PC Peripherals Surefire way to protect my computer from voltage spikes

Status
Not open for further replies.
U

ubergeek

Forerunner
Hey guys,

i know many of you here own lot of costly electronic equipments,how do youprotect them from voltage spikes or power surge or overvolatges?

I lost my 5 year old x-530 due to this my spike protector didnt blow its fuse but strangely enough my modem and other components were perfectly fine.

so anyhow in order to prevent this from happening in the future iam,iam thinking about buying an stabilizer,ill be connecting the stablizer to a powerstrip and all the other devices like my swithc,my pogo plug sepakers will go into the surge protector oh yeah even my UPS too, so do you think this is a surefire way to protect my computer and its peripherals againts the dreaded voltage spikes?

Please share your thoughts on this cause iam pretty sure a lot of people here have the same question.

thanks
 
I'm also looking for answer to this.

Yesterday my TV went kaput due a lightning strike nearby our house (the surge entered through power line). Can a good quality surge protector help in this regard. I have RCCB installed in my home. It tripped when the lightning struck but my TV which was on at that time fell victim to the surge
<
. Surprisingly my laptop was on at that time (running on AC adapter) which survived as well as the modem, router.
 
59 views and only one reply? so i take that no one here has any electronic perpiherals connected to your power outlet
<
 
^ dude i think connecting ups to stabilizer is not good!! When there is voltage fluc stabilizer will go offline...depends upon the brand there will be a small time gap for coming online again :! I am using apc connected to main directly and a belkin connected to ups !!
 
You will not be needing a voltage stabilizer along with UPS. Almost all UPS have inbuilt voltage stabilizer. However voltage stabilizers & UPS' are designed to deal with a continuous low or high voltage within their tolerance levels. They aren't really meant to meant to handle sudden high spikes, like when lightning strikes. I've seen people (on *hifivision*) with expensive TV's, hooked to voltage stabilizers, being hit when lightning struck.

Most 'spike busters', to me, seem like a plug-extension with a fuse attached. I'm not really sure how much these can actually protect in case of a sudden spike, like a lightning strike.

I don't have an answer to what can reliably protect equipment from lightning strikes. Awaiting to see practical experiences on this, from members who had a lightning strike.
 
Can you predict the duration and magnitude of the spike, as well as when it will occur?

If not, you've to understand that there is no surefire cure. Predictability leads to predictability.

There are two ways of doing this. One is to disconnect the equipment before the spike occurs.

The second is to absorb the spike, like a crash zone on a car. And much like it, this usually destroy whichever is the path of least resistance.

A 'spike buster' usually has a MOV across the line terminals to absorb the energy from the spike, but this is a single use device. For low-magnitude spikes it may survive to absorb another, but usually not.

The only guaranteed way of surviving (well, not really) is to get a device with a 'connected equipment guarantee'. This does not protect the equipment better, just ensures you can afford to replace them.

Other techniques that may help are to use circuit breakers with a rating very close to load so that momentary overload shuts down the system. This is less reliable but may be one more step close to safety.

As for lightning, nothing can help you. I had one strike take out the adapter of my Linksys router and the LAN chip on the motherboard which was connected through the router. The router itself was fine, and so was the motherboard so I guess I was lucky. It depends on whether you are - though a good lightning rod can help avoid a strike on your house, it cannot protect from another bolt hitting a cable (internet, electricity, phone or cable TV) and somehow finding a path through your devices.
 
^

So, can we buy MOV from electronic spare market and install them in the existing spike busters (if they don't have any). Also, can we replace the MOVs after a lightning strike? What would be a suitable rating?
 
You can make a simple series choke filter to iron out a few of the issues.

For the rating of the varistor, there are two ways to look at it. One is immediate protection with a fused series path so you would typically select a 320-400V device.

The other is a pure protection scheme where you would typically pick a 700-1kV unit. Both in parallel are fine as well.

Do note that the lower rated varistor is a fire hazard in the case of sustained overvoltage.

These are not surefire cures. The only 'foolproof' method is a gas suppressor with a crowbar across the supply line and a circuit breaker. This provides repeatable, predictable surge behaviour with a quick arrestor and a disconnect. MCB type devices are not quick enough for most suppression tasks so the crowbar is required.

A crowbar basically short-circuits the mains through a small load, but large enough to trip the breaker. It is a suicide device, and very effective if the right components are used. A lot of the better power supplies in computers come with crowbars fitted for voltage protection at the supply outputs.

Frankly, a UPS is a pretty safe bet. while it doesn't provide much protection, it usually is the path of least resistance and will self-destruct before anything downstream. It's not the best thing for audio devices, but then again most properly designed audio equipment does not get too badly affected by the occasional surge. Most computers have an input coil that provides a small degree of margin for the occasional benign spike caused by your AC or fridge turning on.
 
I have a APC 1.1KVA. I was under the impression that it does a good job of spike buster too. Do I need a Belkin or some other spike buster in between now? What is MOV?

(Asking this as most of the matter above goes above my head
1ign13.gif
 
^^ Don't think you will need a separate surge protector if you have a UPS, but do note that in many UPS, only certain sockets are surge protected, not all.

As for MOV, it refers to Metal Oxide Varistor. Often there are the only component used in some surge protectors. For instance, in a reliance branded surge protector that I got from Reliance Digital, They had only a MOV across the line and earth. when a surge above the limit of the MOV comes in, the MOV becomes a low resistance path for the current in effect creating a sort of short circuit bypassing all the equipment you have connected. the MOV may burn down as a result, but it will save your connected equipment from damage. But the thing to be noted is that this MOV can be quite a fire hazard once it gets damaged.
 
The Belkin 8 socket gold surge suppressor has a gas suppressor as per the feature list in the packing. It is somewhat expensive at 1.5K
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom