Whole-building suppression is a great idea, regardless of whether it's a house or commercial- then, local suppression can be used to fight off the surges and spikes produced by motors, lights and other things in the building. In the restaurant, I would bet that the food/beverage storage coolers will cause spikes all day, every day- I have been in bars and whenever the coolers would kick on or off, the spike was audible through the audio system.

I would bet that the suggestions are based on past experience. Go ahead and assume if you want.

Highfigh

No doubt they are but, until the power quality test results comeback, he still assuming issues that may not be present. The test results will tell him in which direction he should take, just like doctor would do before prescribing a treatment.

I once suggested this to an electrician. He said he could do it, but we had to be ready to test for at least a week. That would cover a weekend and any average activity that was different from weekdays, and would also give some time for slightly rare events to occcur.

DAMN RIGHT there could be! the entire point is to be ready for random rare events. You can't put a meter on and expect them. If they're expected, they're not rare. I could go on....

Ernie

Electrician could put the unit on but they are not qualified to interpret the results, especially in a commercial environment, you need PE for that.

True, but I don’t think we’re looking for the Black Swan effect!

Yeah, I have used those in the past and after one incident, I *really* got turned off to the whole 'integrated switching amp' thing. After a surge, that single wire digital link between the main unit and the extenders stopped 'linking', and I was down 16 zones. Those amps are expensive (and heavy/expensive to RMA), so it's not like we had spares on hand. And since they link with that single wire, you can't just drop in a generic amp to get by.

As it was mentioned, amps are generally pretty resilient. When you add a low-powered pre-amp/switching section, I think you've just built in a weak link. If you damage that part, the whole unit is garbage (*ahem* Adagio *ahem*...). Those old setups with PAD8/BIPADS and a 16x60 were anvils! Especially when you consider the PAD8/BIPADS were behind a Cresnet power supply which was probably protected, they'd almost never get hurt by a surge.

In large homes located in "lightning alley" any internal long run of wire should be protected, especially phone and network, not just the power. Certainly, the wired phone and cable entrances should be protected.

Risk from transients (ie lightning) is defined even by geology. Surges that do damage are hunting for earth ground. If that transient is not connected to earth BEFORE entering, then nothing (as in nothing) will protect from that surge.

Defined by their spec numbers as 'nothing' include products from Furman, Surgex, and other magic boxes with spec numbers that do not even claim effective protection. Honest protection is recommended by citing spec numbers.

If interior appliances are creating surges, then one is replacing dimmer switches, GFCIs, clocks, cash registers, LED & CFL bulbs, and fire protection electronics (ie smoke detectors) daily. Those rumored surges are only noise. Typically a few tens of volts or less. Noise damages no appliances.

View numbers for magic box protectors. Many will list the let-through voltage - ie 330 volts. That means it does absolutely nothing until 120 volts well exceeds 330 volts. It completely ignores and does nothing for noise from appliances.

120 volt electronics were required to withstand up to 600 volt transients without damage. That standard existed long before the IBM PC existed. Today's electronics are even more robust.

Your concern is that transient (maybe once every seven years - destructive surges are quite infrequent) that can overwhelm what is already best protection at appliances. That means properly earthing a 'whole house' solution - to every wire in every incoming cable. Only then is best protection already inside appliances not overwhelmed. Then hundreds of thousands of joules harmlessly dissipate outside. How many joules does that magic box claim to absorb? This best solution typically costs tens of times less money - ie about $1 per protected appliance.

Why does this require a PE? An EE with the proper training and education could just as easily interpret it.

Why are you assuming the amps will have a problem? Is it from previous issues with electronics in the same location?

Highfigh

The EE part is halfway, the state PE Registration is the other half.

Anytime you render a written professional opinion in commercial, especially commercial or residential areas that involves electrical, mechanical, plumbing, structural, civil, soil, etc, you need the PE Registration.

There are many types of "EE" and "PE" specialties. After graduation a "PE" has been through an apprenticeship (of several years), then a board of exams. An "EE" simply received a diploma. A PE can register in the local jurisdiction and certify installations (in his specialty) and this certification has standing in a court proceeding. A controls engineer (very math intensive) probably could not recognize a surge suppressor if it fell on him.

I hate when some snotty guy (its always a guy) attempts to pull rank on me with: "I'm an Electrical Engineer and ...". I recall a receiver model that had a known power supply problem caused by a transistor failure and some bad solder joints. There was a factory bulletin about this. One or both rails of the power supply (often intermittently) would go down and one would perform this repair before turning the unit ON to look for any remaining symptoms. I don't recall any other failures associated with this model. One of the common symptoms was a grossly off center FM tuning meter. An "I'm an Electrical Engineer" customer derided me for not replacing an integrated circuit to cure the off center meter. There were no integrated circuits in this power supply design or dedicated to the meter. The FM tuner was fine -- when it had power. Had he been as sharp as he thought he was, he would have also noticed that the amplifier was forever in protection because of the funky power supply.

More people falsely claim they were Special Forces then the people who actually were Special Forces. Same (I suspect) with the so many who claim to be an engineer. But may have only been an English major now doing programming.

Chief information officer (responsible for data security) for Equifax only had degrees in music. But she could claim she is an expert - because she was the chief information officer. We know how that worked out.

The fewer who are informed will always identify the defect long before suggesting a solution. One way to separate wanna-bes from the real thing.

That made me laugh out loud. One of the basic things to realize about the Black Swan effect is that we're not looking for it.


True. But nobody needs to render a written professional statement etc etc bla bla to solve a customer's problem. It was good of you to write "professional opinion" because, yeah, for that to mean anything you need a license to back you up. So far I don't think this had escalated to the point where we'd be talking about legal documents!

Buzz

Ahh the illusion of the sheepskin to the real world!