Surge in Electronics: Surge Protectors for everyone! 8.2.09

With the growing popularity of electronics and computers at home and at work, it's becoming more important to provide electrical protection to prevent damage, data loss, or disruption. Next to having insurance for high dollar items, surge or surge suppressors may provide another level of physical protection for your expensive electronics and sensitive devices. Many of the quality surge protectors will often come with a grantee of coverage for connected equipment. Having a surge protector may just save your computer, hard drive, DVD player, television, or telephone when you least expect it.

Surge protectors are devices that protect your electronics from spikes in voltages that could potentially damage or destroy electrical circuits. The device connected is protected somewhat by the surge regulator circuit which regulates voltage by suppression or shorting the ground voltages within an operating range as determined by the device. Simply put a power surge is a sharp increase of voltage above the maximum level in electrical circuit flow. Normally, house voltage is standard around 120 volts. When this voltage spikes, a surge protector can prevent damage to devices plugged into its outlets by preventing a dangerous peaks. There are two types of voltage factors. First, when a sudden increase in voltage occurs, lasting several nanoseconds or more it's called a "surge." Next, if the voltage increase lasts for only a shorter single nanosecond or so then it is considered a "spike."

Voltage is a measurement of a difference in electric potential energy as current travels from point to point from one end to another. There is greater electrical potential energy at one end of a wire than there is at the distal end resulting in traveling current. Similar to how water pressure causes water to flow out of one side of a hose from high pressure to lower pressure, voltage may be thought of as a measurement of electrical pressure.

There are different ratings for surge suppressors. "Allow-through-voltage" or clamping voltage determines what will cause metal oxide varistors also known as MOV's inside the surge protector to send electricity to the ground. Joules is a unit of energy which indicates how much energy a surge device may facilitate without compromise. Any activity higher than the rating would cause the device to fail and unfortunately may compromise whatever is connected to the surge protector device. Higher joule ratings indicate higher quality surge protection. Ideally, the consumer should look for a protector above 1,500 joules.

Surge Protectors for Specific Electronics
While you might be worried of a light bulb being burned out, it is not necessary to plug a light bulb into a surge protector because the absolute worst case scenario is the light would burn out, a relatively low loss financially and is easy to replace. On the other hand, items such as computers, DVD players, mp3 players, televisions, and other high dollar electronics should absolutely be plugged into a surge protector when available. These devices are more sensitive to electrical surges and are also more costly to replace in addition to the possibility of data damage.

Special Connectors
Middle to high end surge protectors will often come with network cable, telephone, and cable television coax cable connectors. These connectors are often labeled "in" and "out" indicating they will provide surge protection when connected correctly to a device such as a network router, telephone, or television. Review the user's manual to determine how the surge protector should be connected in between your telephone or computer system. If you surge protector offers this level of protection you should absolutely use the connectors since network cables can cause damage to computer systems and telephones can become damaged if a surge travels thru the wires and terminates to the device.

Uninterruptible power supply (UPS)
On many modern middle to high end surge protection systems battery backups are built into uninterruptible power supply boxes. These devices provide surge protection and a continuous supply of clean power; depending on the UPS type either instant backup or temporary backup when commercial power is completely out. Typically battery backup is intended for home use of anywhere from 5-20 minutes time. On the more expensive UPS models, the battery backup time can increase above 30 minutes. Commercial systems that are supported by larger UPS topologies and auxiliary power units may be able to sustain power much longer than the average home non-commercial users UPS unit.

UPS units are extremely important to vital systems where data damage could occur, fatalities could occur, or other serious business interruptions. The UPS unit can be from a few watts to megawatts powering anything from a single computer to a complete data center. Each home user should consider getting a consumer grade UPS system to ensure quality power is being supplied to your computer equipment.

Choosing Your Protection
When choosing a UPS/Surge Protector unit you should consider the UL rating and recommendations of your local technology professional. Remember that purchasing a protective unit or backup power supply is another level of protection for your electronics and data whether you are at home or on the job. This level of protection can give you additional lifespan for your electronics, protect from lightning/surges, provide clean power, and prevent sudden data loss. Many quality surge protectors and UPS units come with a guarantee which often indicates that they are higher quality.

Authored by Ben Alonzo/StormSector

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