[gui-talk] serge protectors

[David Andrews]

Joel:  Be careful about lecturing Lloyd (smile) he is an electrical engineer.

I think he was talking about small surges that cumulatively take away 
the surge protection, while it seems like you are talking about a 
catastrophic strike.

Dave

At 01:37 PM 5/13/2008, you wrote:
>Lloyd,
>I don't think that's what they were talking about. Everybody knows that if a
>surge protector is forced to break the current during a power surge, then it
>loses its capacity to protect and needs to be replaced, even though of
>course it still can provide electricity to what's plugged into it. and just
>because you can't see the pilot light, that wouldn't matter if you knew
>you'd had a dramatic power surge, like a lightning strike. If that were to
>happen, or the house current would go off and suddenly come back on, or that
>sort of thing, I'd certainly get a friend or neighbor to take a look at my
>power strip and, if the light was out, install a fresh replacement.
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Lloyd Rasmussen" <lras at loc.gov>
>To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 11:26 AM
>Subject: Re: [gui-talk] serge protectors
>
>
>As far as I know, surge protectors can fail in a way that you cannot detect
>without sight.  Failure can occur if there was a nearby lightning strike or
>other sudden spike of voltage on your AC outlets.  The metal-oxide varistor
>or other device inside the unit is supposed to short much of that charge
>out, so your computer is not exposed to it.  But it can only do this a
>limited number of times.  An L E D on the power strip may change color or
>go out to indicate that the surge protection function is no longer
>working.  But the strip will still supply unprotected power.
>
>This is not a matter of aging, but only a matter of exposure to large
>electrical surges.
>
>Having said all this, I have never had one of my surge protectors inspected
>to see whether it has sustained damage or not.
>
>At 02:07 PM 5/13/2008, you wrote:
> >Denise --
> >
> >If Best Buy, and every other retailer for that matter, could convince us of
> >it, they would have us replace everything we own as frequently as possible,
> >just to keep their bottom lines as profitable as possible.
> >
> >As for the surge protector going bad, yet still providing output power,
> >that
> >comes as quite a shock to me.
> >
> >It sounds to me like the technicians there simply don't know what caused
> >the
> >problem in the first place, so they're coming up with a bogus excuse to
> >explain away their ineptness.  And if your computer is still under
> >warranty,
> >then you'd better believe that they're trying to find some way of blaming
> >you and your equipment for being at fault, so they can charge you some real
> >bucks to repair or replace your computer.
> >
> >-- George
> >
> >
> >Denise avant recently said ...
> >
> >"i recently had to take in my computer TO BEST BUY FOR REPAIR. I WAS told
> >that some hardware inside of the computer may be causing my problem. and
> >the
> >damage to the hardware in the computer may have been caused by my serve
> >protector going bad. i explained that i had the protector for about 5 or 6
> >years, and i was then advised that a replacement every two years was
> >adviseable. so thus my question.
>
>Lloyd Rasmussen, Acting Head, Engineering Section
>National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
>Library of Congress    (202) 707-0535   <http://www.loc.gov/nls>
>HOME:  <http://lras.home.sprynet.com>
>The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent
>those of NLS.
>
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