[rescue] Power question...

[Patrick Finnegan]

On Monday 12 January 2004 16:57, Bill Bradford wrote:
> Speaking of power - anybody had experience with the "Brickwall"
> surge supressors?  http://www.brickwall.com.  I'm considering buying
> a couple; one for the computer room and one to put between my 51" TV
> and the wall..

At those prices, why not just buy a UPS and/or power conditioner?  I'd 
be just as worried about brownouts affecting stuff as I would worry 
about voltage spikes...

And another thing... they say they have 'the lowest clamping voltage in 
the industry':  172V, which is about 2.3 volts above what the peak 
voltage on an EXACTLY 120V power line.  And what happens when your 
transformer/power lines are a bit underloaded and you get 122VAC 
instead, which is still in spec for what the power company can send 
you?  You'll be clamping perfectly good power with that, shortening the 
supressor's life, and wasting power... things have tolerances for a 
reason.

I'd say... if you're cheap, get a standard crappy MOV surge supressor, 
if you want something that's nice than that, get a power conditioner or 
UPS.

That's my $0.02.

Pat
-- 
Purdue University ITAP/RCS
Information Technology at Purdue
Research Computing and Storage
http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/