A.C. protection...and extra...

[mixmkr]

I am looking to protect/filter/regulate power on a computer, a small mixer and about 10 pieces of typical rack gear like reverbs, etc... Your normal small setup for recording.

What would be the best solution for protection (aside from unplugging it all when absent) and not spending more than what replacing my equipment would cost.

Are the Furman rackriders worth the 50 bucks and what makes them different than the surge protectors strips that sell for $35? (15 bucks!?)

Furman also has a "high end" power conditioner that seems to be in the $350 ballpark.

Protection for being able to "shut down" programs in the event of the total loss of A.C. is not necessary, but understood the items like UPC devices offer better protection than the above devices mentioned.

on a side note, I've had lightning strikes go THRU all the above protectors, albeit on the phone or cable lines VS the power. I've since pounded in several 8 foot ground spikes with 8 guage wire attached, in addition to the grounding to the [electrical] dead head that the utility companys do.

I currently use the UPC devices and just the normal surge strips on my TV's etc around the house. Oh...and a rackrider too.. Just wonder if I am actually "doing anything" or not to protect my schtuff.

[mixmkr]

oh...I guess my big power eaters might be my Crown power amps too.. they are on the surge protectors only. Thought they'd hog all the available power from the other devices.

[Doug Quance]

Surge protection and lightning protection are two different things.

A lightning arrester is a device that provides an air gap between the supply conductors and ground... spaced far enough to not short under normal load, but allow a lightning spike a quicker path to ground - should one occur on the supply conductors... usually installed near the meter.

Surge protection is best provided by a transformer, not a power strip. UPS devices often offer an elevated level of protection to the devices downstream of them.

[frederic]

Are the Furman rackriders worth the 50 bucks and what makes them different than the surge protectors strips that sell for $35? (15 bucks!?)

They often have lights on them

Furman also has a "high end" power conditioner that seems to be in the $350 ballpark.

They have advanced filtering, commonly found in UPS systems. Essentually, a good APC UPS system will do the same thing for less money, except the less costly APC stuff isn't rack mount, Furman is, thus convienent if you take your gear on the road.

like UPC devices offer better protection than the above devices mentioned.

Better quality units, this is true. Those under $150/$200 units often skimp quite a bit on the filtering, spike protection stuff in order to make it cheap.

since pounded in several 8 foot ground spikes with 8 guage wire attached, in addition to the grounding to the [electrical] dead head that the utility companys do.

Yep, I have the same in my home, though most of the trees are so tall near my house they will be hit first. My biggest danger is not lightening strikes, but instead split, falling trees that are on fire

I currently use the UPC devices and just the normal surge strips on my TV's etc around the house. Oh...and a rackrider too.. Just wonder if I am actually "doing anything" or not to protect my schtuff.

Most of that protection keeps you safe if the spike comes through the power line feeding your house. A direct hit of lightening will render those devices useless, because lightening is static electricity, which goes through wood, metal, rubber, steel, etc, whereas "regular" electricity only goes through conductive stuff.

Hope that helps.

[mixmkr]

thanks for the replies...

let me continue...what is everyone else using/doing for their setup?

[sjoko2]

Here we go again
Check out my friend Mr. Patchbay, and look at his second hand (and lifetime non-destructable, so its no good buying new) REAL power conditioners. As he states quite rightly on his site, most conditioners sold are just glorified power strips and pretty useless
http://www.flash.net/~motodata/patchbays/

and by the way, I use three heavy duty ADC and one monster Best power conditioners. The Best powers the racks (computer, expansion chassis, SCSI drives, burners, tape backup drives, A/V SAN array, Stagetec Nexus, Z-System router, clock) in the machine room, one ADC does all the power supplies to the tracking rooms, and the other ADC the console, monitors and outboard gear in the control room.
Good power conditioning is not a luxury, its ESSENTIAL
and.........if I still need to add this: items like the furmann are nothing but glorified power strips and not worth bothering with.

[c7sus]

Uh......... electricity is electricity.

And wood and rubber don't conduct electricity. Period. They may break down under certain circumstances and lose their insulating capabilities. But they certainly won't conduct electricity under any circumstances.

They may exhibit skin effect due to contamination by other compounds that ARE electrically conductive.

And steel and metals ARE conductive all the time.

The rubber tires are why you are safe if your car is hit by lightning.

Most lightning gets into electrical systems by striking near conductors that are buried in the ground. It would seem like it would happen by lightning striking poles but it's been shown that underground conductors are more susceptable to lightning than those above ground.

So after you drove in the ground rods what did you attach the #8 leads to??? Just curious...........

[yiordanaki]

sorry this is a little off topic..........

C7.....
"The rubber tires are why you are safe if your car is hit by lightning."


from a site about lightning (some people have no lives)..

"Myth: The rubber soles of shoes or rubber tires on a car will protect you from being struck by lightning.

Fact: Rubber soled shoes and rubber tires offer NO protection from lightning. However, the steel frame of a hard topped car offers increased protection if you are not touching any interior metal objects (kind of hard to do in todays cars). Convertibles offer no protection from lightning even if the top is "up"."

just thought id throw that in for good measure

y

[mixmkr]

Originally posted by c7sus

Most lightning gets into electrical systems by striking near conductors that are buried in the ground. It would seem like it would happen by lightning striking poles but it's been shown that underground conductors are more susceptable to lightning than those above ground.

So after you drove in the ground rods what did you attach the #8 leads to??? Just curious...........

I removed the 14 gauge wires attached to lawn timber style nails in the ground the cable company had used and put them on my ground spikes. (the phone was also connected to the weather head...the cable to only the "nail"!)

On my last strike, the cable wire from my pole was melted, and on the buried phone line, the box at both ends (street pole and my house) where blown up...and the outdoor flood light had both its lights shattered. When replacing the coax and phone lines underneath my house, I noticed several more melted areas. I tried to keep the utilities as far apart from each other when rewiring...

of course, TV's etc and such are usually lost in these hits, as I can't afford UPS style protection on them...and they seem to take the hit thru the cable anyway (but I usually leave them unplugged until they are used)

[mixmkr]

Originally posted by sjoko2
Here we go again
Check out my friend Mr. Patchbay

Yes...I think I've asked this before (each time after I take a lightning hit)

as I see it, there is a $99 ABC400-11 Powervar, laboratory grade power conditioner for AC sources on the site. 99 bucks is nothing. Is that the unit you suggest? If so, they're on their way.
They were out of stock on their 1000watt versions.

(what's that expression...buy cheap, buy twice )....maybe the 3rd or 4th time will be the charm for me...

[frederic]

And wood and rubber don't conduct electricity. Period. They may break down under certain circumstances and lose their insulating capabilities. But they certainly won't conduct electricity under any circumstances.

Well, most materials are conductive when you apply 45 million volts through them.

The rubber tires are why you are safe if your car is hit by lightning.

Unfortunately thats just a myth, the tires do not protect you from lightening even slightly.

Remember in the 70's it was popular to have lightening strips hanging off your undercarriage draping on the ground? Guess what those were made of :-) (Yes, rubber)

[mixmkr]

Originally posted by frederic
Well, most materials are conductive when you apply 45 million volts through them.

actually, I think that's kinda the core point in my situations. Working with sailboats, I see lightening hits all the time, and height is another myth associated with lightning.(or so I've read in more than one place) You'd think because they are sailboats, they get hit because of their tall masts... apparently not.

strange however, I've never seen a mast get hit with the lightning "ionizers" that are mounted on them. Usually they look like wire bottle brushes mounted upside down. Supposedly to do some "voo-doo" and disrupt the polar charges surrounding the boat.

[Doug Quance]

Not to throw a monkey wrench in the works, but...

Lightning strikes are actually started at ground. Yep. Earth. Terra Firma.

The potential builds up, and then a leader heads up towards the skies. Once that potential has been recognized as the least resistant path to ground, the gap is closed by the potential in the sky... and voila - a lightning strike.

Autos are safer simply because they aren't grounded in the first place... therefore are less likely to send any leaders up skyward.

Lightning rods work by putting the Earth's potential up above other nearby structures.

[mixmkr]

Originally posted by Doug Quance
Not to throw a monkey wrench in the works, but...

Lightning strikes are actually started at ground. Yep. Earth. Terra Firma.

The potential builds up, and then a leader heads up towards the skies. Once that potential has been recognized as the least resistant path to ground, the gap is closed by the potential in the sky... and voila - a lightning strike.

Autos are safer simply because they aren't grounded in the first place... therefore are less likely to send any leaders up skyward.

Lightning rods work by putting the Earth's potential up above other nearby structures.

that's part of the explanation I've heard about dismissing height as a factor too.

[Doug Quance]

There's no hard and fast rule regarding height... it all comes down to potential.

You can surround your house with lightning rods... and your home can still be struck by lightning.

[frederic]

as I see it, there is a $99 ABC400-11 Powervar, laboratory grade power conditioner for AC sources on the site. 99 bucks is nothing. Is that the unit you suggest? If so, they're on their way. They were out of stock on their 1000watt versions.

Essentially an isolation transformer, but using a much better design of transformer - the torroid.

Regarding UPS systems, there are many good units out there made by APC, Minuteman, Best... the list goes on and on.

In my studio I have two Compaq 3500R's, the old version of this unit:

http://www.nextag.com/Compaq_UPS_R30...93zzmainz2-htm

The have torroids, large batteries, and my units are 3U in size, with six outlets on the back, isolated from each other in pairs (standard duplex outlets). In the old studio configuration (I'm remodeling so these are on moving dollys right now sitting in my vocal booth since they are 350lbs each) I had them mounted at the bottom of two racks, then fed six 20 outlet relay rack power strips off them, mounted horizontally on the wall behind the rackmount gear (a 13' wide wall filled end to end with 24U racks), and I've never had a problem with this whatsoever.

When I'm really worried about lightening (which I'm not normally because my home has a lightening rod on the roof and I'm surrounded by many, many 300 foot trees), I can unplug the UPS's from the wall, and disconnected the ethernet switch I have in the studio from the jackplate on the wall. Then all the equipment is isolated from the world.

Also, when I got my home owner's insurance, I photographed each piece of gear before I installed it into the racks, or the console table, etc, catching the front of the unit as well as the back of the unit with the serial number, then put all the photos on a CD, and gave it to my insurance company. Was much better than paper, and its all insured against lightening, water damage, fire, theft, etc "just in case".

You can protect yourself only so much from environment, and insurance picks up where your protection leaves off.

[Doug Quance]

10-4 on the insurance.

[c7sus]

Right, cars aren't grounded. Why? Because of the rubber tires!

[c7sus]

It's much more likely that non-conductive materials such as wood, paper, rubber, etc will appear to conduct when it's really conductive contamanents on the material that are doing the conducting. Like water, salts, minerals, etc.

[frederic]

Originally posted by c7sus
It's much more likely that non-conductive materials such as wood, paper, rubber, etc will appear to conduct when it's really conductive contamanents on the material that are doing the conducting. Like water, salts, minerals, etc.

I'm not going to mince words because technically we're both correct.

The properties of insulating materials has to do with the threshold in which it will pass electricity, or not. Here is an example to illustrate my point.

Power lines are hung off steel structures, using glass insulators. The glass doesn't pass the 1.2KV (1.2 thousand volts), but if the tower were hit by lightening, rest assure it will go through through the glass insulator and down the wires.

Glass has a very high threshold of insulating properties, but at some voltage I can't think of off the top of my head, it does conduct. Lightening often exceeds that threshold.

Voltage is like pressure, and an insulator is much like a dam. If the water pressure were suddenly tripled at the hoover dam, the hoover dam would be come the hoover waterfall, and flood the terrain below it.

Sorry, thats the best analogy i can think of at the moment.

[sjoko2]

Originally posted by mixmkr
Yes...I think I've asked this before (each time after I take a lightning hit)

as I see it, there is a $99 ABC400-11 Powervar, laboratory grade power conditioner for AC sources on the site. 99 bucks is nothing. Is that the unit you suggest? If so, they're on their way.
They were out of stock on their 1000watt versions.

(what's that expression...buy cheap, buy twice )....maybe the 3rd or 4th time will be the charm for me...

) Bobby's out of stock of the 1000 watt ... must be 'coz I bought it.
And yes the other ones are excellent.

[knightfly]

Yeah, it's ALL relative.

Sound PROOF booth (a MYTH, compliments of the $64,000 question TV show) - get a BIGGER sound; no longer sound proof.

Bullet-proof vest - get a rifle; no longer bullet proof.

Electrical insulator (including air) get "more electric" - no longer insulative.

I work with the stuff every day (Industrial Instrumentation) and I'm STILL completely awed by some of the things mother nature dishes up... Steve

[fonts]

...this powervar thing looks good to me...I am especially fond of beefy construction like that also...

[frederic]

of course, TV's etc and such are usually lost in these hits, as I can't afford UPS style protection on them...and they seem to take the hit thru the cable anyway (but I usually leave them unplugged until they are used)

You might be able to thwart that a bit by installing a few MOV (metal-oxide varistors) between the cable's signal wire (center conductor) and your earth ground spike.

The MOV's will need to be fairly big

[fierojoe]

Originally posted by c7sus
The rubber tires are why you are safe if your car is hit by lightning.

Static electricity is a whole different ball game. Rubber tires are not the reason you are safe in a car during a lightning storm. Take it from years in the (very static sensitive side of the) electronics business. The reason you are safe in a car during a lightning strike is because the steel chasis and body of the car will carry the electricity around you and not through you. Static electricity is very "lazy." I have seen demonstrations as to why static bags work for pc boards, and it is because rather than go through a non-conductive or even many conductive materials, static electricity will stay on the surface of it, so if the bag is closed, it can not get to the inner surface of the bag and the same goes for lightning. Also, accompanied by most lightning strikes is rain. Now pure water will not condict electricity, but contaminated water will, so this here will essentially remove the "ground lift" effect of your tires. Have you ever seen a car that was struck by lightning? Notice that the tires are in fact blown out and the metal rims are touching the ground. Lets not forget that you can generate static electricity from rubber. Propper grounding is required to soften the blow of a lightning strike, but in a home studio that is near impossable in most cases.