Hi all,
In the middle of redecorating, and it's time to make exciting decisions about cable management.
Does anyone know if you can get wallplates / mounting boxes which have surge protection built in? I was going to add some more plugs for behind the AV unit but really I'd need them surge protected, and I'm trying to avoid having a 4-way kicking around.
I found this -
Any help gratefully received!
-tom
cable management.
protection built in? I was going to add some more plugs for behind the AV unit but really I'd need them surge protected, and I'm trying to avoid having a 4-way kicking around.
What surges do you get?
Is this the part where you tell me I shouldn't be worrying about surge prot= ection?! ;)
Seriously though, do RCD's offer any benefit at all over lightening strikes= or random power surges (unlikely but possible?). We have a "modern" RCD un= it, but I don't know if that offers any benefit...hence me using surge prot= ection 4-ways on 'expensive' items, like TVs, computers etc.
-tom
about cable management.
surge protection built in? I was going to add some more plugs for behind th= e AV unit but really I'd need them surge protected, and I'm trying to avoid= having a 4-way kicking around.
In a word yes. B-)
Unless you spend *SERIOUS* amounts of money nothing is going to protect against a lightening strike within about 1/2 a mile.
Do you notice your lights flickering normally, may need a good 'ole filament lamp to see such voltage variations.
None at all, might be worse as a "surge" might unbalance things and trip the RCD. MCB's react quicker than fuses to overloads but I suspect that with a surge the equipment will have already gone phut to protect the MCB. B-)
So you want some normal mains sockets with surge protection?
Hmm good game. Most "surge protected" sockets etc have nothing more than a MOV in them to shunt spikes etc. You can add exactly the same protection to a normal socket with one of these:
However if you need protection from particularly troublesome mains then you would need to look at a proper mains conditioner or at least a line interactive UPS
On the other hand, some of the makers do have apparently rather generous payouts for damaged equipment. I have no idea whether they do actually pay out or under what circumstances.
Owain
There really aren't many scenarios where the MOV will help. If you get a floating neutral and your supply creeps up to
400V, either the MOV won't trigger, or it will blow up. The scenarios where you get more than 400V mains voltage are vanishingly small. Lightning strikes tend to generate common mode spikes which the MOV won't see, or large voltages between differently earthed parts, which again this won't trap. Like David said, you can protect against lightning, but it will probably cost you more than your kit is worth. It's done on things like radio masts where the kit is more valuable and an interruption in service is not desirable. You can't simply buy something and plug it in though - it requires some special earthing design across the premises, as well as filters.
No RCDs do not. I have been in electronics for years, including in S Afgrica whose power is poor in stability and absolutely liable to lightning strikes.
The major source of issues is not power line strikes - these generally do not cause equipment damage due to the immmense loads on them waiting to short them out.
I have seen lighting strikes *nearby* knock equipment silly - but not via the mains. IN EVERY CASE THEY HAD WIRING CONNECTED TO THEM THAT RAN A LONG WAY. Viz audio distribution lines to remote loudspeakers, alarm wiring and telephone lines.
very near strikes can physically destroy the inputs of stuff connected to these low voltage lines. Whilst you can fit surge arrestors to telephone lines, they tend to f*ck up ADSL.
So what I have seen buggered by nearby (not direct strikes) is
Audio amplifier output stages on outdoor sound systems. Alarm inputs stages on large properties Anything connected to a phone. I have had at least three Netgears gifted to me that went 'odd' and never recovered after lightning storms. My current Billion router goes 'odd' and needs a cold reboot sometimes, but has survived.
I have had a direct strike on a telephone drop wire. The drop wire itself vanished. I did find a black smear on te road underneath.
That destroyed the modem attached to it (but US Robotics had a 'lifetime gurantee on all their modems, so cash free replacement) , the answering machine attached to it, the serial card unto which the modem was plugged, the parallel printer plugged into the same card..although I did get HP to fix it under warranty..three boards replaced. After that the arc jumped into the mains wiring, blew an unused TV socket out of the wall - literally - and destroyed a TV beyond economic repair, and a digital record deck to the point of needing repair - CMOS chip gone.
After that it ran up into the mains wiring and burnt a hole in the carpet where a light flex was trailing over the carpet and another one was tucked underneath it.
It cost the landlords insurance a complete rewire. They refused to insure him without it.
None of the above with the possible exception of the TV and record deck would have been protected with a surge arrestor.
None of the above was ever damaged by mains surges.
Conclusion. Mains surge arrestors are worth less than used toilet paper.
If you want protection against power outages, get a UPS. If you want protection against telephone line surges, don't get a Netgear. If you want protection against a direct strike, get insurance.
Is the MOV blowing up the criterion for getting the payout?
Looks like it is.
Q.- What happens if the Belkin product PASSES the testing procedure? Belkin will have to conclude that the damage was NOT caused by the Belkin product and will issue a denial letter. In order for us to consider a claim, we must find evidence of a surge having passed through the surge protector in question.
Q.- Does Belkin deal with a large number of claims? A.- No. Considering how many surge protectors we sell per month (which is over 1.7 million worldwide), our claims amount to less that 1/10th of 1% of our sales.
(and presumably that's claims, not payouts)
That'll be how a =A320 protector comes with a =A3175,000 Connected Equipment warranty then.
I suppose it would payout if you were careless enough to connect the surge protector to the mains through a 240-110V transformer connected in step-up rather than step-down mode.
Owain
Surge protection is the biggest marketing con trick perpetrated on the Great UK Public since the year dot. Don't waste your money. If you're really concerned, look into a whole-house solution (not particularly cheap, but effective) or run your sensitive electronics from a good UPS.
Indeed - was not suggesting they will achieve much in most cases, but was just highlighting that is what counts for surge suppression in many COTS mains extensions etc.
There are a few applications of them where they can help a little - they are not bad at snubbing spikes resulting from inductive back voltages on switching.
For example, I have a twin tape deck that always used to cause an audible click on any adjacent hifi kit when switched on or off. Adding a MOV to its mains lead dramatically improved it.
bout cable management.
rge protection built in? I was going to add some more plugs for behind the = AV unit but really I'd need them surge protected, and I'm trying to avoid h= aving a 4-way kicking around.
The benefits of surge absorbers on mains are approximately zero. The downside is fire risk. If you're running on an inductive generator switching a heavy load plus have something relatively sensitive connected, they can help reduce load dump transients - but other than that they're pretty much useless.
They have nowhere near the surga absorbing ability to handle lightning. All appliances need to be and normally are able to handle all real life mains voltage transients, other than lightning. Computers etc have far more protection against this built in than any MOV can offer.
If you still want some I can fit some 50p surge absorbers to some sockets and charge you an extra fiver each.
NT
No, thats solar panels and windmills.
It cant be higher than third.
Arguably its behind die=soon vacuum cleaners as well
Which will get blown up instead.
lightening strikes or random power surges (unlikely but possible?).=20
Your telco's $multi-million switching computer is connected to overhead wir= es all over town. Suffers about 100 surges with each storm. How often is = your town without phone service for four days while they replace that compu= ter? Never? Because protection from direct lightning strikes is routine.
But never provided by some 2 cm part that must either block or absorb a s= urge.
Well proven and inexpensive solutons means nobody even know the direct li= ghtning strike occurred. But another device, unformatunately also called a= protector, does not even claim to protect from destructive surges.
A destrutive surge is hundreds of thousands of joules. Where does that e= nergy dissiapte? That is the only solution found in every facility that ca= nnot have damage. They also do not waste money on protectors adjacent to e= quipment. They need protection. Because 100 surges with each storm means = no damage even to a protector.
How does the millimeters gap in an RCD stop what three kilometers of sky = could not? Anything that claims to block or absorb a surge is best called = an urban myth. RCD is for another (completely different) anomoly.
MOV isn't a good solution for regular spikes, because each spike uses up (burns out) a part of the device. When it's absorbed its total Joule rating, it won't work anymore.
Oh, have the pikeys made-off with Bob's signature?
You can only walk over the bridge so many times before waking what lies beneath!
Probably not a problem in this situation - I doubt its been turned on more than 50 times in the 20 years I have owned it ;-)
In article , snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com writes
[usual scaremongering s**te snipped]Hey ho, w_twat rides again.
In article , The Natural Philosopher writes
I see westom1, aka w_tom, aka w_tom1, aka w_twat, has crawled out from under his rock again.
Surge protectors are just that, they work to shunt surges (voltage peaks, voltage spikes) to earth to prevent them reaching the downstream equipment. They don't claim to protect against lightning strikes.
But they're only useful if they have common mode protection - a MOV between L&N, L&E and N&E. El-cheapo models have just the one MOV across L&E.
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