Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Does anyone here use a line conditioner?

At home, I've been OK w/ simple surge suppression.

But at my in-laws, they've gone through several printers, several VCRs, at least 2 Tivo HD's, several HDDs, and many other inexplicable electronic failures that can't be debugged. I strongly believe it's noisy power coming into the house. PG&E is actually monitoring now.

I want to do a test to see if a line conditioner would actually add any value. I contemplated a UPS but I don't want to have to replace their battery every 5 years. I was looking at some of the Tripp Lite power conditioners around $100. Has anyone here used those? They're reasonably priced at PartsExpress.com.

Thanks.

I have a Tripp Lite conditioner for my PC at work. It's never suffered any power-related damage. But I also have an elephant repellent, and have never seen any elephants around.

Wouldn't use something like that with any audio amplifiers though, their current draw is too high, and nearly every "conditioner" will limit current. Actually, even large CRT and plasma TVs can demand more instantaneous current than conditioners can supply.

Cesar, it's unclear why you'd "strongly believe" that. Audio and video equipment which contains a power supply section conditions the incoming power with a transformer, rectifier and filter capacitors to supply clean DC. It seems highly unlikely that the power in the area in question has some huge noise component which caused the damage.

It's my belief because I don't have any valid explanation just yet.

Although, after some online research, it may be that some of their other electrical appliances (hot tub, heater, etc) could be contributing to drops in power that adversely affect the computer-based equipment. We have to wait for results from PGE.

Good points Chris. If a line conditioner can't power an amp, are they only used for source components? I was considering using one behind my plasma, but now I may just stick w/ an in wall surge suppressor.

The one I have at work is transformer based. I hear it click into service when the HVAC kicks on. But as John was saying the power supplies in most equipment have their own transformers, and are designed to clean up the power before turning it to DC.

Without batteries and full sinusoidal regeneration ($$$) I don't see any inline conditioner really offering anything beyond what's contained within the gear. I put the one on my PC at work, because we had it, and I wanted to see if it would do anything--it clicks. If you can get one cheap enough, maybe you'll have the same use. But remember what I pointed out, they can't provide the same current levels as the straight mains, so don't use any high-draw gear on it.

As suspected, the incoming power to the house may have a problem, as PGE has admitted.

The meter they installed broke and they have to install another to see what broke it...

yup, too expensive to replace for a oversite that may or maynot happen.

Tripplite (my favorite UPS/surge suppressor company) now has a line of A/V On-Line, Pure Sine Wave UPSes. I was expecting them to cost significantly less than the rather boutique models from PurePower, but the difference is small when comparing Volt-Amps to Volt-Amps. Which actually gives me a little more respect for PurePower--that they were not over charging.