Are mains surge protectors needed in the UK?

Harry wrote:

On Thu, 08 Jul 2004 16:10:40 +0100, Bagpuss
wrote:

On Thu, 08 Jul 2004 15:47:28 +0100, Lem wrote:


snip


Am I being too complacent?

I've never used one. I've never had a surge blow anything either. My

I have, and a couple of friends too. We have a flaky power supply round
here and usually have about half a dozen power cuts each winter but we
had a strange one last winter; for several seconds before the power went
off there were big voltage fluctuations. When the power came back I had
a dead PS/2 port on one machine and two friends both had dead PSUs. I've
now got all my kit plugged into and 8-way trailing socket with surge
protector.

next door neigbour as one for her PC, but makes SFA difference. Of
course in our house the fuse box has one of those quick trip over
fueses where even if a light bulb blows you have to reset the trip
switch, but even then its only ever the light bulb circuit that trips.

We are the same with regard to the fuse box tripping out.


The solution to that is to replace the type B MCBs with type C on the
lighting circuit. I did and have not had a problem with nuisance
tripping since.

Strange Lad wrote:


a friend of mine has had a machine totalled by a surge following a
nearby lightning strike that shot up his phone line, in through the
modem and spaltted his mobo to hell and gone.



I thought BT master sockets, NTE5s, have a built in lightning arrestor?
Maybe they don't, or he has an old type?

Parish

Cuzman wrote:

"Lem" wrote in message
...

" Am I being too complacent? "


Think of this when you next take a ****.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/s...re/3457965.stm



LOL!

Electrical fault my arse; eight pints of Stella and a Ruby more like :-)

Parish

In article , Lem writes


See this posting to a second thread started with the same posting
as this one.

It was posted by an idiot with a bee in his bonnet about "whole house
surge protection", a superficial understanding of his subject, who only
ever posts to threads like this one, and who goes remarkably quiet when
challenged to substantiate his claims or to provide technical detail. A
google.groups search for w_tom in various uk.* groups will provide much
entertainment.

Said idiot is American and refuses to acknowledge that UK/European
wiring, because of its superior earthing system, is not as prone to
surges as American installations. In short, ignore.

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On 9 Jul 2004 06:46:06 GMT, "Bob Eager" wrote:

-On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 23:16:17 UTC, "AK" wrote:
-
- My house (in England) was struck by lightening
-
-Did it change colour - say from beige to white? :-)

I hear the whoosh of passing thuneder.

Thanks for the chuckle, Bob.


-Rob
robatwork at mail dot com

In article , w_tom
writes

[more crap from w_tom]

Therefore only TVs suffered a direct
lightning strike incoming and outgoing. Incoming and outgoing
are essential requirements for surge damage.

No ****.

No adjacent protector that will stop, block, or absorb the
transient.

There's a big difference between a direct lightning strike and a
transient arriving via the mains. As you've been told many times.

An effective protection must shunt (divert,
connect, short circuit) the direct strike to earth so that the
direct strike does not find a better path via TVs. In your
case, that solution was a lightning rod

Really? Care to tell me how a lightning strike is going to discriminate
between a roof-mounted lightning rod and a TV aerial? (hint: in the
UK, most houses have a roof-mounted TV aerial.)

(and not plug-in
protectors that cost tens of times more money per protected
appliance).

Absolute bull****. No-one claims that plug-in surge protectors will
protect against direct lightning strikes. They, however, because of the
decent earthing system available on UK and European mains wiring, do a
good job of shunting spikes and surges to earth, thus protecting the
equipment plugged into them. And they are cheap insurance; 4 to 10 UK
pounds per protector.

Concepts such as 'whole house' protectors and lightning rods
are long ago proven to be superior protection.

Here we go again. In the States, maybe. Not in Europe.

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In article , w_tom
writes

[drivelectomy]

typically undersized. No sense wasting good money on
ineffective protectors that don't even claim to protect from
the typically destructive transient. A protector is only as
effective as its earth ground - which plug-in power strip and
UPS manufacturers fear you might learn.

And in Europe, the "earth ground" on mains wiring is good, hence plug-in
surge protectors do the job they were designed to do, shunting the surge
to earth.

In the States, not all power outlets can be assumed to have an earth
connection, so plug-in surge protectors have to shunt surges to the
other phase line, which makes them vastly less effective.

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Surge protectors (be they capacitors, varistors, or anything else) must
absorb the energy they're dealing with. Anything physically small will
vaporise and give little protection against a direct lightning strike on
the building, though they may protect against surges from further away.

I would expect a suitable Uninterruptible Power Supply to provide
reasonable lightning protection -- some APC units guarantee this, though
you'd have to ensure that all computers, monitors, etc. on a network are
powered through the UPC for safest results (or use fibre optic cabling
or wireless networking).

Surge protectors are probably of some use. A lightning rod for the
building is important. Personally I unplug computer equipment from mains
and phone during electrical storms if possible, But, in a city
environment, I haven't come across lightning damage, though I've heard
of it.

Obviously there are differences between a building in the middle of a
city and a house on a lone mountaintop!

Best wishes,
--
Michael Salem

Mike Tomlinson wrote:

In article , w_tom
writes

[drivelectomy]


typically undersized. No sense wasting good money on
ineffective protectors that don't even claim to protect from
the typically destructive transient. A protector is only as
effective as its earth ground - which plug-in power strip and
UPS manufacturers fear you might learn.


And in Europe, the "earth ground" on mains wiring is good, hence plug-in
surge protectors do the job they were designed to do, shunting the surge
to earth.

In the States, not all power outlets can be assumed to have an earth
connection,

You mean a separate earth. Neutral is, of course, earthed. The problem is,
even though it is supposed to be on the large terminal in two prong sockets
you can't always count on the wiring to be proper in older homes. Modern
construction is 3 prong.

so plug-in surge protectors have to shunt surges to the
other phase line, which makes them vastly less effective.


No, they expect an earth ground too. The problem is people who don't
understand it and use 3 to 2 wire plug converters (actually, it has the
earth terminal brought out for a separate connection but no one uses it)
and then wonder why the surge protector didn't work.

"Mike Tomlinson" wrote in message
...
In article , w_tom
writes

[more crap from w_tom]

An effective protection must shunt (divert,
connect, short circuit) the direct strike to earth so that the
direct strike does not find a better path via TVs. In your
case, that solution was a lightning rod

Really? Care to tell me how a lightning strike is going to discriminate
between a roof-mounted lightning rod and a TV aerial? (hint: in the
UK, most houses have a roof-mounted TV aerial.)

I'm never one to jump to the defence of w_tom's American based
opinions but I think his 'lightning rod' = our 'earth-spike' and thus he
is talking about the effective ground rather than the place where
the strike enters the system. AICBW 8¬)


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