surge protector in line after UPS?

J

jack99999

Geek
I was wondering if it's a bad idea to put a surge protector in line after a backup power supply?

around 4 years ago the Belkin ups that i bought had blue flashes and sparks shoot out of it. it didn't seem to damage my pc but you can never tell if it's just diminished performance.

anyway, i was worried about such a thing occurring with my new build.

and are there any companies out there that make consistently good backup power supplies? they seem to be one of the most dodgy components you can get.
 
jack99999 said:
I was wondering if it's a bad idea to put a surge protector in line after a backup power supply?
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Backup supplies output (in battery backup mode) some of the dirtiest power seen in a building. Power so 'dirty' as to potentially harm power strip protectors and small electric motors. But all electronics are required to be so robust as to even make 'dirtiest' power from a backup supply irrelevant.

The battery backup is often made as cheap as possible. A replace battery might cost almost as much as the entire unit. These backup supplies can be that cheap because all electronics are required to be so robust.

Are you concerned with the 'quality' of its output power? Or reliability of its parts. Often made so inexpensive that its battery life expectancy is maybe three years. Five years from most battery backups is considered a good long life expectancy.
 
i was looking for a way to protect my computer if my psu decides to start shooting sparks everywhere. i am concerned with quality and reliability.
 
jack99999 said:
i was looking for a way to protect my computer if my psu decides to start shooting sparks everywhere.
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Power supplies are well contained inside metal. Rarely if ever shots sparks (I have never seen it). Do not have a history of creating house fires.

Be concerned about fire created by a power strip protector. Smoke from a power supply does not promote sales. But smoke from a grossly undersized protector does get many (if not most) recommend it. Worse, these protectors are located atop a desktop of papers or behind furniture on a rug. Fires created by plug-in protectors have always been a serious problem (as even defined by PC Magazine in 1986(?). One solution is to earth a 'whole house' protector to protect plug-in protectors. An effective 'whole house' protector costs about $1 per protected appliance.

Lightning is typically 20,000 amps. So a minimally sized 'whole house' protector starts at 50,000 amps. Are sold by more responsible companies such as ABB, Siemens, Square D, Leviton, General Electric, and Intermatic. A Cutler-Hammer solution sells in both Lowes and Home Depot for less than $50.

Meanwhile this is a rare but too common failure. It gets many to recommend what does not even claim to provide protection. Norma on 27 Dec 2008 in "The Power Outage" :
> Today, the cable company came to replace a wire. Well the cable man pulled a
> wire and somehow yanked loose their "ground" wire. The granddaughter on the
> computer yelled and ran because sparks and smoke were coming from the
> power surge strip.

Different protectors are sold for two reasons. Either as a profit center. Or more responsible companies sell protectors that actually do protection. The first has no short (ie 'less than 10 foot') connection to earth. Latter always has that dedicated earthing wire.
 
i meant "i was looking for a way to protect my computer if my !!!!!UPS!!!! decides to start shooting sparks everywhere."
 
jack99999 said:
i meant "i was looking for a way to protect my computer if my !!!!!UPS!!!! decides to start shooting sparks everywhere."
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Once it starts shooting sparks, it’s too late.

The purpose of a fuse is to disconnect electricity after electronics has failed. This blows so that sparks and fire do not occur. The fuse (or circuit breaker) disconnects to protect human life after failure has happened and before that failure can cause sparks and flame.

I don't know why you are worried about a UPS fire. If concerned about UPS safety, then just do not locate it on combustible materials (ie carpet). Be more concerned about threats created by extension cords (ie arcing and the resulting fire).

Finally, a failing UPS does not threaten a computer. How does its 12 volt battery that creates a pseudo 120 volts somehow create 1000 volts? It doesn't. It is more likely to cause fire. A computer's power supply provides protection even for 1000 volt transients.

Computers are so robust that UPS power (that can be harmful to power strip protectors and small electric motors) is ideal for any electronics.
 
really, so there's no way it could have damaged my pc with all the blue flashes and crap coming out of it a few years back?
 
jack99999 said:
really, so there's no way it could have damaged my pc with all the blue flashes and crap coming out of it a few years back?
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I never said that. Please do not expoliate conclusions. I said what should exist. What you had could be completely different.

Are you saying a PC damaged the UPS? Or a UPS damaged the PC? What part inside the PC's supply was damaged? Was the supply from a major vendor or provided by a computer assembler? What you saw must never happen for many reasons. So what was defective in your setup?
 
the UPS blew out on its own. the power supply is a corsair 520 watt model that was installed by me and it was top of the line 4 years ago.

i've had problems with hard drives and vid cards. i'm wondering if it could have caused some sub catastrophic damage.
 
jack99999 said:
i've had problems with hard drives and vid cards. i'm wondering if it could have caused some sub catastrophic damage.
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A power supply contains so many layers of protection including converting high voltage DC to radio waves and galvanic isolation. Nothing from the UPS will blow through that.

However protector and other circuits inside a UPS can bypass that computer's internal protection. One rare type of UPS failure can connect a transient directly to electronics. Rare because (in the case of the disk drive) hardware would have to be installed in an unusual way that made that damage posssible. Actual damage would be detected by comprehensive hardware diagnostics (that only better computer manufacturers provide for free) or similar diagnostics from the drive manufacturer.

To say more required better information about what specifically inside the UPS, et al failed. Only better techs would even know how to determine that.
 
jack99999 said:
so, then what ups maker makes the most reliable ups's? cyberpower seems to get the best ratings on newegg.
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A UPS has a typical life expectancy of three years - its battery life. Most every UPS works fine in three years. UPS is often sized larger than required so that battery degradation in those three plus year means sufficient power.
 
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