All projects: Gel, Jobs, Gootodo, Games, Uncle Mark, Goovite, Blog, Bit Literacy
Broken: power surge protector
Oct 11, 2007
This normal-looking surge protector has, printed on its box, the promise you'd expect:
"Protects Against Lightning Strikes and Line Surges."
The only problem is the note on the other side of the box (emphasis mine): "It's not a lightning arrestor, so it won't afford protection while lightning strikes nearby the Power lines, house, Service entrance or Antenna."
(Thanks, Julia)
Well, it's not very grammatical, but this is actually reasonable enough.
A weak cloud-to-ground lightning strike has about the energy of five sticks of dynamite. If even a small percentage of that makes it into your house's wiring, no plug-in power filter - whether a cheap surge/spike powerboard or a proper heavyweight ferroresonant power conditioner - will be able to do anything much.
If the lightning strikes power lines a mile away from you rather than right outside your house, though, the protection hardware may work very well.
The real swindle in power filtering is the "connected equipment warranties" that all of the more expensive computer-store filters have. Those may or may not be worth the paper they're written on.
Then why does it say "protects against lightning strikes"?
I can't, off the top of my head, think of any "protective" device or technology that cannot be overwhelmed by sufficient amounts of whatever it's meant to protect against.
Crumple zones. Insurance policies. Bulletproof vests. Medicines. Fluoride toothpaste. Storm windows. Armies. All protect you, but that doesn't mean you can drive your car into a bridge stanchion at 120 miles an hour and expect to be fine.
Cheap "surge/spike" powerboards, even the fancy ones, seldom actually provide much protection from anything in the first place (and don't usually let you know when their protection hardware has been worn out).
But this is an industry-wide problem, and I see no reason to believe that this powerboard provides any less protection from (suitably distant) lightning strikes than any of its brethren.
Not really broken. Lightning strikes far away create spikes that a surge supressor can stop. But if the lightning strike is close, like the tree in the front yard, everything can still be fried. Better to warn about this than not. I had to learn the hard way - before there were these warnings. If lightning is coming, unplug everything and do not rely on surge supressors!