Surge protector

@rvpiano  , will your homeowners cover some of the cost?  And were the damaged components all that was plugged straight into the wall?

I have a lot of free time on my hands and I try to stay on top of the weather and when there's any hint of thunderstorms in the area I flip the system circuit breaker (used to be three but I am now all on one) off.  I am thinking maybe I'll start turning it off after every session.  I also think I'll pick up a surge protecter for that circuit.

 It knocked out the sub woofer components of my GoldenEar Triton one speakers. In my ignorance I had them plugged into the wall rather than a surge protector. 

OP:  was everything else plugged into a surge protector, or was everything plugged into the wall and the sub components of your speakers were all that got knocked out?

Will your home owners cover any of this?

@erik_squires  , so to clarify from this quote below:

Hi OP: I meant to say that I use a Trip Lite everywhere except my PC because I have an Uninterruptable Power Supply.

Because Furman makes so many products it’s important to note whether they have SMP (Series Mode Protection) and LiFT (Linear Filtering). These are the two features to look out for surge protection but there are more expensive models with features like switched outlets, voltage regulation and power factor correction.

The PST-8 is around $200 and has both SMP and LiFT.

you suggest the PST-8 for audio if one does NOT have UPS?  (Sorry if I am beating you over the head with this question, but I will just have to defer to my previous comment regarding my diminishing reading comprehension skills.)

@erik_squires  , forgive me if I am missing something really obvious, but I will preface my question with the excuse that I am, at this point in my life, more than half blind, and not only that, my reading comprehension is getting worse as I age; but from your blog:

Tripp Lite Isobar Ultra

 

This is what I use everywhere except the audio/home theater or where I have a UPS. 

 

Best for Audio and Home Theater

Furman makes dozens of models of power strips and surge suppressors but the feature mix that are must haves are LiFT and SMP.  LiFT will reduce noise on the line and SMP is a hybrid series mode surge suppression.   In addition they have models for everything with features like remote triggers, voltage regulation, balanced outputs, coaxial surge suppression, separate filter banks, the list goes on!

 

Furman with LiFT and SMP

 

Furman seems to have discontinued the more affordable LiFT/SMP strips so I can no longer recommend them for general use.  If you don't need any of the advanced features beyond surge and noise suppression you should get a Tripp Lite Isobar Ultra instead for the price. 

What is the "UPS" you mentioned?

And I did go to the Furman link you provided and I saw a PL8C that did say it had SMP and LiFT for $255.  Would that be what I'd be looking for as related to protection for an audio system?

@dweller  , I actually turn the dedicated circuit breaker off for my system because it is easier to access than my outlets, but something nasty could always sneak up when one was out of the house or asleep.

@erik_squires 

Thank you very much for the info.  What would you suggest I use as a surge protector?

@rvpiano  , this is what   @erik_squires  told me up above in this thread:

Because Furman makes so many products it’s important to note whether they have SMP (Series Mode Protection) and LiFT (Linear Filtering). These are the two features to look out for surge protection but there are more expensive models with features like switched outlets, voltage regulation and power factor correction.

The PST-8 is around $200 and has both SMP and LiFT.

I have an Isotech unit for my amps and a few other devices.

I missed that post, @rvpiano  , I guess it must have worked okay.

@immatthewj What does switching off the breakers do. Don’t you want them on so they offer protection by tripping?

If you switch them off, don’t you lose their protection and allow current to flow through without impediment?

@vinylshadow , I guess I wasn’t clear. I manually trip the breaker so the circuit for my audio system is turned off. (Kind of like unplugging the components but easier.)   I don’t know if a massive voltage spike would jump across a breaker that was tripped, but I would think not.

I’ve ordered the Furman PST-8 unit to protect my new subwoofers once they are installed.

+1 on that, @rvpiano  , I am going to be right behind you.  Are you going to use the cord that comes with the PST-8, as I think it is an 18 gauge cord, or are you going to put a heavier cord on it?

@immatthewj I believe you are defeating the protection that breakers provide by tripping them. Best to unplug your mains cables from the outlets. 

@vinylshadow ​​​ there is a comment up above by @jea48 and he actually addressed my question of whether a massive voltage spike could jump across an 'open' breaker, and once again, I was wrong, as @jea48  states that, 'Yes, it can, so best to unplug.'  

However, I am not sure what you mean by 

defeating the protection that breakers provide by tripping them

If I am not mistaken, the protection that a breaker provides to a circuit is that when the circuit is overloaded with too many amps the breaker reacts to the heat generated by that overload of amperage and then it trips and opens that circuit and then everything powered by that circuit is without power.  So how does me manually tripping that breaker possibly defeat the protection the breaker offers?  

@erik_squires  , after years and years and years of putting it off, I think I am about ready to pull the trigger on a  Furman PST-8 myself.  I note that it comes with an 18 gauge power cord--is there any down side to using a heavier aftermarket power cord with it?

Turning off a branch circuit breaker at an electrical panel is not the same as unplugging the equipment from the wall outlet. Distance...

Take a Square D QO single pole 20 amp breaker. In the open position the two contacts are about 3/4" apart. A several 1000 Volt lightning transient will easily jump that divide...

@jea48  , would a several 1000 Volt lightning transient  be like a direct hit?

NO. A high voltage lightning transient event lasts no longer than the blink of an eye, at most a few microseconds to milliseconds. For that reason a good SPD must absorb, shunt, divert, a high voltage transient to ground in a nanosecond or less.

@jea48  , thank you--I have learned a lot from you in the past and I continue to do so.  I am not trying to beat this horse to death in order to get the answer I want, I am genuinely trying to learn as much as I can, so would the kind of voltage surge/spike that could jump across a tripped circuit breaker be protected from by a surge protector?  For example, by the Furman PST-8 that has been talked about in this thread?  Thanks again.

Probably the one that’s included.

Well, this is interesting, I am looking at the picture of a PST-8 on Amazon and it shows a detachable 3' cord, and then I am looking at a PST-8 on Sweetwater and it is showing the power cord hardwired into the PST-8.  Hmmmm?  (The PST8 from 'Zon costs about $20 more.)  I guess I'll order the one from 'Zon and unless someone on this thread advises agsindt, I think I'll grab a heavier cord that is 3' long.  I think I'll order this one in 3' long:

@immatthewj pay no attention to the pics, they all come w/ attached cord. Your seeing a listing for extra 3ft cords for sources.

Okay, thanks @audioguy85  , that clears that up and saves me from buying that 3' cord!

@immatthewj What does switching off the breakers do. Don't you want them on so they offer protection by tripping?

If you switch them off, don't you lose their protection and allow current to flow through without impediment? 

@vinylshadow  , I just re-read the entire thread to make sure that I was going to order the correct product and in the course of that re-reading I went through this post by you again, and when I said I turn the breaker off I meant that I manually trip it and this does the opposite of "allow current to flow through without impediment" as it actually completely impedes current from flowing through the circuit under normal circumstances.

However, Jea informs me that a massive voltage spike/surge could jump across a tripped breaker and this does not offer the level of protection that I thought it did.  I think, however, it may have been sufficient to protect against the type of surge that the OP of this thread experienced.  I hope I cleared up what I meant on that.

@jea48  , sorry if it seems as if I am beating this circuit breaker thing to death, but am I correct in assuming that the type of surge that the OP of this thread probably experienced would NOT have been one that would have jumped across a tripped breaker?  (As it stands, I unplugged my system after I finished up with it this evening.)

The discussion on this got me to dragging my feet.  I did go to Furman's site and I do see that Sweet Water is an authorized dealer, so I think I am going to call them and order a PST-8 from them, and it will be better protection than what I have now, which is no surge protection.

I will say that so far in my life I have NEVER experienced any type of surge activity that damaged any of my components, and once upon a time I never even used to unplug my gear during thunderstorm activity--I was happily oblivious. 

But there is a first time for everything.  I used to eat six raw eggs a day, and when someone told me about raw egg salmonella  I scoffed at that person.  I told him that I must have ate ten thousand raw eggs and never suffered so much as an upset stomach.  But then I thought about it soime more, and I decided that as many raw eggs as I had consumed in my life, I was probably due to get a bad one.  So I don't do that anymore.  As far as my system goes, for the immediate time being it is physically unplugged from the wall when not being used.

As far as power going out and coming right back on, or going out and staying out 5 or 10 minutes or an hour, that happens here in western Pa. all the time, and often there is no apparent reason, such as a T’storm, for it. In the past I did not unplug my equipment, and in the days of yore I did not even trip my breaker. That wave of paranoia started quite recently. Probably since I started reading posts here.

I will say that I have never experienced any component or appliance damage. But I am not arguing with you guys about it. I never started wearing my seat belt until I lost my drivers license for a year when I was 31, and I never was injured or killed in a car wreck, but I was lucky and I know that they save lives. I guess I have been lucky with my appliances and components as well.

Has anything changed, with your AC mains power that feeds your equipment? Any more thunderstorms, since you started reading Audiogon Forum posts? No...

What’s that tell you?

@jea48  , that I am becoming neurotic and needlessly paranoid in my old age?

@jea48 , I continue to follow this thread with interest. I did go to Lowe’s site and find their listing for the Siemens FirstSurge 140-kA Indoor and Outdoor Surge Protective Device.

After reading the second to last post you made, it got me wondering about this: in the spring of ’20 we had a micro-burst that brought down one of two large pine trees in my front yard. The tree almost could not have came down any more fortuitously than it did--no damage to my house or anyone else’s and only minimal damage to the cap on one of my pickups (which the tip of the pine tree hit). But it did take out the line from the power pole to our house (it did NOT yank the meter out). It also did not damage any equipment or appliances (I don’t think I was manually tripping circuit breakers back then). Was I just extremely lucky?

If you have two spare slots in your main panel, I'd recommend you consider having an electrician install a whole house surge protector.  If you don't have two spares, they still can work around that, it's a bit more expensive.

@ejr1953  , does it matter where in the panel those slots are?  I thought I read something to the effect of closer to the top the better, but I don't know that I'd have enough wire to move the breakers that exist in those slots down.