power conditioner or battery back-up?

On Feb 11, 12:27=A0pm, bud-- wrote:

Bud

The whole house surge protectors that I install protects all wire born utilities that enter the home including the power, coaxial cable, and twisted pair types of conductors. My experience with them has been very positive. I have one customer who had a tree struck by lightning in his back yard over one year after his whole house protector install. Both neighbors suffered appliance and electronic damage. All he lost was the GFCI on his garden pool circuit. That item being only twenty feet from the tree that was struck I think the whole house surge protector did a pretty good job. None of his unit protectors were destroyed but I urged their replacement anyway. I did have to replace the power module of the protector as it was in failure alarm after the event but the seventy dollars was far less then the cost to either of his neighbors. I had installed a Rural Electrification Administration (REA) style Grounding Electrode Conductor (GEC) that was split bolted to the neutral on the customer side of the Service Drop / Service Entry Conductor splice. The inspector said he hadn't seen one like it in decades. That particular GEC was the one to the driven rod supplemental electrodes. The main GEC was run to the water service entry which is a copper pipe connected directly to a very large water utility underground piping network. Having been badly hit by the failure of early plastic pipe offerings the local utility does not permit any plastic piping in it's multi-county water main network.

My point is that an all wire utility type of whole house protector can do a good job of protecting from voltage differences between the various signal and power lines if it is conscientiously installed.

-- Tom Horne

Poor w is delusional.

Repeating from the NIST guide: "Q - Will a surge protector installed at the service entrance be sufficient for the whole house? A - There are two answers to than question: Yes for one-link appliances [electronic equipment], No for two-link appliances [equipment connected to power AND phone or cable or....]. Since most homes today have some kind of two-link appliances, the prudent answer to the question would be NO - but that does not mean that a surge protector installed at the service entrance is useless."

Service panel suppressors do not prevent damage from high voltage between power and signal wires. High voltage between power and signal wires is likely to cause most damage.

But a service panel suppressor is a good idea.

Still never seen - a source that agrees with w that plug-in suppressors are NOT effective.

Still never answered - simple questions:

- Why do the only 2 examples of protection in the IEEE guide use plug-in suppressors?

- Why does the NIST guide says plug-in suppressors are "the easiest solution"?

- Why does the NIST guide say "One effective solution is to have the consumer install" a multiport plug-in suppressor?

For real science read the IEEE and NIST guides. Both say plug-in suppressors (and UPSs with equivalent circuits) are effective.

One element of surge protection is having a short ground wire connecting phone and cable entry protectors and the "ground" at the power service. The service protector you install very effectively does that by combining all the protection in one unit. (The cable and phone distribution then has to be from the load terminals of the protector.)

There are some possibilities that those service units can not cover, like a real close strike (back yard tree) can produce a surge voltage with building wiring acting as an antenna (for instance cable and power wires acting as a loop antenna which is connected to a TV).

Another, which is in the IEEE guide, is with a very near strike a pad mounted A/C compressor-condenser may be at a very different voltage than that the building wiring. Same for submersible pumps (though they are likely to contain surge protection). And could easily be true for the garden GFCI,

IMHO for surge protection the N-G bond point ("main bonding jumper") is best located at the service panel where branch circuit neutrals and grounds terminate. The grounding electrodes would then be connected at that point.

I assume your water pipe is connected to that point. I didn't dig out the code, but I believe all electrodes, particularly a required supplemental electrode, have to connect to the same point. But I wouldn't argue with connecting a rod at the utility service connection point.

I agree. A surge may float the wiring in a building far above "absolute" ground A lot of the protection is actually that all the wiring floats together.

--------- Nice to see you around.

Put numbers to a surge induced by lightning maybe 50 feet away.

In another example, a one hundred foot dipole antenna was less than

Any surge created by fields from a nearby strike is made irrelevant by a 'whole house' protector, by protection already inside every appliance, and even by incandescent bulbs.

In another case, lightning struck a lightning rod. The entire lightning bolt traveled to earth only four feet away from a PC that was just inside the wall. What did those massive fields from a direct lightning strike do? Those fields were so destructive as to not even cause the computer to blink. No crash. No damage. No massive surge induced by a lightning bolt only four feet away.

If lightning creates fields with massive surge energy, then a nearby strike would destroy every nearby car radio and cell phone. Why no damage? Even transistors connected to something optimized to collect field energy (an antenna) results in no transistor damage. Protection inside electronics is that simple and robust. Those fields do not create the massive surges promoted in myths.

Some facilities will take care to interconnect equipment so that a data error on low power data cables does not occur. But fields inducing a hardware destructive surge are a popular urban myth.

A greater threat is a surge being earthed by the ground wire. That wire must not be bundled (inches away) with other wires so that surges are not induced on (do not jump into) those other wires. Proper protector earthing means its ground wire is separated from other wires

Ground wire inside romex would also induce surges on other wires - too close. Just another reason why safety ground wires do not properly earth surge currents.

Earthing wires are best routed separate from all other wires. Destructive surges created fields from a nearby struck tree are only popular myths.

A service panel suppressor, of course, does nothing to limit the voltage between power and signal wires. w_ doesn't explain how incandescent bulbs help.

The author of the NIST guide is an expert in the field of surges and protection. In the NIST guide he says (guide page 14): "Intruder alarm systems using wires between sensors and their central control unit can be disturbed - and damaged in severe cases - by lightning striking close to the house. The wires necessary for this type of installation extend to all points of the house and act as an antenna system that collects energy from the field generated by the lightning strike, and protection should be included in the design of the system, rather than added later by the owner." And more generally (guide page 13): "the antenna for a remote garage door opener, the sensor wiring for an intrusion alarm system, the video signal part of a satellite dish receiver. Surges in these systems are caused by nearby lightning strikes."

But apparently w_ is smarter.

Still never seen - a source that agrees with w_ that plug-in suppressors are NOT effective.

Still never answered - simple questions:

- Why do the only 2 examples of protection in the IEEE guide use plug-in suppressors?

- Why does the NIST guide says plug-in suppressors are "the easiest solution"?

- Why does the NIST guide say "One effective solution is to have the consumer install" a multiport plug-in suppressor?

For real science read the IEEE and NIST guides. Both say plug-in suppressors are effective.

Bud claims electromagnetic fields create massive voltages on interior signal wires. Meanwhile, signal wires connect to semiconductors that can withstand 2000 or 15,000 volts without damage. Those numbers are routine and are now an international standard. Electronics already contains robust protection that makes those fields even less problematic.

If Bud's products did anything useful, then Bud repeatedly posted those numeric protection specs. He refuses. No power strip protector makes any protection claim. So now Bud is promoting another myth - surges created by electromagnetic fields.

Earth one 'whole house' protector so that even direct lightning strikes cause no household damage. Connect even the telco provided for free 'whole house' protectors to the same earthing. Earth provides the protection which is why one 'whole house' protector is so effective.

Ooh - massive voltages... As usual, w_'s opinions are contradicted by the NIST surge guru who wrote the NIST guide - ignoring the quotes I provided.

As usual - no source that agrees with w_ that plug-in suppressors are NOT effective.

As usual - no answers to simple questions:

- Why do the only 2 examples of protection in the IEEE guide use plug-in suppressors?

- Why does the NIST guide says plug-in suppressors are "the easiest solution"?

- Why does the NIST guide say "One effective solution is to have the consumer install" a multiport plug-in suppressor?

For real science read the IEEE and NIST guides. Both say plug-in suppressors are effective.

Bud is lying again. That NIST guru said in the very first conclusion of his IEEE paper:

Plug-in (point of connection) protectors can even create appliance damage as the IEEE guide shows on Page 42 Figure 8 - 8000 volt damage to the adjacent TV. Even Bud admits a power strip does not claim surge protection. See manufacturer numeric specs he refuses to provide. Sales promoters are hired to spin myths; to maintain the scam.

Where are electromagnetic fields creating destructive surges? Another Bud myth necessary to promote the scam.

Tom Horne demonstrated what engineers have seen for generations. Tom Horne demonstrates why earthing and a 'whole house' protector has been the effective solution for over 100 years. Protection is not Bud's magic strip that stops and absorbs what three miles of sky could not. Protection is about earthing surges outside a building - one 'whole house' protector so that "objectionable differences" do not exist.

The village idiot forgets to mention that Martzloff said in the same

And in 2001 Martzloff wrote the NIST guide which also says plug-in suppressors are effective.

If the village idiot could only read and think he could discover what the IEEE says in this example:

- A plug-in suppressor protects the TV connected to it.

- "To protect TV2, a second multiport protector located at TV2 is required."

- In the example a surge comes in on a cable service with the ground wire from cable entry ground block to the ground at the power service that is far too long. In that case the IEEE guide says "the only effective way of protecting the equipment is to use a multiport [plug-in] protector."

- w_'s favored power service suppressor would provide absolutely NO protection.

It is simply a lie that the plug-in suppressor in the IEEE example damages the second TV.

The village idiot is hallucinating again/still.

I provided quotes from the NIST guide that contradict poor w_.

The village idiot has a religious belief (immune from challenge) that surge protection must directly use earthing. w_ believes plug-in suppressors (which are not well earthed) can not possibly work. The IEEE guide explains plug-in suppressors work by CLAMPING (limiting) the voltage on all wires (signal and power) to the common ground at the suppressor. Plug-in suppressors do not work by stopping or absorbing or magic. And they do not work primarily by earthing. The guide explains earthing occurs elsewhere. (Read the guide starting pdf page 40).

Both the IEEE and NIST guides say plug-in suppressors are effective.

There are 98,615,938 other web sites, including 13,843,032 by lunatics, and w_ can't find another lunatic that agrees with him that plug-in suppressors are NOT effective. All you have are w_'s rants based on his religious belief in earthing.

And, as always, no answers to simple questions:

- Why do the only 2 examples of protection in the IEEE guide use plug-in suppressors?

- Why does the NIST guide says plug-in suppressors are "the easiest solution"?

- Why does the NIST guide say "One effective solution is to have the consumer install" a multiport plug-in suppressor?

- Why did Martzloff say in his paper "One solution. illustrated in this paper, is the insertion of a properly designed [multiport plug-in surge suppressor]"?

- How would a service panel suppressor provide any protection in the IEEE example, pdf page 42?

- Why does the IEEE guide say for distant service points "the only effective way of protecting the equipment is to use a multiport [plug-in] protector"?

I'll save you a lot of typing, Bud: Anyone who listens to W_tom, and follows his advice is a leading candidate for the annual Darwin awards. A word to the wise is sufficient.