mearle , go and check your fuse bx and look at the circuit breakers to see if they all ready have surge protection built in . You will be able to tell because they usually have a small button above the switch , if you see a button then that circuit is protected from surges and you don't need one on that circuit .

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thanks Glen,
I just checked that. I never knew about those buttons. The only ones that have buttons are like for the heavy duty stuff. AC, Kitchen, etc. None for the other rooms where my computers are.

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

Then they may not be protectected so a surge protector is a good idea . If there is one on the main breaker for the whole house then you are protected . but still sounds like it would not hurt to have one on the plug for the computer anyway.

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mearle , go and check your fuse bx and look at the circuit breakers to see if they all ready have surge protection built in . You will be able to tell because they usually have a small button above the switch , if you see a button then that circuit is protected from surges and you don't need one on that circuit .

Surge protecting circuit breakers are not common in the US for residential applications. Probably due to their fairly high cost compared to standard breakers.

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mearle , go and check your fuse bx and look at the circuit breakers to see if they all ready have surge protection built in . You will be able to tell because they usually have a small button above the switch , if you see a button then that circuit is protected from surges and you don't need one on that circuit .

Surge protecting circuit breakers are not common in the US for residential applications. Probably due to their fairly high cost compared to standard breakers.

The breakers with test buttons are usually monitoring for earth (ground) leakage, rather than surges.

mearle , go and check your fuse bx and look at the circuit breakers to see if they all ready have surge protection built in . You will be able to tell because they usually have a small button above the switch , if you see a button then that circuit is protected from surges and you don't need one on that circuit .

Surge protecting circuit breakers are not common in the US for residential applications. Probably due to their fairly high cost compared to standard breakers.

The breakers with test buttons are usually monitoring for earth (ground) leakage, rather than surges.

Indeed GFCI/AFCI breakers have been mandatory for new installations for some time.
The surge protection breakers have an indicator light. Rather than any kind of test button. When it goes out you have lost your surge protection and must replace the whole breaker. At great cost. Standard breakers are ~$5-$10, GFCI/AFCI breakers ~$30-$40, surge breakers ~$80-$120.

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Well hal 900 it spose you have a slightly different system over there . My fuse box does say it a protected cuircuit as i found out the other night while playing around trying to fix a faulty PSU but i guess i shouldn't do things like that at 2 am when i'm tired other wise you tend to do some silly things like leave the paper clip i was using to turn it on under the main board . Wonder if that was why it went BANG POP SIZZLE and scared the hell out of me . And to think i almost got it working , well it did before that happened , it don't now .

yeh yeh have a laugh i'm a silly bugger i know

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Not previously mentioned here is the possibility that whatever surge protection was originally provided by a device may be effectively used up. There's a lot of discussion elsewhere on the web.

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-surge-protector/ reviewed protectors last February, the testing methodology and other information is good IMO.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/everyday-tech/surge-protector.htm attempts to explain the devices in less technical language, for the most part successfully.

If I were building a top end crunching machine costing several thousand dollars, I think I'd add suppression using the different technology from http://www.zerosurge.com/.

                                                                   Joe

Those are interesting but you will still need a back up battery source following it to your computer. But it definitely has me thinking.

Every time I start to think. My wallet falls out of my pocket.

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

Those are interesting but you will still need a back up battery source following it to your computer. But it definitely has me thinking.

Yes, for an expensive cruncher I'd also use a good pure sine wave UPS after the surge protection. Although a good PSU should be able to handle the "modified sine wave" produced by a cheaper UPS, that approximation differs a lot from the expected input to the PSU.

"What you can get away with" would not be my choice.

                                                                   Joe

... If I were building a top end crunching machine costing several thousand dollars, I think I'd add suppression using the different technology from http://www.zerosurge.com/. ...

Joe, I looked at these products but they are all 120V 50-60Hz. Do you know of anyone selling units for the 220-240V 50-60Hz crowd?

... If I were building a top end crunching machine costing several thousand dollars, I think I'd add suppression using the different technology from http://www.zerosurge.com/. ...

Joe, I looked at these products but they are all 120V 50-60Hz. Do you know of anyone selling units for the 220-240V 50-60Hz crowd?

In the commercial category, ZeroSurge does have a couple of models which protect either two 120v circuits or one 240v. The only other company I know of selling similar systems (and probably manufactured by ZeroSurge) is Brick Wall. That's a U.S. company too.

I would expect there to be someething similar for the rest of the world, but haven't come across any references.

{edit} The general category would be series surge suppressor/protector. They block or delay the excess energy while MOV type protectors work by shunting the excess energy to ground or neutral.

                                                                  Joe

... I would expect there to be someething similar for the rest of the world, but haven't come across any references.
...

Thanks for checking. Unfortunately, the 240V solution is actually two 120V legs so it can't be used here (Vietnam) since here it is 220V single leg.

We have plenty of suppliers in the UK.
I'm pretty certain if you look around countries where 220/230 50Hz single phase (leg as you call it) is the normal domestic supply you will find them. Prices will vary considerably on market, so take the figures and brands quoted by our American contributors as a guide only.

My most powerful UPS, a "home brew" 3kw, 230V 50Hz beast (output rating) is capable of operating off any input from 45Hz to 65Hz (well, that's the range I've tested) 90v to 275v. Not a particularly clever input, just a fairly standard 1.2kHz chopper, controlled rectifier loading onto the battery bank, a 50HZ locked (+/-0.2Hz across the load range) frequency inverter, stable from 10w to 3kW inductive and resistive loads (a friend designed it and we built two of them, he had one, and I have the other). So it can be done! I'd love to build another one, but sadly I don't have the design data any longer :-(

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

@ rob smith: That is one hefty UPS you guys home built! Do you run it "always on" to power your load? Or does it switch on when the main power stops?

UPS units are available in Vietnam. What I was looking for was a "series surge suppressor/protector" for the 220V single leg(phase) mains here. Your rig would qualify even if the battery bank is small if it always powers your load. Does your friend have the schematics?

Edit: I already use a whole house voltage regulator.

Always on, and has been on for over five years.
It was built as "We're sure we can do better" project, and we did...
It first use was to smooth out the outputs from small generators for some serious test equipment, once the job was finished they were deemed "surplus to requirements by management and we "disposed of them in a careful manner". Biggest problem was getting the battery pack into the back of the car....
I very much doubt that he has, as he died a couple of years back, and his wife just threw out all his "waste paper" :-( Also a lot of it was developed on the hoof, very little was actually written down.
His son now has the unit, but I've lost touch with him (he was always a very "remote" lad, and kept moving from place to place. I'd really like to get my hands on the schematics and our scribblings for the control side of the beast as it was designed to be scalable between about 2kW and 100kW by simple mods to the input and output stages (and of course the battery pack - we used a 96v battery link because we had an suitable input chopper thanks to work....

Any half decent always-on UPS should be able to cope with surges and transients provided the input is isolated from the output by the battery pack, but there are a lot that are not "full-on", but "drop-in". We opted for "full-on" so there was no chance of surges getting through.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

... Any half decent always-on UPS should be able to cope with surges and transients provided the input is isolated from the output by the battery pack, but there are a lot that are not "full-on", but "drop-in". ...

Yes. The UPS units here are a bit pricey (big import tax), and with 8 "always on" and 1 sometimes on computers, I need a lot of juice. I can't really afford the isolated units.

Thanks.

I just got my VR. There are 4 outlets but one of them is labeled Transformer Block AC Outlet. Can someone tell me why this one outlet is so labeled? What does it mean?

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

I just got my VR. There are 4 outlets but one of them is labeled Transformer Block AC Outlet. Can someone tell me why this one outlet is so labeled? What does it mean?

Well if it anything like the APC Line-R 1200VA AVR then it is just a outlet with spacing for a large block transformer. Commonly called a wall wart.

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