Excuse me for hijacking the thread but this seem like a good place to ask. Im using a Leviton 3 phase unit on my home which is wire for 240 single phase. I just wired it in to a 240 20 amp breaker in the panel and left the wire for the third phase disconnected. Anything wrong with doing this?
Jimmie
It was interesting that Vic linked State Farm since their techs in Winter Haven Fl came up with some of the strategies we used here. In particular they came up with the bonding wire between the frames of machines. (that started with a 50' printer cable in the agent's office) The ferrite on the signal cable came from us. The theory is the bond wire shunts out the shot and the ferrite delays the pulse in the signal cable until it is shunted out.
Vic has said he doesn't have grounded outlets so he is not getting everything he should out of his protectors. That is all the more reason to put in panel protectors and to look at his grounding electrode system. Be sure all of the other vendors (cable/satellite/telco) are bonded to his grounding electrode. Don't let them get away with driving their own rod and leaving. They are required by code to add a bonding wire to the service ground..
This is a is all "repair" so he should not need a permit.
BTW Vic, when you "unplug" everything do you also remove the phone and TV cables?
On Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:36:23 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote:
I use the surge protectors more for their outlets than anything else. Juice has always been steady here. Might get a flicker a couple times a year. This has been the worst year in 14. My computer rebooted twice a few days ago due to storms some miles away affecting the grid. It's been at least 6 or 7 years since that happened, but I had a UPS then so it didn't go down.
Got no idea. But I know a good electrician and I'll have him check it out soon. I don't pay any attention to what cable/telco do. Just see the boxes they put up near the meter. The year after I moved in I had a 200 amp service put in so I could have central air. That guy drove a 6' copper bar into the ground next to the meter. Know there's some leads clamped onto some water pipes too. This place needs about 4-5 more circuits and 4-5 new outlets to be neat. I'll let a pro do it all.
I don't unplug "everything." Just 2 plugs that power the surge boxes for 2 computers. That's my expensive stuff. Basically I bend down twice to pull them and twice to plug them in again. Usually pull the plug on my biggest TV too, but not always. It's a 32" CRT, and you can pick them up for 50 bucks. My gaming computer surge box is on is on a grounded outlet. The computers/peripherals are worth more than all the other appliances in here combined, including the furnace. After reading this thread and googling around a bit I also started pulling the input cable to the data modem. That gets routed to both computers. Saw where computers get fried via the cable. I ordered a Belkin 12-outlet suppressor with cable surge protection. But I'll disconnect the cable in when I pull the plug. I don't bother with anything else. Still have phone, TV, etc. I generally know when storms are coming, but don't pull those plugs unless I hear thunder or I'm leaving the house for a while. Maybe do this about a dozen times a year. Hardly a foolproof method, but hey. Thing is, once you do it you can trap yourself. How are you going to feel if you don't do it and get zapped? That's why I never picked numbers when I played the big lottos. Then you have to keep playing. We had a little earth tremor here a few years ago, and I got to thinking about that big New Madrid, Missouri earthquake. So I was talking to my insurance agent and for the hell of it asked what earthquake insurance for my house would cost. He had no idea - nobody here has it. But he said he'd call me back, and he did. About 50 or 75 bucks a year, can't remember exactly. So I told my wife, and said "Should we get it?" She says, "You decide." So I start thinking about the big one hitting and me and her standing in the rubble of our house, and she looks at me and says, "Did you get that earthquake insurance?" Anyway, I bet I'm the only sucker in Morton Grove, Illinois paying for earthquake insurance. You can call that too much bad imagination, but I just chalk it up to "preparedness."
--Vic
Just be sure the ground wire from the cable and phone Dmark goes to your ground rod.
If I was using that plan, I would be unplugging my stuff every day for
6 or 7 months of the year. We have a thunderstorm almost every day in the summer and there are numerous cloud to ground strikes within a mile or two in most of them. That was the same situation that prompted all the lightning mitigation work we did. This is the lightning capital of the world.If you count the DVRs, I have around 10 computers plugged in and on the network all the time along with all the other hardware to support them. Sometimes more. Running around unplugging all of that stuff once or twice a day would probably cause more problems that it would cure.
Could I get hit by lightning and blow something up? Sure, but I could be hit by a meteor too. I do what I know works and hope for the best.
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Pure Bull Scat
All of the components that are connected to the EGC are useless. That is about 2/3ds of them.
Twayne should know about bull crap. It's his specialty. Lots of BS claims and when challenged on any of it, just refuses to provide anything to back it up.
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