Are mains surge protectors needed in the UK?

On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 04:49:32 -0400, w_tom wrote:

If a warranty was really a measure of product quality, then
Hyundais are clearly much more reliable than Hondas and
Toyotas. After all Hyundai promotes their vastly superior
warranty.

If I want to take your methods of proving a point, I have never seen a
broken down Hyundai. They may be ugly and have a cack brand name but
they keep running.

Especially with surge protectors, the larger a warranty,
then the protector is typically less effective. A benchmark
in protectors is Polyphaser. They offer no warranty. But
then we have repeated testimony from those who learned about
that warranty first hand:
Newsman on 10 Sept 2002 in the newsgroup alt.video.ptv.tivo
entitled "SONY TiVo SVR-2000"
I got a Belkin surge protector with phone line protection
soley for Tivo purposes.
Yet my Tivo's modem still failed. And the '$20,000
connected devices warranty' did not help me. I jumped
through many hoops, including finding the original recept
for the surge protector (just under a year old) and I
sent my surge protector to Belkin (paid for shipping), and
was denied my warranty. They gave me a ton of crap,
including that it was null and void b/c the Tivo was also
connected to the coax line for cable (this was not
mentioned as a thing in the warranty that can nullify it).
Eventually it boiled down to a line in the warranty that
said "Belkin at it's sole discretion can reject any claim
for any reason".

Try reading the fine print attached to that warranty before
jumping to conclusions. They did provide that long list of
exemptions with the Belkin protector. Oh? They forgot to
provide that information? How curious.

In which case the exemptions won't apply as they are not listed in the
warranty.

Of course if the device is not fully isolated by the surge protector
how can you proove that it was the surge protector that failed?

The point is that with £20,000 insurance and the device being pretty
simple to isolate from other power (e.g. mains input and phone line)
they would be pretty quickly out of business if the devices were
regularly failing. But then the UK mains supply seems to be vastly
different to whay you have to deal with.

w_tom wrote:

If a warranty was really a measure of product quality, then
Hyundais are clearly much more reliable than Hondas and
Toyotas. After all Hyundai promotes their vastly superior
warranty.

In the first place, we're not talking about a warrantee on the 'product',=
=20
we're talking about an insurance of devices protected by it.

The is a modicum of truth to pointing out that warrantee alone is not a=20
'perfect' indicator, however...

=20
Especially with surge protectors, the larger a warranty,
then the protector is typically less effective.

that statement is patently absurd.

A benchmark
in protectors is Polyphaser. They offer no warranty. But
then we have repeated testimony from those who learned about
that warranty first hand:
Newsman on 10 Sept 2002 in the newsgroup alt.video.ptv.tivo=20
entitled "SONY TiVo SVR-2000"
=20
I got a Belkin surge protector with phone line protection
soley for Tivo purposes.
Yet my Tivo's modem still failed. And the '$20,000
connected devices warranty' did not help me. I jumped
through many hoops, including finding the original recept
for the surge protector (just under a year old) and I
sent my surge protector to Belkin (paid for shipping), and
was denied my warranty. They gave me a ton of crap,
including that it was null and void b/c the Tivo was also
connected to the coax line for cable

Of course, because it, the surge protector, can't protect something it's =

not connected to: I.E. the cable connection.

Belkin offers protectors with modem protection as well as protectors with=
=20
cable connection protection but he apparently had the wrong one on it.

(this was not
mentioned as a thing in the warranty that can nullify it).

This person apparently didn't read the warrantee because it IS explained =
fully.

Eventually it boiled down to a line in the warranty that
said "Belkin at it's sole discretion can reject any claim
for any reason".
=20
=20
Try reading the fine print attached to that warranty before
jumping to conclusions.

I DID read it, and it's obvious you haven't a clue. Not that that stops y=
ou=20
from spouting garbage about it anyway.

They did provide that long list of
exemptions with the Belkin protector. Oh? They forgot to
provide that information? How curious.

What isn't curious are your perpetual innuendoes and attacks on=20
manufacturers you have no clue about, terms and conditions you have no cl=
ue=20
about, and technology you have no clue about.

=20
Bagpuss wrote:
=20
On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 05:40:10 -0400, w_tom wrote:
snip

So how do we make the indicator lamp useful? We make sure a
protector only fails catastrophically. We grossly undersized
the protector and get the naive to hype this protector. How
convenient since a grossly undersized protector can also mean
higher profits. Since appliances already have effective
internal protection, then the naive will recommend more of
these grossly undersized protectors. What a racket!

I guess that means the Belkin lifetime gaurantee is a bit
of a flawed business model. I'm amazed they arn't in
receivership, what with their =A320,000 insurance cover for
plugged in equipment too.

Good job they don't make LED clocks.

On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 06:44:53 -0500, David Maynard
wrote:


Snip


I DID read it, and it's obvious you haven't a clue. Not that that stops you
from spouting garbage about it anyway.

They did provide that long list of
exemptions with the Belkin protector. Oh? They forgot to
provide that information? How curious.

What isn't curious are your perpetual innuendoes and attacks on
manufacturers you have no clue about, terms and conditions you have no clue
about, and technology you have no clue about.


As we all know about the perpetual motion engine (buttered toast
strapped to the back of a dropped cat) perhaps we could generate a
stasis device by pluging 4 of w_toms exploding LED clocks in to a
belkin surge protector. It should result in a set of LED clocks
permenantly in the state of breakdown due to the expected surge, but
the surge never quite arriving at the clocks. The result, I theorise,
is a destructive spark suspended in time somewhere inside the belkin
unit or one of 4 clocks resulting in a set of 4 clocks that will never
breakdown.

Much like like the Asphyx suspended in the box lit by a flash compound
in the film The Asphyx.

In uk.comp.vendors David Maynard wrote:
w_tom wrote:

If a warranty was really a measure of product quality, then
Hyundais are clearly much more reliable than Hondas and
Toyotas. After all Hyundai promotes their vastly superior
warranty.

In the first place, we're not talking about a warrantee on the 'product',

What on earth is a "warrantee"? :-)

Sort of half guarantee and half warranty I suppose.

--
Chris Green

wrote:
In uk.comp.vendors VWWall wrote:

The phenomenon of an MCB tripping when a filament bulb fails is well
documented and explained, it's nothing to do with "excess energy".
What happens is that when the filament breaks an arc is struck across
the ends. The arc has a low impedance and as the rest of the filament
burns away the arc ends up effectively shorting the circuit to the
lamp and the MCB trips. If the circuit is protected by a wire fuse
then the arc usually breaks before the fuse blows but MCBs (in the UK)
are fast enough to trip before the arc stops.


This sounds like a very plausible explanation. I have never seen this
happen on a U.S. circuit. Perhaps the lower voltage will not sustain
the arc long enough, or the gas ionization is different, or our 15 A
breakers aren't as fast as the MCBs.


Your MCBs are different I believe. Your MCBs only have thermal
overload tripping, ours have both magnetic and thermal tripping. The
thermal tripping is slow but the MCB will trip on overloads only a
little above the rating, the magnetic tripping is very fast but needs
an overload several times the rating.

As a Registered Professional Engineer, (CA), I have signed many
electrical installation plans. I never thought about the tripping limit
of the most common circuit breakers. (15 A, #14 AWG wire branch
circuits, 20 A, #12 AWG wire branch circuits. Not "ring" wired!) I
recently looked at NEMA AB-3-2001-p36, which has some typical circuit
breaker ratings: (They *are* both magnetic and thermal.)

15A "instantaneous" open: 180-220 A 5X15 A (75 A) 2.5-7.0 seconds

Seems like our lamps don't draw 200 A arcs! The cold start current for
18 100 W lamps, (maximum circuit capacity), of about 215 A would be
marginal, depending on the definition of "instantaneous". :-)

Virg Wall
--
A foolish consistency is the
hobgoblin of little minds,........
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Microsoft programmer's manual.)

How often are destructive surges? Throughout the world,
maybe once every eight years? How often do those destructive
surges overwhelm protection that already exists inside the
appliance? Surges are not daily events except where myths are
promoted.

Yes Hyundais appear to be good vehicles. But they
definitely don't have the fine reputation of Honda or Toyota
that also have inferior warranties. How can this be when
Hyundai advertise warranties twice as good? Warranties are no
measure of product quality and are often promoted on the
inferior products.

Second, did they provide a list of detailed exemptions in
that warranty? Or did they simply provide a warranty citing
but a few exemptions and claim that they can also reject
claims for other 'hidden' reasons? Did you read the line in
the warranty that said:
Belkin at it's sole discretion can reject any claim
for any reason.
The hidden exemption. Getting a warranty honored for surge
protectors usually amounts to a surge protector replacement.
And since those protectors are so profitable, then they
probably could replace them twice and still make profits. IOW
there are a long list of exemptions one does not learn about
until after damage occurs. In the US, I know of no law that
says they must provide that long list of exemptions. Warranty
(unlike home owner's insurance) need not provide those details
with the product.

Albert Spencil on 19 Jun 2003 in comp.home.automation
In "UPS for computer and TV"
That UPS warranty is a crock ! They lay it out very
clearly in the document that comes in the box. They will
at their option repair or replace your equipment at the
current value as given in Orion Blue Book. The value of a
two year old home PC would not replace a motherboard.

Third, the device is not isolated by the protector.
Adjacent protectors are shunt mode devices. They don't stop,
block, or absorb. They are not series mode devices. However
if you claim that a protector was not on every incoming line,
then yes, just another reason for the warranty to not be
honored.

"AquaMan" on 16 Aug 2002 in the newsgroup alt.video.ptv.tivo
entitled "tivo modem?"
I can attest to this... my modem recently fried, and I
could not get the surge protector company to honor the
"$20,000 connected devices warranty". I had everything...
the Tivo receipt, the power surge protector receipt, etc.
etc. etc. and jumped through all their hoops... but they
would not honor it because "the coax on the Tivo was not
surge protected". *sigh*

But as you said, "how can you prove that it was the surge
protector that failed?" For example many assume a surge
entered on phone line only because modem was damaged. Modem
destructive surges most often enter on AC electric. How would
the homeowner know where the surge came from? What could he
use as proof? And how could the homeowner contest the
analysis by a surge protector manufacturer when that
manufacturer does not even do a home inspection - does not
even look at the rest of a surge circuit? There is no
contesting. The warranty has been demonstrated bogus just too
many times.

If you think they ever honored a £20,000 claim, then I also
have an East River Bridge to sell ... cheap. It also comes
with a £20,000 warranty to protect you from all future
lawsuits.

Those surge protector companies will not go out of
business. But the real surge protectors typically offer no
warranty and instead demand a 'less than 3 meter' earthing
connection.

Bagpuss wrote:
On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 04:49:32 -0400, w_tom wrote:
If a warranty was really a measure of product quality, then
Hyundais are clearly much more reliable than Hondas and
Toyotas. After all Hyundai promotes their vastly superior
warranty.

If I want to take your methods of proving a point, I have
never seen a broken down Hyundai. They may be ugly and have
a cack brand name but they keep running.

Especially with surge protectors, the larger a warranty,
then the protector is typically less effective. A benchmark
in protectors is Polyphaser. They offer no warranty. But
then we have repeated testimony from those who learned about
that warranty first hand:
Newsman on 10 Sept 2002 in the newsgroup alt.video.ptv.tivo
entitled "SONY TiVo SVR-2000"
I got a Belkin surge protector with phone line protection
soley for Tivo purposes.
Yet my Tivo's modem still failed. And the '$20,000
connected devices warranty' did not help me. I jumped
through many hoops, including finding the original recept
for the surge protector (just under a year old) and I
sent my surge protector to Belkin (paid for shipping), and
was denied my warranty. They gave me a ton of crap,
including that it was null and void b/c the Tivo was also
connected to the coax line for cable (this was not
mentioned as a thing in the warranty that can nullify it).
Eventually it boiled down to a line in the warranty that
said "Belkin at it's sole discretion can reject any claim
for any reason".

Try reading the fine print attached to that warranty before
jumping to conclusions. They did provide that long list of
exemptions with the Belkin protector. Oh? They forgot to
provide that information? How curious.

In which case the exemptions won't apply as they are not
listed in the warranty.

Of course if the device is not fully isolated by the surge
protector how can you proove that it was the surge
protector that failed?

The point is that with £20,000 insurance and the device
being pretty simple to isolate from other power (e.g.
mains input and phone line) they would be pretty quickly
out of business if the devices were regularly failing. But
then the UK mains supply seems to be vastly different to
whay you have to deal with.

Defined is an ineffective protector made bluntly obvious by
1) no dedicated connection to earth ground AND 2) avoids all
discussion about earthing. If that warranty is so clear
and so well honored, then post the warranty URL. In the
meantime, we have this line from an APC warranty:
... APC will, at APC's sole option, ... replace the APC
product and either (a) pay for the repair of the connected
equipment, or (b) reimburse you for the fair market
value ... if APC determines that the damage was caused by
... power line transient that APC products have been
designed to protect against ...

That plug-in protector was not designed to protect from
typically destructive type of transient made obvious by 1) no
short and dedicated connection to earth ground and 2) no
specification that even defines protection for every type of
destructive transient. Therefore if you suffer damage from
that type of transient, then APC need not honor their
warranty. Suffer damage from a typically destructive
transient? Plug-in protectors don't even claim to provide
such protection AND there is no appeal. They decide what is
honored at their "sole option". That is not insurance that
meets federal laws. That is a warranty hyped to attract naive
consumers.

Another fine print exemption in many warranties. If using
protectors from any other company inside the building, then
the warranty from that first protector manufacturer will not
be honored. What kind of warranty is that? Just another
reason to not honor the big buck warranty. This from an APC
warranty:
The installation must not include power protection
products made by any manufacturer other than APC.

In the meantime, too many never got the warranty honored and
did not learn about all those fine print exemptions until
after damage occurred. Protectors with the big buck
warranties are more often the silly ineffective types that
don't even have essential earth ground connection AND avoid
all discussion about earthing. We are discussing a warranty
from the manufacturer who does not even clearly state what
kind of transients they claim to protect from. No earth
ground means protector is designed for incomplete protection.

In the meantime, as a Belkin employee, then please tell us
what happened to the 'all so necessary' earth ground
connection. And where are the technical notes that discuss
essential earthing? This product is so effective? It must
have some secret grounding technique. Or is earthing just
another 'secret' along with those warranty exemptions.

David Maynard wrote:
w_tom wrote:
If a warranty was really a measure of product quality, then
Hyundais are clearly much more reliable than Hondas and
Toyotas. After all Hyundai promotes their vastly superior
warranty.

In the first place, we're not talking about a warrantee on
the 'product', we're talking about an insurance of devices
protected by it.

The is a modicum of truth to pointing out that warrantee
alone is not a 'perfect' indicator, however...

Especially with surge protectors, the larger a warranty,
then the protector is typically less effective.

that statement is patently absurd.

A benchmark in protectors is Polyphaser. They offer no
warranty. But then we have repeated testimony from
those who learned about that warranty first hand:
Newsman on 10 Sept 2002 in the newsgroup alt.video.ptv.tivo
entitled "SONY TiVo SVR-2000"
I got a Belkin surge protector with phone line protection
soley for Tivo purposes.
Yet my Tivo's modem still failed. And the '$20,000
connected devices warranty' did not help me. I jumped
through many hoops, including finding the original recept
for the surge protector (just under a year old) and I
sent my surge protector to Belkin (paid for shipping), and
was denied my warranty. They gave me a ton of crap,
including that it was null and void b/c the Tivo was also
connected to the coax line for cable

Of course, because it, the surge protector, can't protect
something it's not connected to: I.E. the cable connection.

Belkin offers protectors with modem protection as well as
protectors with cable connection protection but he
apparently had the wrong one on it.

(this was not
mentioned as a thing in the warranty that can nullify it).

This person apparently didn't read the warrantee because it
IS explained fully.

Eventually it boiled down to a line in the warranty that
said "Belkin at it's sole discretion can reject any claim
for any reason".


Try reading the fine print attached to that warranty before
jumping to conclusions.

I DID read it, and it's obvious you haven't a clue. Not that
that stops you from spouting garbage about it anyway.

They did provide that long list of exemptions with the
Belkin protector. Oh? They forgot to provide that
information? How curious.

What isn't curious are your perpetual innuendoes and
attacks on manufacturers you have no clue about, terms
and conditions you have no clue about, and technology
you have no clue about.

David Maynard worried about daily transients created by
utility line switching. Transient that must also have been
destroying HIS LED clock. After years of LED clock failure
(that did not happen) et al, then David Maynard said we need
plug-in protectors. Oh? Those clocks were not failing daily
or weekly due to line switching? Well then what protected
even those LED clocks? Maybe those destructive line switching
transients just don't exist? Duhhhh.....

In the meantime, the point of that post and LED clock
example was that destructive transient occur typically once
every eight years. Does one need protection? First, what is
the frequency of destructive transients in your neighborhood?
We know even from LED clocks that destructive surges are rare
events. Do we put a plug-in protector on all clocks at £10 or
£30 per clock? Yes according to those here who work for the
plug-in protector industry. Spend big bucks to protect an
appliance that already has effective adjacent protection?

Bagpuss wrote:
As we all know about the perpetual motion engine (buttered toast
strapped to the back of a dropped cat) perhaps we could generate a
stasis device by pluging 4 of w_toms exploding LED clocks in to a
belkin surge protector. It should result in a set of LED clocks
permenantly in the state of breakdown due to the expected surge,
but the surge never quite arriving at the clocks. The result, I
theorise, is a destructive spark suspended in time somewhere
inside the belkin unit or one of 4 clocks resulting in a set
of 4 clocks that will never breakdown.

On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 20:21:38 UTC, w_tom wrote:

until after damage occurs. In the US, I know of no law that
says they must provide that long list of exemptions. Warranty
(unlike home owner's insurance) need not provide those details
with the product.

You keep forgetting this is a UK newsgroup. Here, it has to be 'fit for
purpose', and this can override the exemptions anyway, under the unfair
contract terms legislation.

entitled "tivo modem?"
I can attest to this... my modem recently fried, and I
could not get the surge protector company to honor the
"$20,000 connected devices warranty". I had everything...
the Tivo receipt, the power surge protector receipt, etc.
etc. etc. and jumped through all their hoops... but they
would not honor it because "the coax on the Tivo was not
surge protected". *sigh*

Seems perfectly fair.

--
Bob Eager
begin a new life...dump Windows!

I am posting to alt.comp.hardware . Unfortunately someone
cross posted this discussion originally to four or more
newsgroups including some UK ones.

'Fit for purpose' can be 'normal mode transient protection.
It has no 'less than 3 meter' earth ground connection.
Therefore it has no purpose in earthing that type of
transient. It does (or at least once did) claim protection
from normal mode (they have since dumbed down the
specifications further). But plug-in protectors need not
provide protection from other transient mode - which is
sufficient to exempt a claim for damage. In short, good luck
every collecting on that £20,000. Its just not going to be
honored.

As a lawyer and engineer for the plug-in protector
manufacturer, I could bury a plaintiff in justified
exemptions. That £20,000 warranty 'hopes' the naive consumer
'wishes' a protector is effective. Reality is this: a surge
protector is only as effective as its earth ground.

Bob Eager wrote:
On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 20:21:38 UTC, w_tom wrote:
In the US, I know of no law that says they must provide
that long list of exemptions. Warranty (unlike home
owner's insurance) need not provide those details with
the product.

You keep forgetting this is a UK newsgroup. Here, it has to
be 'fit for purpose', and this can override the exemptions
anyway, under the unfair contract terms legislation.