Power irregularities and electronics. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: UberVento
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: January 11, 2013, 04:08:10 pm
content: I live in an area that has, well let's call it questionable mains power(US 120vac mainly). My electronics suffer from high and low voltage quite often. I lost a few computers and monitors as well as a home theater receiver and an old XBMC xbox. So often in fact that I purchased uniterruptable power supplies for all my major electronics. This works okay, but I go through a lot of batteries. I would like to find a better solution as sealed lead acid batteries are not cheap, at least when you try to buy a quality unit(no onehunglow for me thanks).I have looked into Power conditioners, Isolators, Voltage regulators, and surge protectors from companies like Tripplite, APC, Emerson, Furman/Panamax, and others but feel the like the snake oil may leak out of the unit even before it is delivered to my home. Though the products may be legit the sales pitch makes it seem as if they are not. I am open to any suggestions for products or projects I can do to help the situation. I have even looked into opening up all my electronics and going DC in my home with DC/DC converters in place of all the AC/DC power supplies. by the way we are talking about 10 or so devices give or take depending on what I find or make.Thank you again for reading and providing any feedback.James

author: martinv
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2013, 07:40:44 am
content: I used to on a Furman that regulated the voltage. It worked very well at that task. It converts 97VAC-141VAC to a constant 120V out. I verified this with a variac. It also auto shuts down if the voltage goes below 97VAC or above 141VAC on the input. This unit also has very decent filtering and believe fast transient protection. The downsides are: Price, max current output of ~15A.This is the unit:http://www.musiciansfriend.com/accessories/furman-ar-1215-ac-line-regulator?src=3WWRWXGPI ended up selling my Furman on ebay because the power where I live is so reliable, I have never lost equipment to under or overvoltage. I'm only using basic transient suppression built into some of my power strips.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2013, 07:51:11 am
content: I would look on eBay for a used ferroresonant isolation transformer, often used as a line conditioner. Simple, very heavy ( shipping it is a tad expensive in most cases unless you can collect or get a trucking company to collect) and very good at keeping a constant ouput voltage irrespective of input within limits. Most common faults are dead 50uF 400VAC capacitors on the resonant coil and output.I have one in the garage, I used it a lot but got a UPS with an external 40Ah wet cell battery.

author: tld
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2013, 06:05:31 pm
content: Quote from: UberVento on January 11, 2013, 04:08:10 pmJust some quick random thoughts:SLA-batteries are usually fairly cheap. Have you looked into using compatible batteries from a different vendor?Sorry if this seems too obvious, but are you using grounded outlets for everything? And are you reasonably sure you don't have grounding-issues? A lot of surge-protection-stuffs simply won't work otherwise. This includes UPSes, even some brand-name ones.Do you know if it's the grid in general, or do you have more issues in lightningstorms?