide has written "the major cause of [surge protector] failures is a temporary overvoltage, rather than an unusually large surge."

It has been explained to westom many times that not much surge energy can make it to a plug-in protector, and also explained why. But westom ignores anything that does not fit his very limited beliefs on protection.

More complete nonsense.

SquareD does not make plug-in protectors, but says for their "best" service panel protector "electronic equipment may need additional protection by installing plug-in [protectors] at the point of use."

It is westom's mantra that protects him from confusing thoughts (aka reality).

Unfortunately for westom, the IEEE surge guide explains (starting page

30) that plug in protectors do not work primarily by earthing surges. Earthing occurs elsewhere. Plug-in protectors work by limiting the voltage from each wire (power and signal) to the ground at the protector. The voltage between the wires going to the protected equipment is safe for the protected equipment.

For real science, and excellent information on surge protection, read the IEEE and NIST surge guides.

Reply to
bud--

Hear, hear. Good example of NO ground, Norway.

I was once told by utilities people that when a distribution fault/'short' occurs; we'll see a brown-out, or complete drop out, then the utilities come back on trying to 'clear' the short [burning it out?] and if that doesn't work, power goes off again. Was believable, because that has pretty much been the sequence here.

Only thing here that REALLY caused the PC's to get upset, was when strong winds kept slapping the high tension cabling together coming in from ?? Hoover Dam? [according to utilities spokesperson giving that reason] You can't believe the on off sequences we went through.

Reply to
Robert Macy

Here in this country we have frequent outages. Many ppl here use inverters, or in Spanish 'inversors'. Good for the times there is no electricity and for surge protection.

They are great in theory... but they suck up a lot of power, especially if one or more batteries are not up to par... If a battery has a problem holdi ng a charge, then it will just keep sucking up electricity trying to charge ... mucho dollars my friend... which is why even though I have one, I don't use it (our electricity has been pretty good around here lately).

Reply to
feedscrn

Here in this country we have frequent outages. Many ppl here use inverters, or in Spanish 'inversors', usually using four 12v batteries. Good for the times there is no electricity and for surge protection.

They are great in theory... but they suck up a lot of power, especially if one or more batteries are not up to par... If a battery has a problem holdi ng a charge, then it will just keep sucking up electricity trying to charge ... mucho dollars my friend... which is why even though I have one, I don't use it (our electricity has been pretty good around here lately).

Another problem is that the batteries go out rather frequently. A car batte ry typically lasts 3 years... but invertor batteries are always in use, so they only last a year at best.

Reply to
feedscrn

Maybe you just need a line filter that contains coils and capacitors because they block surges according to how fast the voltage and current change, rather than according to the voltage level, as MOVs do. Typically the more expensive surge protector power strips have both types of protection, but watch out for those that advertise having an RF filter but it's only a capacitor.

Reply to
larrymoencurly

I like the triplite suppressors with metal boxes, LC filtering and MOV protection. I don't like plastic contraptions. I think the L does slow down the spike enabling the MOV to do a better job. Many MOV devices have MOV's with too high a trip point. At a segment powered by the line, such as a computer desk, anything connected to the computer must be grounded to the same ground. The ground is not protected against another ground point by MOV. Signal grounds can fail at very low voltage levels. Makes sense to use a protect strip with plugs for telephones, and other data connection.

Greg

Reply to
gregz

Have to mention isolation transformers, such as sold by triplite. The ground is equalized at the transformer, since a new neutral is formed by tying to ground. The will be no great potential between line and ground, except if differential surge is created on line. Spikes would automatically be attenuated.

I still have an old Heathkit spike and voltage monitor which no longer works. I had given Heathkit recommendation of adding a ground monitor to the circuit, but they sort of went away.

Greg

Reply to
gregz

working. I'm thinking we need some kind of really strong voltage

One time I had power going off and on. It was then a main suppressor blew. I'm always concerned with things in the house to cause backward ac flow against the main flow causing excessive voltage. Motors are still turning. It's my theory. Thats why I like local suppressors on equipment. if lightning hit a nearby line or your house, things will fail regardless. I had a lightning strike my tree. Didn't notice any failure, but years ago I had a modem go out in the computer, after a loud crack. After that in installed MOV's on phone line.

Greg

Reply to
gregz

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.