Inside a 13,500A surge protector. (With schematic.)
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- čas přidán 28. 06. 2019
- This surge protector wasn't very expensive, but is actually very well made. It would be worth using one plugged into a spare empty socket to provide a level of transient voltage spike suppression for other items in your home.
This one came from CPC in the UK (Farnell / element14)
cpc.farnell.com/brennenstuhl/...
The brand Brennenstuhl have a bit of a mixed history of electrical devices, including fluorescent striplights that used a DC multiplier to strike and run the tube - cheap, but very short lamp life. But their stuff is generally OK.
With the proper thermal protection for the MOVs (if the thermal fuses are good quality) and clean layout inside, this suppressor adaptor looks absolutely fine. It went back together easily and I'll be using it as a layer of extra protection against mains borne voltage spikes here.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of CZcams's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty. - Věda a technologie
In the late 1980s a truck hit a power pole which had a transformer on it and the primary voltage went through one of our sub offices. Every electric appliance was destroyed including ceiling fans which had burn marks. The only things that survived were computers which had surge filters on them. The office manager was initially skeptical on the value of surge filters which were expensive at the time but became a convert after the incident.
In German, commas and decimals are reversed in numerical usage
Same in dutch.
The Germans might just say, "In UK and America the decimals and commas are reversed in numerical usage."
I thought it was common across lots of Europe outside the UK (not just Germany)
This seems like something that could cause a lot of trouble and should be standardized
Same in Spain
Think of the star rating diagram as a computer GUI with two (non selectable) options greyed out. The unit is a 3 star unit (coloured option), and should not be used to protect your prized high tech gear. That's my best guess anyway.
Where's the active protection monitor the sine wave or somat bin job 🤣🤣🤣
Yeah, that's what I thought too
I have one of the five star ones for my PC etc. and they also have a noise filter and such... Not sure if that is too great, but it has more sockets. So there's that. :D
@@TashiMortier I'm curious about the noise filter. Is it a common mode choke with a capacitor across it, like the ones used in ATX power supplies?
@@Sheevlord I have no idea. I'm far from an expert on these things. They just advertise it as being good for hi-fi equipment. So could just be total snake oil as well. I just wanted the higher power surge rating to protect my expensive PC. :D
'i think I'd trust this'
that is a compliment from big clive holy cow!
Ikr. Especially since at the beginning of video I was expecting device that just shines that green led and doesn't do much more :-)
I would not see above
the stars you mention on the back are the class of protection, meaning they sell a standard surge suppressor for standard electronics marked 3 stars, then a better one for more expensive devices (4 stars) and then their top of the line surge suppressor for your most delicate devices with 5 stars. Would be interesting to get all 3 and compare if there are any differences in design at all, or just bigger MOVs...
Funny, i bought exactly this one about 3 years ago and it's still in use. Nice to see it being opened up and hear positive feedback about it!
Brennenstuhl is also what we Germans get after eating too much chili.
So thats why germany stinks haha we can smell you guys over here in the netherlands
@@ljmike1204 I can smell them from Canada hahaha
@@ljmike1204 are you sure it's not your own swamp gas? ;)
Burn chair? Sounds like taco night.
@@rich1051414 burn stool. Stool as in turd, shit etc.
In much of the world a period is used instead of a comma for thousands separation. Also I believe the 3 gold stars means this device is only rated for consumer electronics, and the other 2 options are 'grayed out', or not meant for this device
The text on the package is in English, therefore the English convention should be used. If the text was in German, then the German convention should be used.
@@MrEdrftgyuji Yeah but I strongly doubt that actually happens. I'm sure they just print whatever seems logical to them. I'm actually very surprised that Clive didn't think of this -- he's lived in the UK/Europe his entire life, and most of Europe uses . as the thousands separator and comma for the decimal point.
Many homes in the US, especially if they are on rural power coops, have large suppressors on the breaker panel. Once I added one to my house, all that annoying dying of things seemingly randomly, quit. So it was the power company after all. Plus we have many thunder storms here that also take out appliances.
I'd like to see the PCB tracks after a 4,500A pulse. I suspect the MOVs would be superfluous.
Depends on the surge duration. Those traces may be able to survive a 4.5kA pulse if the pulse is just a few nanoseconds. a 10kV@4.5kA for 5 ns is less than 5 Joules of energy. Usually a lot of high current surges are just a few nanoseconds. It's the small ICs\microcircuits that will easy fail with just a small amount of energy (ie < 5 joules).
Testing in Europe is a 10 x 100 us pulse. US is 8 x 20 us pulse per IEEE.
@@curtw8827 In Europe, protection devices are tested with full duration metric lightning strikes. In the US, our electronics are tested with a cheaper, easier to produce imperial lightning strikes. Exactly how the imperial lightning strike was standardized is lost to history. The legend is that it was based on a lightning strike that killed a Duke that was trying to replicate Franklin's famous experiment where he flew a kite in a thunderstorm.
@@hamjudo Great, you made my day :-D
In germany we have to use proper Surge protection in new electrical systems.
These are ratet for In 20kA and Imax 40kA also 275V AC not like this device over 400v.
Between you and AvE I’ve learned so much about electronics, home game machining and hydraulics, pneumatics. I actually became a patron of AvEs. When I’m old enough to have an actual job I’d like to sponsor you as well.
I’ve actually been able to help my uncle John with a few hydraulic problems.
I should think that 13,500 amps would be sufficient to remove the wiring from your home, hence you'd only have to deal with the ensuing blaze.
Depends on the pulse duration.
Theory being this device and the wiring in your house will be protected from short duration current spikes by your MCB or RCD tripping. So voltage rises>surge protector starts passing current>high current trips MCB. Your electronics have been protected by the voltage spike and then disconnected from the power.
Daniel I That kind of event may weld the contacts in your breakers, requiring full replacement ASAP, as they can no longer break the current for normal events.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 this would only happen if the surge voltage and current is too high for the breaker to safely handle. Remember a breaker is designed to break a full short circuit condition in order to protect the wires downstream. If that fails the next step is the main fuse, usually rated at 63 or 100A. At short circuit this will blow not long after the MCB should be tripping. At this point you need the DNO to come out and inspect and replace the fuse, and they will probably want the electrics inspected. If the voltage is still high enough to flashover the main fuse then fuck all is gonna protect you from the spike.
I think household equipment is only tested up to a certain level because flashover would occur at the socket once the surge voltage exceeds a certain amount.
Brennenstuhl translates as "Burning stool"
I'm sure there is some soothing cream one can get for that
They should change the packaging to read..
Endorsed by Big Clive, He says
"I think I'd trust this."
High praise indeed!
I'd buy anything that said that.
I always wondered how and _if_ these worked. Thanks Clive!
They dont work. It is scam.
It's always nice to see one of these videos concluding with "this is in fact a good product" rather than "this will melt your face off if you use it"
Nice explanation. Love the added detail of the diagram and the circuit explanation. Well done.
I purchased a couple of Brennenstuhl 8 way power strips. On removing a couple of plugs a couple of years later, the whole front of the socket came away, revealing live mains. I sent them an email and they quickly replied saying it was a bad batch. A few days later I received two replacements from Germany. Fair enough really.
1:09 German company ... Germany has in numbers the dot and comma switched around. The silver is not silver but grayed out. Means you have the most basic product.
I can finally protect my lightning rod!
Now it's time to send it to Photonicinduction and have Andy "POP IT!!!" I can hear him now... "I ain't 'avin it!!!" :D
If only, he's too busy getting it on with his mail-order Indian wife.
@@R33Racer He said he was coming back months ago.
@Hunter Higginbotham I reckon he's zapped himself on some dodgy Indian wiring. Shame he's gone (and why) loved his vids.
@@paulvale2985 He commented 2 months ago saying a series was on its way.
@@jamescollins6085 he's the head of a company guys there's a video where he is talking with someone about it
These brennenstuhl surge protectors have been my go to for quite a while. Any really expensive equipment I have is protected by a UPS, since those provide better protection against surges than surge protectors.
I use brennenstuhl extension cords in the labs at work cause their pretty solidly built and have some nice re-settable fuse versions. Can be difficult to source at times though... often don't see them for sale for months.
One thing that seems nice about this design is that minor surges would appear to be shunted to neutral, with only a major surge directed to ground. This would be an improvement on most of the surge suppression devices I have now, which seem to send everything to Earth including minor events. The problem with this is that a small over voltage will come in on the live line, leave via Earth, the RCD sees an imbalance and before you know it all your power is off. Granted this is desirable for major events but it's a pain for anything minor, so I like this design as it seems it will only trigger an RCD to cut the power in the event of a significant surge.
I was thinking the same thing. Convenience is great if it doesn't significantly affect performance.
At work, we have a wall of TVs, all on surge protected outlets. One night we had a really big surge, but only damaged one TV on a wall of 33 or so. Seems like all of the sockets shared the load, and tackled the transient together.
Doesn't bother me, I don't have an RCD, those things are a pest.
@@lambertovitali3152 Seat belts in cars are also a pest but they also save lives, just like RCDs. Sometimes a little inconvenience is worth saving the lives of those you care about.
@@Berkeloid0 I don't wear a seatbelt either. And I didn't get vaccinated. Because I understand probabilities.
@@lambertovitali3152 Famous last words...
I started as a telephone engineer. We used to routinely fit lightening protection gas discharge tubes, fuses, local earth and same again at the exchange. When lightening hit you'd be sent to scrape the wires off the wall and once, to pull art of the phone case out of the door.
The exchange had bigger separation and usually took little or no damage from a strike.
As a mill town we had 100s of mills running massive inductive loads, as well as heavy and light engineering. The mains was pretty noisy most of the time. Spike filters worked quite well on the early digital kit, we had various sizes so could cope with most cases including a huge DC plastic welder. I still use filters. Only powercuts affect anything. I've seen 7 strikes in the nextdoor field, less than 20 yards away with no effect. I don't know if they do work or if it's just the type of land or what - I work on the principle that its hurting nothing and costs nothing, so why not?
The power lines have lightning arrestors which are basically stacks of MOVs that shunt the strike to ground on the primary side of the transformers.
Thank you... Thanks to your videos, I learnt stuff all these years, I helped some peps, I was informative enough not to get scammed also even though they raged, I managed to protect my family members not to get scammed. God or/and anything or/and everything bless you.
BRENN-ENN-SH'TOOL. I think the start system and the fact the other two are grey is saying this is the base model, not the fancier or fanciest model.
We used to use gas discharge tubes as trigger devices on capacitive discharge high voltage generators.
The tubes were sourced from discarded phones which were full of those tubes for protection.
I have my main PC plugged into one of these. Always thought that that number was a bit odd, but Brennenstuhl stuff is usually quite well-made. Especially their "Alu-Line" power strips are virtually indestructible.
"it might even go back together again afterwards". Superb.
Their power strips also have the 13.500A printed on them and "super solid safety".
Brennenstuhl is a premium brand that I trust, but they can definitely dial down the marketing wank!
But they are only relatively good, as the quality of the whole market segment went down in recent years.
@@fromgermany271 for consumers, yes absolutely.
We buy the expensive stuff at work and they're still good. for the consumer grade stuff everything is getting cheaper. copper strips are getting thinner, the child-proof shutters are harder to use...some even break on insertion of the plugs..
My grandfather used to just leave a regular incandescent light on all the time to protect against lightning and such. I always thought it was a bit absurd until the pole transformer outside got struck by lightning, and the lightbulb actually allowed the ~15 kV surge coming in go to ground. Terrifying to watch, but it was effective and saved the rest of the appliances in the house.
@CubeAMSPro100 Well, truth be told it was probably several light fixtures that flashed over, but basically the filament was instantly vaporized and the arc went across the small wires that feed thru the glass base in the bulb, making it light up a brilliant blue in the room I was in. Could also see the arc dancing around in the bulb, but it didn't shatter. The transformer shorted out during the strike and fed the HV from the lines directly into the house. It must've been quite a lot of power because the feeder wires coming off the transformer and going to the main fuse panel immediately burst into flames started glowing bright orange and after a few seconds came off the transformer, breaking the circuit.
the filament acts like a fuse and energy absorber. its resistance is very low compared with other appliances in the home so the electrical surge will choose it to go through, it evaporates thus absorbing electrical energy, the metal atoms fill the void, and then it breaks the circuit and arks thus absorbing more energy. brilliant!!
@CubeAMSPro100 Sorry should have put in what was said above as well, but basically since the filament is on, its already conducting and is a current path and doesn't require substantial voltage to start a flash-over. The filament is a couple hundred ohms and is small so wont carry the full voltage surge, but its there long enough to allow the arc to form as said above. It wont carry current for long, though, as the feed thru wires that the filament is crimped to are quite small. I suspect they're probably melted down quite quickly, but at that point the arc is already conducting.
@CubeAMSPro100 I will say one thing that with the advent of LED lamps its now a free for all as to what pops first during a lightning strike. My parents also sustained a direct strike to their incoming service, and it ended up being a chunky external power supply that was turned into a melted down carbon pancake. Same thing for the place I worked at before my current job which had just fluorescent lights. Bolt came in and burst the water main, and ended up cooking the ethernet router (and physically destroying some of the cabling), knocking out our network the next day. Makes a good case for getting lightning arrestors installed on your service.
@@mysock351C After i completely switched to LED lights i can't even have light on when there is a storm because where i live lightning strikes like crazy all the time and i already lost 4 LED bulbs
McDonald’s happy meal toy screws!
you beat me to it
I hate those
@@qwertykeyboard5901 I spent hours trying to open those. I eventually found that a flat screwdriver did the job :D and there's nothing interesting inside
Oh yeah that was like it was screaming open me
Those triangular screws can be easily drived by a strong steel flat screwdriver (hexagonnal star ones similarly)
I had an RS branded protection device,it actually called itself a power conditioner and did have some chokes inside as well as capacitors along side one very big MOV, I used it on my computer and printer. I came home recently and there was the smell of burning plastic and electronics throughout the house. I traced it to this device and found that there a a big hole in the side of it with scorch marks up the wall, when I took it apart the MOV had disappeared,exploded right off the board leaving just stubs of vaporised wire. As far as I know there had been no thunderstorms in the area and nothing else in the house was damaged.
MOVs degrade with every little spike they eat. Eventually, they short and kill themselves exactly as you describe.
Some of the APC Surge arrest devices are intentionally designed to do this. I had one in my office at work. Just like you, came in one morning to smell of electrical smoke/burn. Dozens of other computers on the same floor and branch circuit were not damaged. Neither was my computer. But the APC gave it's life to protect it. Numerous internal components were blown to smithereens. So, the APC was "sensitive" enough to blow, undoubtedly due to some kind of surge, even though the surge did not kill any other equipment. So it was a $45 fuse. Later research on my part revealed the APC was DESIGNED to do this. Very sophisticated. It is built like a brick house inside. I still use them today (same model). By the way, the plastic housing is flameproof.
As a biomedical technician, I used your videos to understand electronics better.
That's a fabulous accent for any kind of teaching.
I had started to use a surge protector ever since I heard about Energy spikes!
I think this is the only time I've seen you approve something. this shit must be good !
I had this surge protector. Good to know that it is worth something. I am also using the extension cord with 5 sockets from brennenstuhl. Hope the idea of protection is the same there.
Way back in 1961, we moved from "the old homestead" a farmhouse built by my grandfather in 1910, to a more modern farm some 12 miles away. Dad put his land into the "soil bank" (a program where the farmland is left fallow for a period of time and the government pays the farmer for this) and he rented a farm closer to town so my sister could attend high school. Well we were thrilled, we had electrical power! When dad went to town he stopped at a TV repair/sales store on main street and made a deal on an old used floor model television, and a large antenna since we lived over 100 miles from the nearest station. Along with the package the repair guy sold dad a small round device with a sort of screen case that he said we HAD to have plugged into the socket before we plugged in the television. He also sold us a lightning arrestor that had to be placed in the tv wire leading from the antenna that was atop a 50 foot pipe sticking up the chimney of the old farmhouse which was right next to the small house we occupied. I was just wondering if that little round black deal was anything like an early design of this thing? I think what I remember best about the whole deal was that the set acted like a Ford Detector, any time someone in a Ford car pulled up the TV would show the firing of the spark plugs or something in a sort of interference pattern on the screen.
it always amazes me how large most electronic cases are compared to the actual inside parts that are doing the job which are basically an inch long for all of them.. most cases are empty space, room for the actual plug, etc..
here in sweden 13.500 A means 13 tousand 500 amps. To specify decimals, you use comma, like 3,3v is three comma three volts, slightly above 3 volts. IMHO its best to use spaces as separators instead of dot, when separating digits for readability, makes it clear both for comma and point countries at the same time.
That is indeed the ISO norm:
www.iso.org/sites/directives/current/part2/index.xhtml#_idTextAnchor105
Commas for decimals, spaces for 3-digit grouping.
In Sweeden you also speak Sweedish, which makes it clear what convention should be used. All English speaking countries use the decimal point, therefore only this convention should be used when writing in English.
South Africa uses the comma for decimals. Also, the IEC recommends the use of the comma for all languages. However, they also recommend the use of a space (not a dot) to separate groups of 3 digits, which is the real issue here.
Great Video Big Clive
You should take an Apple usb cube from America to bits. They're so small, i wonder how they do it
I've taken one apart, they've got 2 circuit boards (like some others he's taken apart, I believe) and are really clever, but it takes a Dremel and/or Vice of Knowledge to take apart. They've got glue out of the wazoo.
I bet the glue to stop ya opening it and to make it hotter desiged flaw
Da ve They had to recall the first ones globally because the live pins could fall out and stay in the socket as exposed live deathtraps. Improved model is made not to fall apart and marked with a small colored dot.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 wot a joke product from China
Very interesting is apple power brick for macbooks, we have one opened (they fail over time because of constant heating), very complex engineered, huge pure copper pieces (many copper inside) , maybe 100+ components with micro capacitors, they made very impressed work for filtering noise (Chinese cheap copies, original are quite expensive, made such noise in whole house that you can see it on TV).
Great video i enjoyed the Clivecad
All of my stuff is on Brennenstuhls or APCs, so I am happy to hear they are OK.
Where did he say/imply that apc is good? Recently ordered one from APC, but I'm not sure if I should have went for the Brennenstuhl one :/
I use a surge protector with my old 1980s 13-inch Sony Trinitron CRT television to protect other devices from the spikes it produces when it first turns on.
Okay before I even finish the video - I own a couple of power cords from them with surge protection and this model that specifically protects my subwoofer.
We'll see if I have to reinvest my money elsewhere. Thanks Clive - Keeping the anxiety high.
I'd love to see you take apart the APC Schneider equivalent unit to see what the differences are!
Clive - your DIT400 set to 1000V can determine the DC standoff of the MOVs at 1.6mA. And the new advanced version (which no-one actually sells yet) is able to determine the sparkover voltage of the GDT.
The surge protector means that absorbs all the incoming spikes and overvoltages from the mains and cleans it protecting in that way all the other appliances.Absorbs current until limited by the breaking of the mains fuse
The 13.500 Amps thing might be a localisation issue, for example, in Germany, we write thirteen and a half thousand point two five as 13.500,25 (it's quite weird to get used to if coming from English where it's 13,500.25 but Germany uses the comma as the decimal separator)
Great video Clive! How did they soldered the thermal fuses w/o activating them? Esp if Pb free. Can you test the unit with HV to see if it really clips the voltage?
I have one of these :D Nice to see they aren't utter garbage. :)
MOVs are rated in joules of dissipation. They might be 50, 100 joules or whatever. A joule is a watt-second, so if you have a specific voltage and an impressively high ampere rated MOV you can roughly figure out how long that MOV will last before exploding. This is left as an exercise for the student; compare to the length of a lightning strike.
The other thing I'd like to point out is that MOVs are good for one time use. After they soak up that one lightning-induced surge (you hope), then you throw them out because their breakdown as been compromised. Many will start to break down over time with no surges, then they just burn up because their dissipation goes exponential. They are not to be used as zener diodes.
Also, because they break down in nanoseconds, you will have some interesting spikes ricocheting around your power lines unless you position them at the lowest inductance point across the incoming mains.
Thank you for mentioning that MOVs break down over time. Probably a good 95-98% of people don't know that line voltage dips and spikes all day long "wearing out" surge protectors, and they should be replaced every so often to be on the safer side.
Very nice
when people ask, "why do you watch this channel"
me - "Marketing wank" case closed
According to the company website, it apparently originated in Tübingen and also has manufacturing units in Switzerland, Austria and France.
If it has the "Clive Seal of Approval" then it's good enough for me!
I had to go back to around the three minute mark to see where line current came into the device. I was thinking the current had to go through the circuitry and then out the other side. Trickily, they connected the gozinta directly to the gozoutta.
i'd like to see this compared to one of those tripplite isobars everyone seems to love so much
Can you take appart a propper fusebox mounted surge protector, for comparison
The three stars are gold to indicate that's what this model is. The other two are "greyed out"
There are similar protections in PC powersuplies and APC units.
How long wiering they can protect from surges? I mean as long the copper wire goes, the resistance almost 0, so if I plug this anywhere it shail protect anything untill reaching the nearest street transformator (wich seems impossible).
Oddly simple circuit, I just wonder why these are so large in housing and made like an addable socket switch.
Gas discharge tube is new to me. I may well have a use for that.
Hi there! Would like to know the JOULE RATING of the surge protector and also the CURRENT RATING for the thermal fuse. Thanks!
I'm not suprised at the conclusion of "not that bad at all". That's basically true for all products of that company, which is in the "not garbage" category for extension sockets and such stuff in germany. Nothing exceptional, but solid.
At last ive found another person who knows how to open blister packaging efficiently
How else would you open these kinds of packages? You can't tear them open. Doesn't everyone cut the sides off?
Nope they dont ive watched loads of unboxing video's for various stuff almost all put one cut in it and try to rip it apart, or cut around the product not the blister seal
Such devices often got tested with standard surge waveforms, like 8/20 us and this 13,5kA could actually be the peak current it can withstand
So, as someone who went to school on power quality, I must say, the packaging inspires tremendous confidence. (I haven't seen the inside yet, heh)
Oh great, the gas tube protects the MOVs from surges. I was sorta hoping to have the MOVs protect my kit from surges. ;)
To everyone acting like the Arabic writing is strange: many Middle Eastern countries use British style outlets and plugs. As a result, this exact device is undoubtedly sold there, as well. It's s bit like how here in the US, a lot of packaging has French as well as English, because the item is also sold in Canada.
Could you open a Micromark one please? I have one and the live is FUSED at an amp or so, so it's just gonna stop working as soon as there's a surge!
Does this require a surge arrest in the fuse box or is it capable of handling something like an lightning strike on its own? I'm worried that a really high voltage is going to spark across inside that box easily before it trips. Of course I'm not talking about scenarios where lightning directly strikes your house. At that point you have bigger problems than damaged electronics. I get that they sell this as a quick upgrade for old homes as ideally you should have this protection in the fuse box and thus protect the entire home.
"So, that's three of the screws out. What does it say on the back?" I was expecting "Do not remove screws". Haha
Hi, is there a good surge cube you would recommend here in the UK? One better than this? I would like to purchase a couple for my audio equipment. Thanks
What is that screwdriver set at 2:30. All the ones I can find are 1/2" shank and that's too big for some of the recessed triangular screws I run into. Thanks.
Try something like this - it comes with an extension. www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01MYR7RKY
Some spark gaps ( like the one shown ) have a very tiny amount of radioactive coating on each facing electrode ... this gives a tiny leakage current that vastly speeds up the firing time ( offering hyper speedy protection ! ) ....QED ...
If the circuit is just in parallel with the mains, wouldn't it be then way more useful to install it directly inside a fuse board? (In a different form factor then.)
L3P3 Those are available from major brands of fuseboard switchgear.
Hi would you recommend this or the Belkin SurgeCube 1 Outlet Surge Protector?? They're both single socket with single green LED light, pretty much similar from the outside.
Thank you.
I've not seen inside the Belkin unit.
@@bigclivedotcom Thanks for getting back to me. I'll open mine up and take a look. It boasts protection up to 306 joules using Oversized MOVs with fibreglass covering. Also has three-line AC protection just like this one.
@@bigclivedotcom I've just torn down the Belkin one and made a review video of it on my channel. I've linked to your video (this one) in the description. The Belkin one seems far inferior. It only has 1 MOV and 1 thermal fuse rated at 115 deg C. Belkin claims it does 3 line AC protection which I don't quite get. They rate the unit at 306 joules. The one in this video of yours is way better for sure. On a side-note, the link to Farnell UK that you've posted is for the 4,500 A version which is much cheaper.
I bought this very device when I noticed that often when the compressor of my fridge shut down, my computer would play the _USB device removed_ sound. To this day I'm not sure what was going on, or if this device made any difference. I have since plugged my computer into an USP and it never happened again.
I'm curious of the APC is the seme Maybe doing do video on that😊 they have small plugs all the way to battery protected for PC
If there was a problem and the gas discharge did its job would that then trip the rcd on the fuse board?
That as well as fuses/circuit breakers. The problem is that those aren't fast enough to stop high energy pulses like a lightning strike or near strike.
Does the thermal fuse reset when the temperature drops back below its fresh hold ? if so what happens with the varistor? does it heat back up? does this continue to cycle like this ? or does the thermal not work anymore ?
The thermal fuses are one-shot. The only time the MOV should get hot is under failure conditions.
Well they seem to have had a surge in ingenuity and created a decent product
so if i were to make my own surge protector with gas discharge tube across the mains that would protect something from lighting strikes?
It may be cheaper to buy one like this.
@@bigclivedotcom they have gone away from using gas discharge tubes across the mains, they apparently do not work well.
i wonder if the gas discharge tube in this is to stop false triggering of RCD devices.
Amperage for a surge protector really makes no sense. A surge protector clamps the voltage to neutral and/or ground and it dissipates energy in order to clamp the voltage. The peak current is just the current used under test before device failure and is time dependent. Looking at the datasheet for a S14K385 MOV for example shows 460 volts and 4500 amps absolute maximum. So it dissipates 2 megawatts?! No. Because it can only sustain that for 2ms which equals about 103 watts over a second before exploding into flames. The peak current is really quite irrelevant in terms of current passed to the devices. A device that uses 8 amps to turn on could get fried by a 300v spike and 50miliampres. Further only two of the MOVs would do anything for most surges. Another is for floating neutral or induced neutral spikes.
It is important to have as little resistance as possible between the surge protector and the devices being protected. Note that this means it doesn't actually matter if devices are plugged into the surge protector or not as long as they are a low resistance path unless the surge protector also shuts off the down stream devices due to over current. This is typically done with a fuse, resettable fuse or breaker. The joules rating on surge protectors is a slightly more honest but also somewhat misleading metric. It does indicate actual protection in the sense higher is better. But the way electronics are susceptible to surges is still hidden. It's voltage that will destroy most sensitive equipment and many surge protectors do not state their clamping voltage. While joules will tell you the surge protector isn't as likely to fail on you it still doesn't tell you its really going to protect the equipment.
Back when I was more naive about electronics I bought a Tacima mains ‘conditioner’. It had a bunch of inductors and caps that were visible through a see through casing. I’ve often wondered if it was doing more harm than good by altering the mains before reaching the electronics.
EMI filters can actually do good, but generally aren't necessary in ordinary home environments. In test labs with sensitive measurement equipment, removing a possible source of EMI can be very important.
NiHaoMike Also with some older HiFi gear that doesn't filter out mains overtones.
Appreciate the thoughts guys
Clive
Is there any surge protector you would recommend over this at all?
In the market for a new one and despite being a sparky, I'm finding it hard to find some actual tests of surge protectors sold on the UK market, plenty of US market but little or no UK market.
It's hard to tell what's inside them. Price is no indication, and it can vary over time for the same model.
@@bigclivedotcom thanks anyway
Why would they mount the led that way versus just using a smd or through hole soldered on the printed side (straight pins).
At a guess, I'd say to keep the conductive parts a minimum distance from the end user. SMD with a light guide would probably be a simpler design, but the rest is through hole so maybe they hand solder the whole thing, making one SMD component silly.
Nice, so it protects against L-N surges and also E-L E-N surges. Simple but effective.
Nothing can protect you from an Ellen surge. Trust me, I've dated an Ellen.
@@RFC3514 Tampax and Midol make arrestors for that.
I just saw this exact one yesterday at a store and thinked that it'll be cool if you took it apart lmao
Hi, I have EU socket version of this device. If the mains outlet that I want to plug this device in does not have ground contacts, will this device still provide the intended protection?
It will protect against transients between the two connections.
So for surge supression on DC what is a good option when turning on a very large 6000w inverter that has big capacitors that cause an extreme inrush current on the DC side when connecting?
I think maybe about 5' of 14g wire with a heavy duty switch/relay closing about 1 second later. The 14g wire should be good enough to get the caps charged without frying your contacts, then the second set of contacts bypasses it leaving the inverter connected with whatever you think is sufficient. It had better be at least 4g if that is a 12 input, but 2 or 0ga would not be excessive. The 14g wire will get hot, so make sure it is using non-flammable high temperature insulation like silicone and keep flammables away from it.
@@jdrissel thank you!! I figured it would take dual relay system. The issue is the BMS modules will stand the current of the inverter running but the caps charge up is like a welding arc touching power to the input terminals. This is 24V system so not quite 0awg needed
2300Watt inverter running a 8 amp Window AC unit off Solar charged LiPo batteries.
A 1w 1kohm resistor in line. Once voltage equalizes. Connect the main wires. Same as initial charge on some 10-20 farad car audio caps
An inrush current limiter: A resistor with a timed relay bypass. A PTC thermistor will also work if you can find one rated for the load.
I would love to see your opinion on the brennenstuhl power strips. They have a good reputation but have not found someone who did a teardown of one of them:)
Great video, great explanation. Thank you so much. I wonder that many brands put Joule ratings for their surge protectors, but Brennenstuhl never doing that. From the scheme you sketched the MOVs are rated 2x 115 J and 1x 125 J. So, can we add them to get total 355 Joules? Is it really the most important thing while you seeking a new surge protector for your single devices like a washing machine or a refrigerator only? If you look at product dimensions like this and a popular (and good) brand like APC, they also got single plug surge protection device like this and it's rated as 918 J, peak currents of 24 kA common mode and 12 kA normal mode. If we compare this one 13.5 kA. Can you please answer that what to look exactly, better to go with more Joules or more peak current? I mean when a bad event occurs like lightning strikes etc.. Thank you so much.
Can you show how plug timers work please?
I have one of those cheap and I cracked open and there's only a fuse in there I was disappointed supposed to be more it came from hubo in NED so I think I need to upgrade thunderstrike risk is pretty high in country side
How about for 220-240VAC?
Should I use a 431 or 471 volt MOV?
Leakage current?
Usually a 471 MOV.
I need help. Ive got cables soldered on a tiny board. One cable go to the computer and the other cable go to the headphones. The issue: How do I prevent/protect the soldering points from accidentally getting ripped off if the cable gets snagged on something? I have no clue what to do.
Drill two hole close together, loop the wire in and out like a buckle
Hot melt glue and/or folding the cables round so the solder joints don't get pulled directly?
I'm pretty sure the stars indicate that it is suitable for Standard Electronics (with the coloured square). The Advanced and Professional sections are greyed out, indicating that it is not suitable for those applications
And the diode? Is it there to protect the LED from getting a negative voltage? Would it be bad design if they would have left it out? Please explain.
funny stuff, because LED is a diode basically..