surge protector upgrade (adding MOV's to raise the joules rating)

[westom]

I'd like to see a consumer electronics protector that can take a direct lightning strike and still function. I don't believe one exists. A direct lightning strike will destroy most anything. We have one of those protectors on our electric meter and it got hit once and sacrificed itself to save our large applicances and motor items like refirgerators, furnaces, and washing machines.

Explains why your town is without phone service for four days after every thunderstorm. Because their switching computer, connected to buildings all over town by overhead wires, suffers about 100 surges with each thunderstorm. Of does you town always have phone service during and after each thunderstorm? Of course. Because protection with damage even from direct lighting strikes is routine.

If you doubt it, then your doubts come with numbers. A typical lightning strike is 20,000 amps. So go to Lowes or Home Depot. Spend less than $50 for a Cutler-Hammer 'whole house' protector rated for at least 50,000 amps. Because earthing direct lightning strikes without damage is that routine by first learning this stuff. And learn from previous damage.

An even more violent surge was described. "... a 33,000 volt wire fell upon local distribution. Electric meters literally exploded 30 feet from their pans. Many homeowners with plug-in protectors had numerous appliance and protector damage. At least one had failed circuit breakers. But my friend knows someone who knows this stuff. He had one 'whole house' protector properly earthed. "

So how often is your town without phone service for four days after each thunderstorm? The hard part is not installing protection. The hard part is to ignore your feelings. And learn from 100 years of well proven numbers. Actual protection even from direct lightning strikes is easy.

Sacrificial? Please remember how electricity works. It is an electric current. That means current is everywhere in that path at the same time. If a current was incoming to that protector, then the same current was also outgoing (into the house). No protector can not stop, block, or absorb a surge as you have assumed. Again, appreciate basic electrical facts and numbers. First the current is flowing into and out of the protector - simultaneously. Much later, the protector and other items in that path fail. Sacrificial means one forgets elementary school science about how electricity works. And another reason why sacrificial means a protector did not do any protection.

Failing is how power strip protector get promoted. A surge too tiny to destroy anything else in that current path, instead, easily destroyed a grossly undersized protector. Sacrificial protectors are also called ineffective protection. Go to Lowes. Read numbers on a Cutler-Hammer box. Or find same effective protectors from General Electric, Square D, Leviton, Siemens, ABB, Clipsal, Keison, or Intermatic - to name but a few more responsible companies. Protectors are to earth all surges including direct lightning strikes. And remain functional.

[djk]

"I'd like to see a consumer electronics protector that can take a direct lightning strike and still function"

You would have to install one designed for it.

I just recently finished installing about 2500 pcs of a retro-fit kit to a unit that goes on commercial planes. The kit has a 2.5KV spark gap made with very large cross section electrodes, followed by a 250V gap, followed by a 90V gap, followed by back-to-back low voltage zeners. It works.