by Nyal Mellor
April 08, 2013
We’ve probably all experienced the momentary ‘flickering’ of lights when a heavy load such as a vacuum cleaner or amplifier is switched on within our home or studio. The flicker is a result of a short term ‘sag’ in the powerline voltage.
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by Nyal Mellor
April 08, 2013
The power supplies in electronics, both linear and switching, draw current only at the peaks of the AC voltage creating a characteristic ‘flat topped’ waveform.
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by Nyal Mellor
April 08, 2013
Long term over-voltage events are generally rare but when they occur can be damaging.
Undersized distribution infrastructure coupled with periods of high demand can lead to utility companies increasing voltages so that the power required can be supplied.
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by Nyal Mellor
April 08, 2013
Half wave rectification from devices within the home such as older hair dryers causes DC offset. It can also be caused by industrial devices outside the home that load the power line unevenly.
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by Nyal Mellor
April 08, 2013
The diagram in the article presents the Acoustic Frontiers approach for thinking about power and grounding as it relates to the high performance audiovisual systems found in our audiophile listening rooms and home theaters.
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by Nyal Mellor
April 08, 2013
Simply put, a surge protective device (SPD) is a device designed to protect against damaging and dangerous short, high voltage transients that are created by devices outside or inside the home or studio.
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by Nyal Mellor
April 08, 2013
UL1449 3rd Edition is the UL’s Standard for Safety for Surge Protective Devices (SPDs). All surge protectors should be UL listed for safety purposes. UL listed devices undergo a number of tests to ensure they do not create any shock or fire hazards throughout their working life.
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by Nyal Mellor
April 08, 2013
A whole house surge protector is a device connected at your service panel that provides protection from ‘big’ surges such as lightning strikes.
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by Nyal Mellor
April 08, 2013
Shunt mode surge protectors are typically based on circuits that contain metal oxide varistor (MOVs) which, under normal operating voltages, act as an open circuit and allow no current to flow through them.
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by Nyal Mellor
April 08, 2013
Series mode surge protectors use a large, carefully designed inductor in the hot or live circuit and other circuitry to roll off high frequency / high rate of change transients.
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by Nyal Mellor
April 08, 2013
The term power conditioner has a very loose definition in the industry. We define a power conditioner as anything that is used to improve power quality.
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by Nyal Mellor
April 08, 2013
A passive device is anything that doesn’t contain any powered electronic circuitry. Examples of passive devices include isolation transformers, surge protectors and resistor-inductor-capacitor (RLC) type conditioners. Power re-generators and UPS systems are active devices.
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