Re: Whole house surge suppressors

From: sparky (sparky_at_world.net)
Date: 07/12/04 

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 00:07:12 GMT

"w_tom" <w_tom1@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:40EF1EA0.268A87E7@hotmail.com...
> Chris has misrepresented what was posted. Anything else
> installed as part of the protection system is, at best,
> supplementary. Until the 'whole house' protector and single
> point earth ground is installed, then nothing else can be
> effective. Supplementary devices are all but useless without
> first earthing the incoming transient. Furthermore, those
> supplementary devices that can work adjacent to a computer are
> already inside that computer.
>
> Take, for example, series mode protectors from Zerosurge,
> Brickwall, and Surgex. Good piece of design. However notice
> the soft underbelly. There is this little thing called a
> safety ground that completely bypasses a series mode
> protector. If the building is not 'shunt mode' protected
> right at the single point earth ground as described
> previously, then a series mode protector is easily bypassed -
> ineffective. Series mode protector is only supplementary and
> can be ineffective without the 'whole house' earthed
> protection system.
>
> There is no more superior protection than single point earth
> ground and 'whole house' protector. Furthermore, the cost of
> enhancing that single point earth ground is significantly less
> expensive and more effective than plug-in protectors on every
> appliance. Provided is the most cost effective and overall
> effective solution to hardware transient protection.
>
> The silly suggestion is that lightning hitting a nearby tree
> will create some kind of monster electromagnetic field that
> will destroy electronics.

You are providing a great deal of misinformation to this
group, intentionally or not. A close lightning strike can
and WILL cause a large transient that can damage
electronic components. Please refrain from posting
until you have researched the subject thoroughly.

  I am still waiting for anyone to
> provide those numbers. Lightning striking a tree and causing
> internal appliance damage is more often a direct strike to the
> appliance. Often associated with not using the single point
> earth ground.
>
> An example demostrates how a nearby tree can actually
> channel a surge into and out of household appliances. 6
> campers were sleeping beneath a tree that was struck. 4 were
> sleeping perpendicular to the tree and therefore remained
> healthy. Two were sleeping pointed towards that tree. They
> were seriously hurt because lightning left earth, traveled
> down each body, then reentered earth. Those two suffered a
> direct strike because they were a path from cloud to earth
> borne charges located elsewhere.
>
> Same concept applies to building protection. That lightning
> that struck a tree could have found a conductive path through
> appliances because house did not use a single point earth
> ground. Notice the most important component in a surge
> protection 'system'? Single point earth ground.
>
> How do campers avoid a direct strike from the ground?
> Again, single point earth ground which means both feet
> together - the only point where a human body touched earth.
>
> Is the 'whole house' solution as proposed perfect? Of
> course not. Someone here may suffer a rare strike that even
> overwhelms that 'whole house' protection. But then we are not
> installing perfect protection. We are upgrading near zero
> protection to protection that is well over 95% effective - at
> very little cost. To have well over 95% effectiveness does
> not require zero resistance grounding. Ufer grounding even
> enhances that 95+% effective protection. Somehow Chris has
> invented values (such as resistance for Ufer grounding - but
> he does not even provide the number) that I did not provide
> and that does not adversely effect that far more superior
> solution. Near zero resistance in an Ufer ground is so
> effective that the method is used to keep ammunition from
> exploding due to a direct lightning strike.
>
> Telco stations and cell towers, on the other hand, must
> never suffer damage even from that most rare and powerful
> strike. Therefore they install massive amounts more earthing
> just to improve that less than 5%. The bottom line remains.
> They too use the 'whole house' protectors with a massive
> single point earth ground. They also don't use useless and
> grossly overpriced plug-in protectors. The do use a UPS that
> also contributes to protection because that UPS is also
> properly earthed; not a plug-in type.
>
> The point here being that one can spend tens of times more
> money per protected appliance and get virtually no effective
> protection from plug-in protectors.
>
> Unfortunately Chris Lewis has mischaracterized my posts. He
> still thinks a protector adjacent to the computer and
> essentially unearthed will provide some type of protection.
> That can only be true in a DC world. Due to wire impedance
> and the RF nature of destructive surges, then adjacent plug-in
> protectors have no earth grounding. IOW plug-in protectors are
> ineffective. Apparently Chris doesn't understand about RF,
> rapid transients and slew rates which is why he thinks a
> plug-in protector is earthed.
>
> In learning about lightning strikes by actually replacing
> the damaged ICs, multiple computers were damaged because a
> powered off computer was adjacent to a plug-in surge
> protector. That's right. An adjacent surge protector even
> contributed to damage of that powered off computer and spread
> through the network to damage other computer network cards.
> Damage created by a plug-in protector that was too close to
> transistors and too far from earth ground.
>
> Any protection that can work adjacent to the computer is
> inside the computer. Any surge protector without a less than
> 10 foot connection to earth ground, well, its manufacturer
> does not even claim to protect from that typically destructive
> type of surge.
>
> Provided was both the theory AND experimental evidence of
> effective protection. Chris Lewis is invited to provide
> theory and experimental evidence that explains how a plug-in
> protector could possibly protect an adjacent computer. Chris
> will have to provide the evidence because that surge protector
> manufacturer will not even make that claim. That manufacturer
> so fears we might learn about earthing that he does not even
> mention earthing. That manufacturer knows this basic fact: a
> surge protector is only as effective as its earth ground.
> Better to avoid the topic to not harm sales.
>
> Supplementary protectors remain largely ineffective if the
> essential 'whole house' and single point earth ground is not
> installed.
>
> Chris Lewis wrote:
> > Don't get me wrong, there's nothing whatsoever wrong with a
> > whole house surge suppressor. It'll usually do most of the
> > job just fine on a _line_ strike. Which is probably the
> > most common.
> >
> > On the other hand, a lightning strike hitting a tree a few
> > hundred feet away on the other side of the house from the
> > panel is not all that uncommon, and a whole-house suppressor
> > will be much less help. Surge suppression (even with
> > relatively remote/poor grounding) _local_ to the device
> > helps more.
> >
> > tom_w's obsession is that _only_ whole house surge
> > suppressers work, _only_ whole house surge suppressors
> > _can_ work, (and dare I say it), work _perfectly_ all
> > the time, and all other devices are all-out fraud and
> > completely useless.
> >
> > He doesn't understand that earth grounds (even UFERs
> > spec'd well beyond code req'ts) aren't (and often not
> > even close to) zero resistance.
> >
> > He doesn't understand about RF (lightning strikes have
> > LOTs of RF in them), rapid transients and slew rates.
> > He's living in a DC world.
> >
> > The real world just isn't quite like that.

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