Electrical question. Help needed.

[maroonandwhite]

I am planning on installing this outlet behind my plasma tv which I will hang on the wall. I have never had any dealings with this type of surge suppressor so any first hand knowledge would be appreciated. Also most of my home has ungrounded wiring. Obviously it would be better if I can wire this into a grounded circuit but I am wondering if it will provide any protection to the TV if on a non grounded circuit. It is my understanding surge suppressors usually route the excess power to the ground but this outlet has a little insert in it that will "burn up" I believe. I am a little confused by it myself. They don't provide a description on that website but these things are all over the internet and I still could not find my answer. Thanks

[peejman]

Sounds like nothing more than a fancy in-line fuse, so yes it should work in a non-grounded circuit. If the breaker for the circuit is less than 15 amps, I believe this device will do nothing other than providing a neat way to route your cables.

[seez52]

some surge suppressors will show "fault" if they are not plugged into a grounded outlet.

[maroonandwhite]

Well if it is wired to a grounded outlet it should operate like any of the bar type surge suppressors. My problem is I am not sure how the bar type surge suppressors work in the first place. If they do operate off of a ground wire then I would also say just a fancy way to run cables (what I was going for anyways). I just wonder if it could be some type of fuse that would trip if a certain voltage was reached and did not require a ground. I do know the outlet will still supply power if the surge unit insert is burnt out so that would leave me to believe without a ground it is nothing more than an outlet. I dunno though

[G27]

Why not just get a panel MOV (surge suppressor0 and protect the whole house? They're only about $100.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hi bendbolden

The specs are sparse on the web page, but it doesn't appear to contain a ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI). Not that a GFCI is necessarily needed for this application. The price wouldn't imply much fancy going on inside the device.

Ususally inexpensive surge supressors will have some MOV devices and possibly some small inductors and maybe a capacitor or three.

The inductors and capacitors are to block medium and high frequency interference on the line, either interference entering from other equipment on that AC circuit, or interference coming from connected devices that you might not want propogating out to other things on the AC circuit.

The MOV devices are two wire gadgets which have nearly infinite resistance below a breakdown voltage, and low resistance above a breakdown voltage. For AC protection, the breakdown voltage is set at least somewhat higher than the expected line voltage.

Many surges are very brief, such as quick spikes from nearby lightning strikes. The MOV's can "eat" such spikes by shorting them out before they get to your equipment. MOV's can typically survive lots of very brief spikes over the lifetime. If they get hit with longer-duration spikes or really high voltage spikes they eventually fail. Sometimes they fail "open" and occasionally they can fail "closed" which would just kick out that circuit's breaker in your house breaker box until you replace the outlet.

Sometimes there are three MOV's-- One MOV between the hot and neutral, one MOV between hot and ground, and one between neutral and ground. Neutral and ground are bonded together at the breaker box if you have a grounded circuit and often they will be at nearly the same voltage, but it isn't good when something goes wrong and that is no longer the case, which is why one would want a suppressor in the first place.

As far as I know it is not wise to connect the outlet's ground terminal to your neutral wire. Just put a wire nut on the ground wire from the outlet and let it float is the best you can do in an ungrounded circuit, I think. If that is wrong hopefully someone will correct the statement.

In other words without connecting the ground wire in the suppressor, if it has 3 MOV's in the box, then only the MOV connected between hot and neutral will actually protect against anything, but some protection is better than none.

[maroonandwhite]

Why not just get a panel MOV (surge suppressor0 and protect the whole house? They're only about $100.

I googled that but no good info. Any specific companies or common names?

Also upon further reading and kind of wrapping my head around it I believe I will need a ground. I believe the internal MOV just sends the surge to ground (which I wouldn't have). I should be able to run this outlet to a grounded circuit but may not be easy.

[maroonandwhite]

Thanks Lester Weevils. That clarified alot. I believe I understand the concept of the MOV. Honestly I don't think I'll have trouble running to a grounded outlet but I was just wondering "what if". Thanks again

[G27]

I googled that but no good info. Any specific companies or common names?

Depends on who makes your breaker panel(s): BREAKER TYPE SURGE PROTECTOR

(note, I'm not advocating the retailer, it was just the first one I found with my google search to let you know what I'm talking about)

[maroonandwhite]

Thanks crimsonaudio! I had seen the GFCI breakers before but never the surge breakers. I will look into that if I can't tap into a grounded outlet.

[maroonandwhite]

I think the only issue I would run into with the surge breaker is if the surge originates from the within the circuit. If I am wrong please correct me but say the tv is plugged into the 3rd outlet in the chain. If the surge originates from something plugged into the first or second outlet I would think the TV could still receive the surge. Doesn't the breaker only protect from surges before it makes it to the panel?

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I think very brief occasional spikes are the only ones that the least expensive suppressors are good for. That and a certain amount of interference suppression. Lightning and occasional goofups by the power company make most of the brief spikes. You might get some from household gear. Maybe a big electric motor kicking on or off on the same circuit or maybe even an adjacent circuit.

When they first started selling MOV's (afaik in the late 60's early 70's) the electronic component company brochures made claim that many "mysterious failures" especially in transistor equipment, could be traced to large very brief spikes that a person would never even notice from the lights flickering or whatever. The theory that the large brief spike would propogate into a transistor and "poke a hole" thru the substrate causing the device to fail. And transistor devices of that time period, once one transistor gave it up, it often caused an avalanche that would destroy lots of semiconductors in a few milliseconds. Modern designs and devices lower the odds of catastrophic failure, but it was common back then.

I think those old brochures were correct, but maybe they exaggerated the case to sell more MOV's.

A MOV suppressor can't survive long in an electrically noisy environment. For instance if you connect an MOV suppressor to a cheap bad portable generator, those things make repetetive large brief spikes on every cycle and will fry a MOV suppressor in quick order.

The next step up from a supprssor would be a "power conditioner". Tripplite makes some pretty nice power conditioners and many computer UPS's have the same stuff in em. A power conditioner will typically have better interference filtering, the MOV's, and a boost-buck circuit to adapt to brownouts or modest voltage surges. In the less expensive devices nowadays the boost-buck comes from an autoformer with multiple taps. The taps are switched by an electronic voltage sensing circuit. If the voltage gets brown, it switches to a "boost" tap that brings the voltage back near 120 volts. If the voltage gets too high, maybe 140 or 150 volts, the circuit switches to a buck tap that cuts the voltage back down to the 120 volt range.

That kind of power conditioner would also fail in short order connected to a bad enough portable generator, but they are pretty good protection connected to commercial power.

There are other more expensive protections you can get, which are not really practical except in special cases where the protection is worth the big bucks.

edit: The Tripplite conditioners operate on a principle of protecting as much as they can, and then failing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of more expensive equipment connected to the conditioner. So occasionally a Tripplite conditioner really will give its life to save its load. Other times the load will get destroyed too. But the Tripplites are pretty nice compared to no protection at all.

Edited August 9, 2011 by Lester Weevils

[G27]

I think the only issue I would run into with the surge breaker is if the surge originates from the within the circuit. If I am wrong please correct me but say the tv is plugged into the 3rd outlet in the chain. If the surge originates from something plugged into the first or second outlet I would think the TV could still receive the surge. Doesn't the breaker only protect from surges before it makes it to the panel?

No, the surge will follow the path of least resistance, which will be the MOV - this is why the whole house breaker panel surge protectors work...

[zapfbroad]

details on monoprice for that item are sparse bordering on sketchy besides. for $40 bucks you should be able to find something in target/walmart/best buy etc. go with g.e., belkin, panamax or monster or other Brand. find something with a joule rating of 1000 or greater.. most 6 outlet strip are about 105 joules. a power conditioner 150-200 is best for a high end t.v. but not justified for most plasma's under 1500 etc. a ups backup is good for allowing fans and boards to power down correctly as opposed to ending abruptly however their actual 'stopping' (mov) is lower. also depending on what you're hooking up consider getting a unit that will provide protection for coaxial cables or ethernet cables. if you're running a surround system with in wall hdmi to a receiver have the receiver and any cable/sat. boxes and blurays, game consoles covered with adequate protection etc. like someone else said electricity is fluid and seeks the path of least resistance and is supaH-fast. cover all your connected devices basically. don't sacrifice quality for convenience. the best way really is the whole house surge protector crimsonaudio suggested. otherwise you can find a brand name surge unit with actual ul rating and listed joule ratings for under 50 bucks. try something like Amazon.com: Belkin BE108200-06 8 Outlet Home/Office Surge Protector with Telephone Protection: Electronics

Edited August 12, 2011 by zapfbroad

[maroonandwhite]

Thanks guys. I have decided to go ahead and use this outlet as it is a quality outlet but I am also going with a surge breaker. Regarding the strip surge protectors mentioned above. I have several of those but just thought it easier than trying to run some type of jumper through the wall and hiding the strip. Again thanks for all the info!

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I don't have an elaborate living room AV system, just a cable box, ancient tube TV, sony stereo receiver and ancient EV nearfield studio monitor speakers.

Lately I run that stuff off an APC Back-UPS 1500 computer UPS, same model as the ones on my computers. It isn't real expensive but is about right features for the money.

The UPS has surge suppression and boost-buck voltage regulation, and if voltage gets extremely low or high it just disconnects and runs off the battery. It isn't a huge UPS but will run at least an hour or two in an outage, depending on what I have turned on. Modest AV stuff doesn't draw as much current as a middlin-powerful desktop computer.

If you had a rack of audio amps and giant speakers and a huge plasma TV then a smallish UPS would not be adequate.

In addition, if you are real picky about listening to the finest sound during a tornado power outage you might want a pure-sine-wave UPS. More $$$.

Just sayin, nowadays if your entertainment system does not draw lots of watts, a $150 price range computer UPS isn't a bad choice.

I tend to avoid Monster brand anything, or devices targeted at the high-end home AV market. Just a personal opinion. Not dissin it. Maybe some of that stuff is worth every penny, but they are often over-priced for little or no added value. Often commercial-grade or studio-grade pro audio gear can be cheaper than "high-end" home AV stuff, and typically are better built for the money.

Some of the "very esoteric" chrome plated high end home esoteric power conditioners are so expensive that one might save money buying a small studio-grade ferroresonant voltage regulation balanced power system. The price would be in the thousands of bucks either way, but an old-tech big and heavy and ugly FR balanced power system most likely will last for decades and still be good as new, and FR systems are about as bullet-proof as an anvil.

Edited August 12, 2011 by Lester Weevils

[Guest nicemac]

I hate to be in a store and hear a pimple-faced kid tell someone that Monster cable will "really make a difference in the way your system sounds." What BS. If you have properly sized plain-jane generic copper cable, the sound will be the same. The only thing that stuff improves is the store's bottom line.

Likewise, the $60 hdmi and $30 gold-plated usb cables crack me up as well.

[zapfbroad]

Actually monster cables are among the crappiest when it comes to durability. We've got a bin at work of ones with broken off tips..weird kinks etc, we throw away nothing for some reason lol. The cheaper work Just as good and sometimes last longer. Monster has a 'few' reasonably priced surge protectors but they tend to run 15-20% more than other Brands. My point really is that for that price 40bucks you can get better tech if you forego the convenience of the plate deal. When it comes to tech I go by function, price then appearance. Its a tool to do a job that's all.

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[Guest Lester Weevils]

Yes, I only mentioned the monster brand because IIRC at the NAMM show a few years back they were showing off a giant monster-brand gold-plated power conditioner for several thousand bucks that didn't even have any voltage regulation. Dunno what was inside the thing except maybe a few coils, giant MOV's, and a few relays. Maybe even a neon spark gap protector!

[zapfbroad]

Probably had a flux capacitor to generate 2.21 jiggawatts of current from recycled refuse

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[Currently]

You get what you pay for, those 35 to 100 dollar surge suppressors are pretty limited with what they can do.

Surge suppression technology has come a long ways. It started with spark gap arresters in the old telephone operator days when they would get electrocuted from lightning strikes on the lines. MOV's were a step up but even those have their limitations that Lester described quite eloquently.

A good whole house surge suppresson system employs a combination of technologies to protect from different waveforms and types of surges. MOV's combined with silicon avalanching diodes and spark gap arresters depending on voltage and application. Data lines use neon tube where the gas gets ionized and conducts to ground.

One of the best whole house protectors is made by a company called Erico, their line of surge protection is called Critec. I bought the TDX100 for my house and it cost a bit over $600. There are cheaper models that do the same job but you cannot replace the components.

Linky => CRITEC

Any surge protection device is useless without a ground wire. It is legal according to NEC code to run an insulated green conductor to the bonding point in your service entrance for that outlet. I owned a house about ten years ago where I called the city electrical inspector and spent about a half hour speaking to him about my options. For part of my house, that was the only solution because it meant ripping the walls and some masonry out to replace that old two wire romex. I just had to tie the green conductor using zip ties every 16 inches or two feet ... I forget which, but the point is he approved the job.

Why surge protect the whole house? Well all these new fancy appliances now come with electronics boards that cost upwards of $300 and you have to wait for a month for them to come in. Then you have to schedule a repair visit ... is the person competent ... will they fix it ... or has the surge weakened another component so that it fails again a month later?

Also, how do you surge protect a 220V appliance ... gets interesting don't it?

Bottom line is the insurance companies have pushed and mandated the NEC 2011 to have mandatory surge suppression on all new constructions. However, most municipalities have not adopted that section yet because of contractors and homeowners screaming about additional cost.

Yet one thunderstorm can create a several thousand dollar claim.

Lightning does not have to strike a wire to create a surge ... lightning strike is several million volts. Everytime you have current, an EMF field is generated around the lighning bolt. This EMF field radiates out and contacts a wire which turns it into electricity again.

Basic physics.

Also there is no one surge suppressor that can handle it all. They work best when you layer them. You put one at the service entrance and then another one at point of use, whatever slips through the first one will be covered and dealt with by the second one.

Do it right the first time ... lay a grounding conductor to the bonding point of your service entrance. Get a good whole house protector and then use the one you bought at your television.

The old relay type washing machines are pretty bullet proof, however if you have one of these new fancy schmancy appliances that have circuit boards which by the way work on 5 volts DC, you may want to rethink your approach to protecting your investment.

[Guest Oaklands]

Do a little research on Powervar. It is a commercial product we offer to our customers. Great product. I have all my entertainment system on it. If you decide you want one, let me know and I will cut you a good price on one. Just need to know how many amps you are going to pull.

Sent from my Toshiba Thrive using Tapatalk.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks Currently and Oaklands for the links to the interesting products. Hadn't heard of those.