Re: Do UPSes protect from surges under this scenario?

From: w_tom (w_tom1_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 12/20/04


Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 01:36:04 -0500


  You are making so assumptions that even the UPS manufacturer
does not make. However he 'shorts' you enough facts so that
you will 'assume' as you have.

  Will the UPS stop, block, or absorb what even 3 miles of sky
could not? Is that silly little one inch component going to
stop all that? Of course not. Effective surge protectors do
not stop, block, or absorb surges. They do as Ben Franklin
demonstrated in 1752. This is all explained in greater detail
in:
"Opinions on Surge Protectors?" on 7 Jul 2003 in the
newsgroup alt.certification.a-plus at
  http://tinyurl.com/l3m9 or
"Power Surge" on 29 Sept 2003 in the newsgroup
alt.comp.hardware at
  http://tinyurl.com/p1rk (changes to Google for worse means
technical discussion only starts at second group of posts
starting with post 11).
For many other technical sources:
"strange problem after power surge/thunderstorm" in
comp.dcom.modems on 31 Mar 2003 at
   http://tinyurl.com/2gumt (changes to Google for worse
means technical discussion only starts at second group of
posts starting with post 6).

  Even many cable companies are now teaching their installers
these installation requirements. A surge protector is not
protection. Furthermore cable requires no surge protector.
The cable must connect to surge protection before cable even
enter the house. No surge protector required because
connection is made using a copper wire. Same applies to every
incoming utility including telephone line (telco provides the
protector that is connected to protection) and AC electric.

  The most common source of modem destructive surges seek
earth ground by striking wires on telephone pole, entering
building, passing through computer and/ or modem, and then
obtaining earth ground on cable. Even worse, the naive say
the modem was damaged; therefore the surge must have entered
on cable, damaged modem, then stopped.

  If surge enters on modem and has no path to earth ground via
some other wire, then no complete electrical circuit exists.
No incoming AND outgoing path through a modem or computer
means no surge damage. Even worse, the plug-in UPS can make
surge damage to an adjacent computer even easier. Notice a
wire they would have you forget. That green wire bypasses UPS
protector to make a direct connection to motherboard and
chassis plate. Where is the protection to stop or block that
path?

  Just another example of what the UPS manufacturer forgot to
mention to get you 'to assume' mythical protection.
Protection is about earthing every utility wire to a single
point ground - either by direct wire of via a surge protector
- before that wire can enter the building.

  In the meantime, if anything in your building is creating
destructive surges, then the first thing destroyed would be
the surge generator. Also destroyed are smoke detectors,
dishwasher, dimmer switches, clock radio, etc. Where are
these destructive transients from household appliances? Why
are we not trooping to the hardware store every week to
replace these damaged appliances? The internal generated
surge is a myth. One way to suspect a myth: they don't even
provide numbers. Notice the so many numbers also provided in
those previous discussions.

  Surge protection is based upon what Ben Franklin
demonstrated in 1752 and has been routinely installed without
damage from direct strikes since the 1930s. Read those
previous discussions. A surge protector is only as effective
as its earth ground.

void@no.spam.com wrote:
> OK, under a typical scenario, you may have some equipment plugged
> into a UPS, and when there is an electrical surge, it goes through
> the UPS's power cord to the UPS and then gets stopped there. So
> it basically protects everything "behind" the UPS from "outside"
> surges.
>
> But do UPSes prevent surges that occur "behind" it from damaging
> other connected equipment? Here's a scenario:
>
> - some equipment is plugged into a UPS
> - one of those components is a cable modem. (this is so that the
> cable modem can still function during a power outage, as the cable
> line would still be functional.) Let's say that the UPS does not
> have coax protection, so the coax on the cable modem goes directly
> into the wall.
>
> If a surge were to occur on the cable line (and this must be
> possible since some surge protectors and UPSes offer coax
> protection), then it might go through the cable modem, the cable
> modem's power cord, and then hit the UPS. Would the UPS stop this
> surge from harming the other connected equipment?



Relevant Pages

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  • Re: House Power Failures and Mac
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  • Re: After Lightening Storm - Computer Will Not Turn on
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    (alt.sys.pc-clone.dell)
  • Re: After Lightening Storm - Computer Will Not Turn on
    ... it could still have taken a hit because the network line was not ... modem. ... a surge could have traveled up either of those points as well. ... I have my computers hooked up to a surge protector but even when big ...
    (alt.sys.pc-clone.dell)