you know if you think about it powering your electronics is a lot like cooking a
waffle just the right amount of heat will give you a delicious breakfast item
you can coat in maple syrup but too much and you'll end up with a charred pile of
crap so similarly the sensitive equipment inside your PC home theater
gaming console or whatever else needs a certain amount of electricity to run
properly and too much will cause malfunctions or even destroy it entirely
so the power that comes out of your outlet on your wall is actually
susceptible to voltage surges so that is
why many people use surge protectors to keep their stuff safe from nasty
electrical mishap so then how do these work and what can they actually protect
against it might be helpful to First understand what a surge protector isn't
it is not the same as a regular power
strip which provides no form of surge protection or suppression or anything
like that it is not the same as an uninterruptible power supply or UPS
which provides emergency backup power during an outage and it is not the same
as a power conditioner which can clean up mild interference that causes
electrical noise if the power running to your home isn't the best instead a surge
protector does exactly what it says it protects against voltage surges which
happen whenever there's an unintended change in electrical charge somewhere on
the circuit that's going to your power outlet cuz voltage is basically just a
difference in charge that allows current to flow so too much voltage can cause
too much current which can fry your electronics although surges are often
associated with lightning strikes the most frequent culprit is actually power
hungry appliances though things like bad
wiring and problems with the power grid itself can also cause surges so then how
does a surge protector help whenever it detects a surge
it actually shunts the extra electricity through a semiconducting material to a
grounding wire which connects to that third prong on your plug this will send
excess voltage back to the return line in the building's wiring which might
trip a circuit breaker but won't damage whatever is plugged into the surge
protector but before you rush out to buy one remember that all surge protectors
have limitations most importantly they don't last forever every surge protector
is ated for a certain number of jewels a measurement of energy that it can absorb
and once a certain number of jewels hit your surge protector it won't offer any
more protection and hardly anything will save you from a really strong power
surge such as from a nearby lightning strike well gee lonus okay then how do I
even know what to look for there are so many kinds that try to lure me in with
fancy packaging and promises that they'll protect me from the hammer of
Thor or whatever well first off Thor's hammer is actually a physical object and
not really anything to do with electricity and second of all make sure
you get one that is certified by Underwriters Laboratories or UL a
consulting company that tests Electronics equipment there are a lot of
Cheapo options out there that haven't been independently tested and may not
actually protect anything also pay attention to the clamping voltage which
is what the surge protector will reduce the voltage too although the power that
comes out of a North American Outlet is 120 volts most Electronics can actually
deal with small surges on their own so
anything with a clamping voltage below 400 volts is probably fine and as I
mentioned earlier you'll also want a protector That's rated for a high number
of jewels so it'll last longer and protect against larger surges 600 is a
good place to start but there are plenty of units that offer much more protection
then finally many manufacturers will replace fried equip up to a certain
dollar amount so make sure you read the fine print carefully so that you don't
end up losing you know half a million bucks of stuff that you had plugged into
your surge protector and have to haul all that stuff to the scrapyard but that
kind of thing can be good to watch out for as well and you know what else is
good to watch out for videos on
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linda.com tequ thanks for watching guys
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