[Elecraft] [OT} Whole House Surge Protection

[Alan Bloom]

The problem is it is getting hard to find decent-quality outlet strips 
that DON'T have surge protection built in.  I am currently building up a 
second studio for KBBF-FM, a community bi-lingual station here in Santa 
Rosa.  I wanted an outlet strip with some sockets spaced far enough 
apart to accommodate several wall transformers.  I found the perfect 
device at Home Depot, but it has surge protection built in.

Should I crack it open and remove the MOVs?

Alan N1AL


On 2/1/2013 12:02 PM, Jim Brown wrote:
> On 2/1/2013 10:21 AM, Mark Bayern wrote:
>> Someone brought out the fact that a power strip or some other device
>> with a surge protector built in should cover everything on that
>> particular leg.  It's a parallel circuit.
>
> Nope.  ANY shunt mode device (MOV) operates by conducting the spike to
> the green wire or the neutral.  The resulting current raises the voltage
> on the green wire (which is connected to the chassis of the equipment
> plugged into the "protected" outlet) to some very high value, depending
> on the spike that sets it off. In the case of lightning, this can be a lot.
>
> Now, consider equipment connected to two different power strips, with or
> without an MOV, or to different locations, or to another ground.  ALL of
> those other points will be at a different potential as a result of
> seeing the same spike, and again, in the case of lightning, that can be
> a VERY large difference. it is the DIFFERENCE in potential from one
> piece of gear to the other that fries those Ethernet ports, and it would
> also fry signal interconnect circuitry for audio and video.
>
> THIS is why MOVs are a really bad idea on branch circuits. Those of us
> working in pro audio have LOTS of interconnected equipment, often at
> widely separated points, so we learned all of this the hard way nearly
> 20 years ago. Our solution has been to use SERIES-MODE Surge Protectors,
> and that has been quite effective.  SurgeX and Brick Wall are the only
> two companies I know of that have licensed the series mode patent. Their
> products are not cheap, but they work.  I have SurgeX protectors on all
> of my ham gear, computers, and audio/video gear.
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
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