UPS or Surge Protector?

[[email protected]]

interesting rant about 'earth' grounding. its not as if such transients
actually can be 'sunk to ground anyway, its a bit of a myth. he is right
about one thing though, a whole house protector makes a lot more sense.

Only one problem with a lot of "whole house" suppressors.
They handle the noise coming in from outside - but do little about
harmonics and transients generated inhouse.
Digital power supplies are inherently noisy - good ones don't let much
noise out onto the line, but with the "engineered by accountants"
products generally "procured by accountants" the noise fed back onto
the grid, or in the case of a whole house suppression protected
building, into the wiring of the house or office, is significant.

A Dual Conversion UPS does not suppress this noise, it totally blocks
it. Keeps the "house" line totally clean - and does not let the sags,
spikes, and phase shifts caused by process machinery, photocopiers,
airconditioners, etc get close to the system power supplies.

Even a good "line interactive" UPS is a help. Since putting ALL of the
computers in the office onto UPS, with the servers on dual conversion,
we have not suffered a motherboard, processor, or ram failure in over
a year. We were averaging one every 3 months or so prior. The Fujitsu
MPG hard drives continued to die untill we had them all replaced - put
they were a known problem - and we have still lost a few of the "dirt
cheap" ATX power supplies ( 2 this year), instead of 4 or 5 last year.

Usually power line noise and irregularities do not kill a computer
outright, but they degrade components until one day a cap shorts, or a
diode lets go, or a processor gasps it's last and you have an
"unexplained" failure.

Over the 16 years I've been in the IT business, power has become
progressively worse - with more and larger anomolies.

 

[[email protected]]

Why should the torroid fail? It's not doing anything
effective for protection. Do you think a silly little
torroid is stopping, blocking, or absorbing the destructive
transient?

It most certainly is. Effectively? Maybee not. It is a CHOKE which
tends to dampen spikes by absorbing power as voltage rises quickly.
(magnetic saturation)

Of course not, which is why a destructive
transient does not even damage the torroid. Even in that
Isobar, the primary protector remains its MOVs - just like any
other plug-in protector.

If you are saying to not buy another Isobar, then I agree.
However I read your post to say buy an Isobar, or install a
'whole house' protector. Is that the point of your post?

So what does that Iosbar "insurance" protect?

All the "insurance" does is what any insurance does - gives you a
"false" sense of security. Know anyone who's actually collected on any
of those when a device fails???
Not likely, because most damage caused by power problems is not
immediate, and therefore not directly traceable to the failure of the
"surge protector"

The
protector? History says plug-in protectors have numerous fine
print exemptions that result in no replacement of damaged
appliances. Furthermore, benchmarks in protection (ie
Polyphaser) offer no "insurance" - no warranty. Instead
serious protectors promote actual protection. A lesser
warranty means a better protector.

Reality is to earth a transient before it seeks earth
ground, destructively, via that appliance.

This is only PARTLY true.
Common mode noise is where both line and neutral (L1 and L2) vary
from earth potential at the same time. These voltage excursions need
to be clamped to ground.
Noise on the "live" wire, in relation to neutral and/or
ground,(between L1 and L2) needs to be "clamped". This is why a good
"surge protector" has transorbs between the two "lines" as well as
from "line" to ground.

 

[Anthony Matonak]

A Dual Conversion UPS does not suppress this noise, it totally blocks
it. Keeps the "house" line totally clean - and does not let the sags,
spikes, and phase shifts caused by process machinery, photocopiers,
airconditioners, etc get close to the system power supplies.

....

I've heard of some instances where the power was bad enough that they
had to use motor/generators to get it clean enough. This is a rather
extreme example of a dual conversion system.

Anthony

 

[daestrom]

...

I've heard of some instances where the power was bad enough that they
had to use motor/generators to get it clean enough. This is a rather
extreme example of a dual conversion system.

Actually, motor-generators were used quite a bit for isolation/reliability
before advances in solid-state electronics. Have seen units with three
machines on one shaft, AC motor for normal drive, DC generator for charging
batteries that can revert to DC motor to continue to drive shaft when AC
power is lost, and AC generator to supply isolated load at all times.
Maintenance is high, and power quality can be excellent. But a bit
expensive for your average homeowner :-/

daestrom

 

[w_tom]

Lets look at the output of this plug-in UPS. Claims to
output 120 VAC in battery backup mode. Therefore it outputs
two 200 volt square waves with a 280 volt spike between those
square waves. Is that noisy or harmful to electronics? No.
Electronics must be so resilient that even the 280 volt spike
on 120 VAC main is irrelevant. However don't put small motors
on this output. Same UPS output that is no problem to
electronics could even damage small electric motors.

Is the electricity too dirty? A useless question until
details of "dirty" are defined. I read many claims. Some
make sense. Some are total urban myth. None are sufficient
to draw conclusions until electrical details are provided.
But we do know a 100 mH inductor in a plug-in protector does
nothing effective. After all, electronics must even contain
equivalent or superior filter inside the supply.

Shunt mode surge protectors do nothing for noise, harmonic,
brownouts, or blackouts. Protectors are only for a fifth type
of electrical problem - surges. IOW a shunt mode protector
does not detect - does not even see - the transient until
transient on 120 VAC main exceeds 300 volts. Noise and
harmonics don't exist at anywhere near to those voltages.
Therefore noise and harmonics are completely ignored - not
addressed - by a plug-in protector.

Too many would post urban myths about protectors solving
harmonics, noise, brownout, and blackout problems. Protector
manufacturers do not even claim to do that. Plug-in
manufacturers don't even claim protection from the destructive
type of surge (obviously - no earth ground). So why would
anyone recommend these things? One cannot even provide
numbers for his speculations.

A surge protector is only as effective as its earth ground.
That is what protectors do. They don't stop, block, filter,
isolated, or absorb. They shunt. They connect a transient to
surge protection - earth ground. Period.

Problems created by noise, harmonics, blackouts and
brownouts, and surges can be solved by a building wide UPS.
One reason why - building UPS has a short dedicated connection
to central earth ground. Major difference between a building
wide UPS and any plug-in protector.

 

[[email protected]]

[email protected] wrote:
...
...

I've heard of some instances where the power was bad enough that they
had to use motor/generators to get it clean enough. This is a rather
extreme example of a dual conversion system.

Anthony

There is no power problem so severe a Ward-Leonard system is required
to fix it. Anything that can be done electromechanically in this
instance can be done electronically.
In years past, the Ward Leonard was the only economically viable
method, as solid state electronics were not available.