Surge Suppressors

A device which is designed to protect electrical appliances from sudden rise or variation of voltage is called surge suppressor. It functions to regulate the supply voltage before it goes into the electrical appliance. This is done by either blocking or shorting to ground certain voltages which are unsafe or unsuitable to the electrical appliance connected to it. Electrical appliances have a certain voltage threshold – such is guarded by surge suppressor. The succeeding discussions will delve on the specifications and components which are significant only to the kind of protector that works by shorting a voltage surge to ground. Power strips have built-in surge suppressor as labeled in the specification sheets, while some do not have surge suppressor.

Home Surge Suppressor

A home surge suppressor is a relatively inexpensive device that gives protection to the entire home's electrical appliances against sudden surge of voltage. Is this really cost effective? To answer this, the consumer must have a clear answer whether he actually needs it for household use as to what kinds of appliances need to be protected.

Before a consumer purchase such an item, he must first exercise common sense and be skeptical as regards the features offered by the device in its advertisement or promotional lines. Necessary research and background check must be done first by the consumer before actually purchasing any one of these items. By analogy, a wise person would not buy and take a medicine that is being advertised as a cure for some illness. Doing such exposes the person to the side effects and other unwanted results. The same holds true before anybody should think of actually buying a home surge suppressor.

Here are some of the things one must know and consider before spending some amount of money for a home surge suppressor.

*Voltage surge can occur outside the house as well as inside. A home surge suppressor protecting the entire house is not totally immune to sudden surge of voltage inside the house. There is, therefore, a need to protect individual appliances, especially the expensive ones including flat screen or LCD television, computer systems, telephone systems, phone systems and other costly equipments with point-of-use surge arrestors or sometimes referred to as power strips with warranted surge protection.

*Not one of the surge suppressors can protect appliances against direct hit of lightning. Lightning bolt is so high and powerful for any voltage surge suppressor to handle. Therefore, any advertisement claiming the contrary is unbelievable and purely trying to talk consumers to purchasing the product.

*In case your home has several power sources, each service entrance must have a separate surge protector.

*Check the unit before purchasing. It should bear the label like “UL – listed transient voltage power protection”. Even if it has a “Power tap UL listing”, it is still not sufficient assurance to protect your costly and sensitive electronic equipments from voltage surges. It merely represents an assurance of some level of protection of the consumer against fire, electrocution, and other hazards.

*Look for a label that read as TVSS with a specified clamping voltage. It stands for Transient Voltage Surge Suppressor. The specified clamping voltage decreases power surge voltage. The smaller the clamping voltage, the better protection the equipment will provide.

*Look for a label that read as High Peak Surge Current with a corresponding number. The higher the number, the better is the device.

*The units for some ratings are in Joules. If it has higher Joules specified, the better suppression capability the device has to offer.

*Surge protectors, which are available either as service entrance surge protector – that is for the entire protection of the house, and individual or point-of-use or for a specific appliance only, if used combined provides a great protection strategy for expensive home electronics like home theaters, stereos, computers, etc.

*Typical household wire system is composed of three wires – line, neutral, and ground wires. Effective home surge protector must have three-line protection. Typical secondary surge arrestor units have only two-line protection, that is, line to neutral protection.

*Make sure that the home surge suppressor has a led light indicator in order to easily detect if it is powered on or not.

*Multiple surges may reduce the efficiency of the surge suppressor against spikes, however, it shall still allow current to pass though the electrical equipments.

The aforementioned points are basic guide for consumers before purchasing surge suppressors. With aware consumers and household users, the risk of damages in electrical appliances caused by sudden bursts or surges of voltage is minimized.

Outlet Surge Suppressor

The outlets of surge suppressors are coupled with capacitors to maintain electrical signal in its desired rating, thereby providing noise reduction in settings where interference from other devices is experienced. Also, overload protection is present. Such overload protection is in a form of a reset switch – shutting down the system when a particular threshold voltage is detected. This mechanism protects the plugged appliance from possible overloading.

Surge suppressors are available with various outlet numbers. There are six or more outlets in one surge suppressor. The consumer must choose the right size for the intended application. For household use, few outlets may be enough. However, for large transformer based cords (or that with big box on the other end of the cord), a ten-outlet, high capacity surge suppressor is necessary to provide users more space for plugs. These devices are often separated in order to avoid intertwining of outlets.

Some manufacturers of large power protection devices come with certain features distinct from those of other manufacturers. Basic features include overvoltage protection, and maintaining the strength of the electrical signal source. Some have additional features like noise filters and voltage regulators, noise removal, radio frequency interference (RFI) filter, and electromagnetic interference (EMI) filter. This is necessary in protecting plasma TV because televisions are dependent on the right electrical signals to achieve the best image resolution. Other surge suppressors provide temporary remedy against low voltage conditions such as sudden brownouts by boosting low voltages on the fly.