Power Conditioners / Stabilizers / UPS Backup

[Sonnie Parker]

My room is on a dedicated 100 amp circuit, but I have no idea if my power is clean and/or if it even matters... or how to test it.

I see a lot of money thrown at power conditioning and such. I use to be a Panamax guy and had a couple of their higher end units in my system years ago but did away with them after some dealers at a show told me I was doing more harm than good. They said just go with a regular surge protector, but I apparently did not get a very good one and learned my lesson about lightening... and had quite a bit of damage to several electronics from a lightening strike surge several years ago. The Furman surge protector I had my equipment plugged into did nothing at all to help... and Furman just said "oops, sorry about that". I ended up getting a Zero Surge 8R15W-I box to plug my processor and amps into, and use Tripp Lite Isobar units for the smaller stuff.

What are you using, why, and do you really know if it's helping... and do you have a UPS backup?

 

[mechman]

I use an Ethereal ESP-602R in both my living and theater rooms. No idea whether it helps or not and no UPS.

If I recall correctly, Tony turned me onto these two for a really good price back at the old forum.

 

[NBPK402]

I have used a Leviton whole house surge protector in my last 4 homes. In my 1st home my neighbor across the streets house was struck by lighting...no damages to my home, butmy house has never been struck directly either. I also run APC UPSs for our internet right at the routers, and 2 more in my AV rack.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

It was really odd when it hit us. I can't say for sure if it hit the house, as we never saw any evidence of an actual strike to the house. We heard a super loud clack... lost power and the TV did not come back on... then we started discovering electronics not working. Cable model went out, Dish receiver went out, amp channels on an amp got fried, processor went out, projector got zapped, phone base zapped... and there were a few other things that got zapped, can't remember them all. We looked everywhere for where it sounded like it hit the house, which was on the dish satellite, OTA, phone/cable/electrical end of the house... but we never could see any evidence outside. A week or so later part of our huge Bradford pair tree split and fell. It was about 30-40 feet from the house, but you could tell it has fresh burn marks where it split, and the splits were fresh. This was where the lightening hit, and apparently traveled underground to the house, or perhaps it was just close enough to cause damage in some other way.

The kicker here... we supposedly have whole house protection thru our power company. I called them... they did away with the warranty protection it offers several years ago and sent out notices that I apparently did not get or possibly ignored.

Since then we've made a little more effort to get respectable surge protectors on most everything.

 

[linearphase]

Unless you live in an area of no electrical storms, everybody needs a whole house surge suppressor ,Type 2, installed in the breaker box. We have not had single appliance failure in 42 years in three houses attributable to surges. Everyone around us in all three cases have not had suppressors and have lost more than two dozen. To be fair we have never had a direct strike, nothing will protect you from that, but a tree about 40 ft from our house was hit with a force that left small tree splinters all over the neighborhood. Our lights barely flickered. In that strike more than 10 appliances were destroyed some showing major electrical damage. . I replaced only our damaged surge supressor for less than $100.
Not very scientific but statistically significant. They are cheap ( about $300 installed) even if you pay an electrician to install, which I highly recommend. If you know what you are doing it takes about 15 minutes.
One good example is EATON CHSPT2ULTRA.

Even better is to add an outside suppressor, Type 1 , installed under the meter , to supplement the whole house breaker panel suppressor, these are not as cheap and require a power disconnect to do safely. These are the best device to prevent damage in the event of a nearby but not direct lightening strike. Not a DIY task.

I personally do not recommend or use local equipment surge suppressors. Because of the unknown and highly variable wiring characteristics of the internal house wiring these can actually make surge voltages higher. Worse they can also increase line noise and affect SQ because the device they use to suppress spikes act as a conduit for noise to travel from line to neutral and line to ground. They also have a tendency to catch fire so if you feel you must use one it is best to select a steel enclosure and place it on non flammable material.

A very basic, but good, discussion and the various type of surge suppressors is

Types of SPDs : Type 1, 2, 3 & 4 Surge Protection Devices

Discover types of surge protection devices (SPDs), including Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, and Type 4, to safeguard electrical systems from damaging voltage spikes.

www.rfwireless-world.com

UPS help tremendously if you have systems like computers or routers that can go crazy after power interruption but generally don’t do much for surges.


Line filtration selection is much harder.
Surge suppressors do not, in general, offer great noise suppression.


Not everybody needs line filters. Something like Sonny’s Zero surge or the Brick Wall family are good if you have no ability to measure.
That requires a high voltage isolated differential input oscilloscope, a test fixture, and the knowledge how to correctly and safely use it to measure normal and common mode noise. I have measured a number of peoples houses and they vary widely in the noise present. Common noise sources include switching power supplies which are everywhere these days, wireless devices in the house, DIMMERS, and local AM and FM radio stations.

Basically though unless you can measure or find someone who can, line filtration is hit or miss. Using a non suitable device is likely to not produce good results and may in fact make the problem worse.

Other basic power improvements are possible. The best document I have have found is no longer available on the internet. However I am happy to forward a copy on request. Contact me offline.
A good and a bit more basics document is here.

https://bennettprescott.com/downloads/grounding_tutorial.pdf

 

[linearphase]

Just found a copy: the company has been bought by another but I found this elsewhere. It is the best document of its type I have ever found. Ton of great tidbits here:

https://www.jhbrandt.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Integrating_Electronic_Equipment_and_Power_Into_Rack_Enclosures.pdf

 

[Sittler27]

If you live near a modern city with good clean power, do you really need all this stuff?

 

[linearphase]

If you live near a modern city with good clean power, do you really need all this stuff?

As far as noise pickup It is less likely though it is really hard to say. Filtering would likely not make a huge difference unless you have a large source of interference.
For transients the size of the city is of no consequence. Indeed big cities have potentially more. I live in Houston which is a pretty large modern city. Lots of electrical problems.
But your mileage may vary.

 

[Jeff Grucella]

I use APC h10 power conditioner and it stopped the hiss I had in my speakers nothing ells worked . my speakers a dead quit even with your ears up against the drivers since I put the APC in