Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions who offers the best quality Surge Protector / Line

>>I believe I got the gist of what you had to say, which was that though the Brickwalls provide good protection, so do most of the better MOV based protectors, particularly when encountering the more typical, real world surges.

I think so. I'm still chewing on all the different scenarios. Bottom line, I think, is that for the scenarios the BrickWall *does* cover it seems to be a superior product, but it doesn't cover what seem to be some common scenarios because doing so with the BrickWall solution would double or triple the cost, but providing that protection with a MOV adds about a buck to the cost.

The ideal solution, it would seem, would be for BrickWall to quietly add a MOV between Hot and Ground when nobody was looking

Thanks John. I feel better about my MOV based protectors now.

One interesting thing about the BrickWall supressors is that the reviews also make great claims for their noise supression capabilities. This makes a lot of sense given the design of the BW products, but I was surprised how many claims of better system performance I'm seeing, at least in cases where the original power was quite bad -- way out in the country, noise from sump pumps and refrigerators showing up on the TV screen etc...

There were also a few comments that the BW products could, in unusual situations, make the sound quality of your system WORSE but that seems to be mostly in the systems where putting a crystal on top of the CD player gave a more open and airy sound.

Bottom line is that you get a lot for your money with the BW suppressors -- I think the only open issue is whether they are sufficient on their own because they only protect hot-to-neutral and not hot-to-ground or neutral-to-ground.

Before anyone asks, I believe this is still relevent even if your equipment only has two prong plugs but it is another interesting thing to think about

It has been a very long time since I did any specific circuit analysis but I seem to recall that the MOVs would/ could react in nanoseconds to surges. Most of what I have read about lightning/ power surges stresses the sharp spike nature of the surge.

I wonder how the Brick Wall reacts to sharp spikes with all of that circuitry?

That's why I asked if there was any independant testing. I want to get the "general hype" out of the picture.

>>I wonder how the Brick Wall reacts to sharp spikes with all of that circuitry?

I think the idea is that the big inductor (LC circuit, really) slows down the voltage rise so that the active circuitry has time to kick in. It's interesting reading, really -- they describe it more as a noise filter which dynamically adjusts the cutoff frequency by hooking in additional capacitors when it detects a fast voltage rise. The interesting graph was :



The upper trace is the normal frequency response of the input LC circuit... you can see it is already 20 dB down at 30 KHz, so it is definitely going to round off the rise time on a sharp-edged impulse.

I don't remember off the top of my head how quickly a typical SCR can fire, but certainly the story seems credible.

I don't think that chart goes far enough. 100 KHz is 10 microseconds. I was under the impression that some of the steep rise times were in the order approaching nanoseconds.

Could be wrong since it has been a while since I read that material.

Another company that could be recommended is Tice.

I found a sort of FAQ list:

http://www.hifi-notes.com/tice1-en.htm

I can't say I agree with every claim they make but it is a quality piece of gear.

My local "audiophile" shop had marketed these in the past. Not sure if they still do.

Here is another review:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_3_1/v3n1p.html



For my money I'd spend about $600 Cdn on a whole-house surge protector that connects directly to the electrical panel. I too recommend against using units that use MOVs and thus do not have to be replaced on a regular basis (it really depends on the quality of power being delivered to your home but really, who can tell).

Check this out:

http://www.cleanvolt.com/
http://www.vaxxine.com/canaan/cleanvolt/index.html

Bridgman, thanks for the info. I don’t pretend to be an electrical engineer but all info is much appreciated. I can only comment on real world accounts and I think that’s were products need to prove themselves. I can do research out the wazoo but it means little when the product fails in real life scenarios, such as MOVs wearing out, plus the added bonus of damn near burning down my home with their so called protection. Besides the MOVs that exsist in my battery backups (APC), there are no other MOVs in my home. I trust nothing 100%, that’s why almost everything is unplugged in my home during lighting storms and hurricanes. However, food can cost as much as a refrigerator so that needs to stay plugged in during storms.

All I can say is, not just my next door neighbor but other neighbors as well, lost many items due to the surges from the transformer blowing. I even had two closet light bulbs pop, they actually shattered, exploded. So while my neighbors were crying about lost appliances and computers fried that were on surge protectors (mov) I plugged my refrigerator and tv into the generator and they chugged along just fine. Bottom line, everyone on the block lost electrical equipment and appliances thanks to their MOV protection. There’s no doubt in my mind that the Series Mode protection saved my stuff, especially while I stood there looking at shattered light bulbs while I hear my tv running in the background I also agree with BruceH about the whole house surge protection which will eventually be installed here as well.

Easiest wasy to check how damaged your metal oxide varistors are is with lighted switches.

I've been using the same Fellowes computer power centre (one of those flat things that goes under your monitor, six switches on it) for about 8 years, the lights act as indicators for MOV life (as do all but the cheapest power bar "on" lights) the "accessory" switches/lights are all on solid (since they've really not had to contend with much), the monitor I'd guess is at about 90% of original, the computer switch is at about 50-60% of original (since it stays on to power CMOS settings even when the computer is off) since installing APCs with boost/buck protection on all the computers, I haven't really noticed any degradation of the MOVs, I believe most of the sacrificial damage done was quite a while ago before the APCs when a transformer went ka-powie in a sleet storm here about 7 years ago. Enough to destroy a microwave.

And all this, I'm talking about a $15 Office Depot purchase protecting a PC... the home theatre plugs into a multiplexer (ie: the thing that turns two wall plugs into 6) straight into the wall. For all the chance of damage to a receiver I paid under $600CDN for over it's useful life until the next encoding scheme comes out (DTS-EEEEES or whatever) I'll keep the $200 for a fancy "complete total HT power unit" in my pocket to pay for the next receiver.

But I'm a believer that insurance is just a person betting that something bad will happen and, like Vegas, the odds are stacked in favour of the house.

Bren R.

I don't think lights mean squat, they are not a indicator on most strips and I have never read that anywear except for Tripplite but maybe things have changed in the last few years.

My APC surge strip was brand new, the one that almost burned my home down. MOVs simply can't absorb massive surges. As for saving money, I would have considerably more to replace than a reciever. I consider the $800 usd I spent on 4 Brick Walls to cover over $20,000+ worth of electronic a small price to pay.