Here's an interesting one. Say you have one of those surge protector power strips with 8 outlets on it and its plugged in and working.

If you turn the switch on it to the off position and all the lights that are on the unit turn off, is that surge protector still working to protect whats plugged into it?

My lights are marked "Protection" and "Grounded" and when i hit the switch they both go dead.

do people actually buy these things for lightning protection or something like power station surges? If they buy it for lightning protection it's not going to help at all. If lightning has just travelled 100's of kilometres through the air whats one power board going to do to stop it from travelling 2cm through the power board

It's elementary... if the power is off, then that's as good a protection you can ask for, short of pulling the plugs from the outlets! And a good many of those devices provide a single event protection, not the repeatable, ongoing protection one would expect. Only the more complex designed Sola, TripLite, APC, etc. can undergo repeated electrical events. Even most of those $20+ surge outlet strips that offer a $10,000 equipment replacement promise, aren't all that great.

There used to be an excellent surge protector that had MOVs for speed and big gas-tubes for high current.
It was banned by the Canadian authorities because they said it was too heavy to hang on a wall electrical receptacle.

The el-cheapo surge protectors and in power bars are useless.

Originally Posted by things

do people actually buy these things for lightning protection or something like power station surges? If they buy it for lightning protection it's not going to help at all. If lightning has just travelled 100's of kilometres through the air whats one power board going to do to stop it from travelling 2cm through the power board

I buy them more for peace of mind for power outages.

I just feel that a power outage has more of an energy spike than turning off at the switch does and so having the protection of the surge strip is better IMO.

Nothing is going to protect your equipment from a direct lightning strike.... short of unplugging it and hiding it in a hole in the basement! However, you can undergo measures to reduce the negative effects of a lightning strike... and that begins with surge protection. But, I will say that when the forecast warns of dangerous lightning approaching, I do take the time to unplug my valuables, including removal of phone/DSL and CATV lines which can also be points of entry for spike/surge problems.

You'd be surprised at how effective a good electrical ground to your home can be of importance. I have two 8-foot copper rods in the ground, with #6 wire to the AC box. I also borrowed an 0-1 ohm meter to assure that my grounding was indeed in the low 10ths of an ohm. I also buried a few pieces of metal near the rods and the soil remains moist most of the time. All services like CATV, phone, water line are grounded to one central point... no loops!

Yes those little power strips are fairly bogus towards good protection.... about as protective as using a condom on a crack whore, that's been in your wallet for 2 years!

The TrippLite, SOLA, APC and so on are the quality brands that can withstand repeated attacks most of the time.

Originally Posted by audioguru

There used to be an excellent surge protector that had MOVs for speed and big gas-tubes for high current.
It was banned by the Canadian authorities because they said it was too heavy to hang on a wall electrical receptacle.

The el-cheapo surge protectors and in power bars are useless.

That seems silly to me, they could have easilly integrated it into an extension lead.