Conditioned Power--Looking for more info!

[circusboy]

Hi all,

A rookie question:

I am starting to put together the pieces for a small home studio. Reading some of the posts and talking to more experienced studio-dwellers, I've heard the term conditioned power. Can anyone tell me a) what this term means--why might I need it? What does it do for me? (I have some guesses but would like to hear it from folks in the know) and b)what gear I might need to supply "conditioned power" to my equipment?

Thanks in advance.

 

[89gtsleeper]

Thank me later. This should answer most questions you would have on this topic... especially the first page. I use one in my studio I would suggest you do the same unless you are on a very tight budget. Even then, you can even get one of their basic units for around 50 bucks now.
http://www.furmansound.com/pdf/catalog/flyer_power_conditioning.pdf

 

[mixsit]

99% of what's typically needed is had by powering and connecting all of your pieces from a single power soure (one breaker for example) and ground point.
This essentially gets you your best shot at not having ground loop hums and noises.
Include some good spike protection and basic noise filtering and you're on your way.
I went with an 'Isobar 'WaveTracker multi plug strip as it has a little better filtering than the bottom-line strips that only use MOV spike protection. Those self distruct as they tkes hits and iventually leave you with no protection.

..strike the '99%' thing and add a small UPS back-up for the digital recorder or daw. Just enough time to safely save and power down on an outage.

 

[Ethan Winer]

I am starting to put together the pieces for a small home studio. Reading some of the posts and talking to more experienced studio-dwellers, I've heard the term conditioned power.

Unless you have a specific problem with pops and clicks such as when the refrigerator turns on etc, you don't need a power conditioner. However, an UPS is necessary for computers, as mixsit said.

--Ethan

 

[circusboy]

Thanks guys. That clarifies things a bit.

Are there any tried and true ways to determine if I have a ground loop hum--and eliminate it? I recently purchased a pair of studio monitors (Event 20/20 BAS) and I get a very slight hum in some circumstances. All my equipment is connected to a single outlet with surge protection, etc.

I've checked my gear (the new monitors as well) and it doesn't seem like any of it is the source of the hum, which made me wonder if it was a power-supply issue...

 

[mixsit]

Trouble shooting is often by way of breaking things down to bite size chunks, and eliminating the variables.
For example perhaps begin with the monitors only connected and keep adding your chain of gear until..

 

[SonicAlbert]

I suppose you could try temporarily lifting the ground to see if the hum goes away. Notice I said temporarily, and don't do it during a lightning storm! You could try lifting it on the gear you suspect the most first, then test each unit one by one to see if anything changes. You wouldn't want to permanently lift the ground, but it can be helpful in tracking down which unit is causing the problem.

I have a keyboard amp that I can only use with the ground lifted, as it will hum like crazy otherwise.

 

[Simman]

Thank me later. This should answer most questions you would have on this topic... especially the first page. I use one in my studio I would suggest you do the same unless you are on a very tight budget. Even then, you can even get one of their basic units for around 50 bucks now.
http://www.furmansound.com/pdf/catalog/flyer_power_conditioning.pdf

Most of the cheap (and not so cheap) devices that tout themselves as surge suppressors and/or power conditioners mostly use a Metal Oxide Varistor (MOV). MOVs are not voltage regulators, filters, nor are they a “brickwall”. They are found in everything from power strips to some of the Furman units as referenced in the link above. If you take apart a power strip and see a little round disk connected between the hot and return leads, you are looking at an MOV.

What you need to understand is anything that uses a MOV, are poor excuses for “power conditioning”. Power conditioning means filters and voltage regulation; MOVs offer neither. In addition, once an MOV gets hit by a voltage spike, they either suffer performance degradation or they fail altogether. Either way, the more times the MOV is hit, the less likely it will survive (most of the time with no warning to you).

A UPS (i.e., APC 2000) on the other hand has filters and active voltage regulation that monitors input voltage and switches over to the battery if the voltage crosses some threshold (positive or negative). Computers don’t like voltage drop-outs so the switching is pretty fast. In addition, a good UPS will let you adjust the voltage thresholds as well.

I would look at the state of your power with an oscilloscope. If the sine wave is got a lot of noise on it or, as Ethan said you are experiencing clicking and popping than I’d look for an active power conditioning system.

 

[Adam P]

Any opinions on the Tripp-Lite LCR-2400? Worth the money or crock of shit?

 

[CoolCat]

its a hard question; How much to spend?
A lot of the store bought shit doesn't work, in my exp. We are dealing in nanoseconds for lightening/surge-spikes. zap!

UPS is to help you shutdown safely..buys you some time. The longer the time, the better your chances are the power is returned before your UPS(battery) runs out, the more time = the more expensive.
Most UPS also have some filtering and spike protection. I think small ones are like $35 these days. pretty good deal. APC...etc.
(Oh! and don't plug your CRT monitor into it!! that will drain the UPS 10x's faster!! just the pc or critical devices. More currrent pulled = short battery time)

Cheap- basic noise, home emf and surge, normal stuff, will be in most HR rooms. Like rackmount Furman and a rackmount Triplite types. exactly as simman stated... some have mov's tied across the ac receptacle is all! I mean you could do that yourself, if you have the ability...for 35cents.

imo, actual conditioning the ac is very expensive. This is cleaning up the ac and protecting the equipment, almost a mini-power plant in itself. It can be done, for example, the Intel plants and Texas Instrument plants are setup with these systems, because a whack of electricity can cost 100's millions in lost material/product, they have massive battery, surge spike, conditioning on a large scale. you name it..its engineered in. the UPS alone is 10ft high! and 30yards wide..

A little more money$$$, on a small scale..
ONEAC is a company product, I have seen in the semiconductor industry for years. I think this a basic starter for the true conditioning as far as noise and stability etc...but $$$$$$. These smaller ones are often used for critical, sensitive equipment that need clean, stable ac.
http://www.oneac.com/products/category.asp?cid=1t4
Here we start getting into cleaning and creating a mini-power plant of clean ac, ridding you of the dirty slop the city provides with all the crap on the same line...

generally, HR problem posts seem to be corrected by the type things Mixsit mentioned.

here's a pic of the MOV only...empty inside pic....rip off?

 

[SonicAlbert]

Any opinions on the Tripp-Lite LCR-2400? Worth the money or crock of shit?

I don't have that particular unit, but I do like Tripplite gear a lot. I have several of their ISOBAR spike protector/line noise filter units. As long as the 2400 watt capacity of the LCR2400 is enough, it looks like a decent unit. And the price is very affordable.

What I use is a Furman AR-15 Series II. It doesn't have the battery backup, and costs a bit more than what you seem to be looking for. My Furman feeds power to an Eqitech balanced power unit, which in turn is what the studio is powered from.

 

[mixsit]

...(Oh! and don't plug your CRT monitor into it!! that will drain the UPS 10x's faster!! just the pc or critical devices. More currrent pulled = short battery time)

Except that you might need to see what you're doing to get it saved and shut down..?

 

[CoolCat]

true! strange point...how would you see whats going on! hahahaaa
I guess go with a LCD (low current) monitor would help?

we were having these issues as the UPS battery was wiped out quickly with the old CRTs plugged in?
I think it usually mentions this in the manual too about current draw reducing the "advertised time of backup", CRT's etc. A 1hr backup may only last 10 seconds with a bunch of stuff plugged in.

we're still fighting this shit...turns out our building is on the last leg of the city power line and we get dropped about 10 times a year.

a transformer rep said whats even crazier is the parts may not fail for months later! the insulation deteriorated due to the hit-spike, and often eventually a small transformer will short-out due to the winding insulation weakened, or maybe weeks later the coffee maker dies...very common I guess.