Power conditioner and sequential power up

Exactly what Miroslav’s picture is. There are outlets on the back & each one is switchable. It saves time and I have them all in sequence as to how I usually turn on the studio. I however am the “sequence” switch.
 
I tend to stick with the old school methods of giving my system power. Back in the old days, I had a Furman power system that turned everything on. For the most part, it seemed to work just fine, but when I went to electronics school, my teacher said something that stuck with me. If you have multiple units on the same line, something with more power turned on after something with less power, the surge from the unit with more power is hitting the circuits of the unit with less power like a hammer. And over time, that hammer action can end up damaging things.

He was talking about digital units, for the most part as 99% of the old analog stuff was tough as nails and some surge of juice didn't bother them. But. digital stuff is very fragile. A surge of juice hitting sensitive chips can ultimately be a bad thing.

You can invest in good power strips that have surge suppressors on them, but the cheap variety of those that talk about how much they repell, you really have to make sure you get a good one. If you are good with a soldering iron, there are plans on the Internet so you can make your own.

Ir follows along with the idea that if you have an air conditioner or maybe a refrigerator on the same line as your sensitive stuff, that's a bad thing too. When that compressor comes on or goes off, it sends a surge of current through the line to all of your digital stuff. There's that hammer again. Even a computer can be damaged by something like that. I've seen it happen.

The rule is simple. If something you have thumps the speakers when you turn it on, it should be turned on before the less powerful stuff. So, an amp that will thump those speakers...that thump is a lot of current surging through the line. If you have other things that cause the speakers to thump, you have to judge how powerful each thump is and turn them on accordingly.

Once you get down to the things that don't thump the speakers, listen for the devices that make a powerful click when turning them on or off. That click is also current, but to a lesser degree. You still should turn it on before the units that don't make much of a noise at all. Those are the ones to worry about.

Once you get a pattern of things to turn on first, second, etc. then you turn them all off in the opposite order.
that means, the ones that can be damaged by surges go off first, and so when you get to the ones that pop and thump, you don't have to worry.

If you've followed a different pattern or if you have one switch that does it all for you, I'd say you've either been lucky, or maybe you have things on different lines or a good surge suppressor on them.

Digital chips are very fragile. You would hope that the makers install some sort of protection in their devices to save them from the constant thumping of that hammer, but sadly, I don't think many do. I just think they assume you are smart enough to know these things.

Your mileage may vary and in the UK, things might be different. We can have power brown outs in the U.S. and electrical storms, too. It's said that when the power goes out like that, it doesn't hurt things. It's when the power comes back on that you have to worry. Quickly flipping things off is what I would do, just so I can turn them on again in the pattern I want. A surge from things coming on all at once from the power service is a large surge.

Also, when the power goes out or maybe one phase goes out, your system might not be getting the necessary full power. And if your power flickers on and off instead of just going totally out, that's worse. Those little flickers are like a ball peen hammer repeatedly hitting those digital chips. Depending on the durability of the chips in a device, you could be in good shape. Oh, but the more sensitive chips in those cheaper off brand name boxes can get pretty beat up.

Like I said, I know a guy who lost a computer because it was on the same line as an air conditioner. He left the computer on 24/7 and one summer day, he came home and it was turned off. Even worse, it wouldn't turn on. I don't remember what ended up being damaged, hut for some reason I seem to remember the power supply. It could just as easily be the processor, though, if you ask me.
 
The situation seems to me to be that the USA has a rather high power line impedance? That is to say poorly regulated and even modest loads going on and off it cause peaks and dips in voltage and switching spiokes are not supressed.

The dire events outlined in the last post simply do nit happen here. In over 30 years of dealing with domestic electronics I really had but a handful of problelms that could be out down to "dirty mains". So rare in fact that one sticks out. A guy was getting his VCR locking up, usually over night. In our town workshop it would of course work fine but the "loaner" 'F'ed up!
The chap had som pull with the Electricity Board (nationilized then of course) and got a UV recorder connected. He was getting very short 1-2kV spikes!

I did have trouble with fridges when Silicon transistor gear came out but it was FAR BETTER to fit the spike filters TO THE FRIDGE than try to stop it at the audio kit.

If you can get it wired safely and "to code" a big mother 1:1 mains isolating traff with an interwinding shield will stop 99% of the ***T.

Dave.
 
When was the last time anyone has checked their ground rod bonding?

Mix Interview: Arthur Kelm - Mixonline

G

I don't have any problems with my rod. :)


The guy in the article says it's good AC is not that complicated...then proceeds to outline a pretty complicated approach that most home studios can't/won't follow.
:D

Talking about using "a different circuit at the panel"...is IMO kinda meaningless, when you consider that everything will still tie back to your main power supply from the road....and everyone else on the street is tied in to it, until there's a transformers that creates a new feed..etc... (I'm just saying it in very general terms).
Your neighbors electronics can very well be causing your problems. The power company does nothing to filter out anything from house to house hook-ups.

AFA doing the iso-transformer thing he mentions...yeah, that would certainly help, but again, not a simple or inexpensive solution.

Also, as I mentioned in another post recently about dirty power...the power companies everywhere are now pushing the new digital/AMR/Smart meters...which generate all kinds of EMF noise and radiation due to their 24/7 WAN transmissions and cyclical power spikes and AC/DC conversions at the meter, and they dirty up your power even more...so the power company is not concerned about providing "clean power".
I think the best, non-industrial/non-commercial, build from the ground up, solution is to do what you can at your end of the power feed to clean it up.

The power distro system I described in my earlier post here, does a really good job for me, and I am not plagued by AC issues. I'm additionally having my power company remove/not install any type of digital signal transmission meter at my house...and I am going to try and get an old-school analog, spinning disc meter put back, but that might be a long battle, so for now, I have to settle on a basic digital readout meter that doesn't transmit, but they can still dirty up your power because of the switching AC/DC system they use so the digital meter can run off your high-voltage power coming in.
It's one of the worst power system implementations that they have come up with...but they're only focused on making more money and having more control of your power usage. Not to mention...there are plenty of sources talking about health and privacy issues that these "smart" meters bring.
Their best argument is to say that we are already poisoning ourselves with WiFi and Smartphone usage in our homes...so what's so bad about adding a little more EMF from their meters. :facepalm:
 
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