Lightning Surge Arrestors and Protectors Part #2

How And Where Can I Get A Surge Protection Device? Who Installs Them?

How and where can you procure your own surge protection device? Your local electrical contractor carries them and is ready to install one for your home or business. As an electrical contractor in the greater Milwaukee area, I have installed many lighting surge arrestors and TVSS’s over the past 34 years. I have seen the quality and the capacity of surge arrestors drastically improve over the years.

The service panel or service entrance surge protection device, a stage 1 device, this is a unit that your local electrical contractor will send his electrician out to your building or equipment to install. This equipment is not safe or suitable for the homeowner or handyman to install.

The basic second stage surge protection device is usually a power strip with built in surge protection that anyone can install simply by plugging it in. They are usually power strips with some basic level of surge protection. They are good to have and are easy to install at a point of use as in the home entertainment area. This is something a homeowner can install themselves, especially for their expensive electronics. Surge protection only works if you have a good grounding system in the building. Grounding is critical in any electrical system, but with surge protection, grounding is all-important. Without excellent grounding, the surge voltage has nowhere to go. This is another reason why it is important to have an electrician examine your electrical and grounding system.

There is another type of surge protection device used by the power company; they are called primary surge protection devices. The outside wireman from the local utility installs these devices on their equipment to protect their primary supply side equipment. Usually every transformer has a primary surge protection device.

Surge protection devices are the cheapest insurance a homeowner or business can get for their electrical loads, appliances, and electronic devices. The nominal cost for a first stage surge protection device on a home or business panel will usually save you several time the cost in saved appliances, electronics, and motors.
What Is Clamping voltage?

Clamping voltage or what is also known as the let-through voltage, specifies what spike voltage will cause the protective components inside a surge protector to divert unwanted energy from the protected line.[2] A lower clamping voltage indicates better protection, but can sometimes result in a shorter life expectancy for the overall protective system. The lowest three levels of protection defined in the UL rating are 330 V, 400 V and 500 V. The standard let-through voltage for 120 V AC devices is 330 volts.

Clamping voltage is important, it is better to spend enough on a surge arrestor to provide you with proper protection; you get what you pay for. You want something that works, and works fast. Surges are usually in the nano seconds, so you need a surge protection that will operate that fast and heavy enough to handle multiple surges, even hundreds and thousands of surges.

Part 3 in the works

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging is currently not allowed.