surges slowly destroying

Many times a year - sure. How big a surge counts? Do they count surges that can do no damage? Yes.

Slowly deteriorating? Can happen. Mostly hype.

Manufacturers don't publish specs, but equipment is likely to have a surge immunity of about 600 or 800V.

Some devices, like motors when shut off, can create surges. Not likely to damage anything. More hype.

Surges damage cell phones? I would ignore anything this source says.

An excellent source of information on surges for the general public is:

For the more technically inclined a better source from the IEEE is:

--
bud--

"bud--"

** Nor would I.

Just a few days ago I took the opportunity to break open a Nokia cell phone charger - the only thing that MIGHT be damaged by voltage spikes on the AC supply.

The incoming AC connects first to a 10 ohm fusible resistor, then a 4 x

1N4007 diode bridge then a 4.7uf 400V filter electro. Very simple and very robust.

Any surge on the AC that killed the Nokia would take out all the CFLs and many other things too.

.... Phil

Cute. Too bad the article doesn't say what the LED actually does. Offhand, I would say that the cute form factor of the electrical octopus is the major selling point.

Really? Surge protectors work by absorbing energy (Joules) that would normally do some damage if that energy arrived at the protected electronics. A good MOV protector will absorb about 1000 Joules. An LED can hardly absorb perhaps 1 Joule. If you decode the muddled intent of the article, the LED light probably just lights when there has been a surge.

Ok, they got that right.

I have a power line monitor and recorder at several mountain top radio sites. It monitors surges, glitches, sags, over voltage, and other power line impairments. On a typical day, it records about 10 alarms, most of which are surges. During a storm, I'll see hundreds each day. Most of them are harmless and will never go through a transformer or get past even the most crude protection circuits. However, about once a week, I see an event that has the potential for doing real damage. (It's not this one but something similar).

Nope, it's not true. Glitches do not erode or promote progressive deterioration in electronic devices. Glitches break down semiconductor junctions, which kills the transistor(s). It's the same as getting hit by a static blast or lightning bolt. Once zapped, it's totally ruined.

There are some obscure failure modes where static and power line glitches cause a form of progressive deterioration by increasing device leakage current, but that's rare and unusual.

Amazing. Yes, back EMF glitches are theoretically possible from these devices. However, all of the appliances already contain surge protectors that protect in both directions (going in, and coming out). With AC motors, such glitches are unlikely. The various regulatory agencies would not issue a sticker if the appliance dumped power back into the AC line. It is possible with large DC motors, such as the starter motor in your vehicle, but the typical AC motor will only create a voltage sag (decrease), usually caused by faulty or overloaded wiring. Voltage swell (increase) is unlikely.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

mm wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Anything with a modern switching power supply is immune from anything the power company "surges", usually caused by loose neutral connections causing an unbalanced phase voltage, can cause. Switchers are rated from around 80VAC to 270VAC (not cast in stone) and will simply absorb any voltage changes as the input of these supplies is just a big rectifier with big storage capacitors to feed DC to the switching regulators. Surges are turned into output power, nicely leveled by the fast switcher's reaction time. Your computer power supply is one of them.

What's FAR more important than a "surge protector" it doesn't need is a UPS to hold up the AC line voltage on brownouts and interruptions that just love to occur during those all-important disk write operations....leaving the disk trashed with half a FAT updated and half a FAT not. That's better than a good hacker can ever achieve trying to trash a system!

"Phil Allison" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

Yep, that supply will eat any surges caused by loose line connections, switching motors on and off, etc......for lunch, convert it to a regulated DC output and feed it to the phone as if nothing happened.

I don't buy any wall warts that aren't switchers any more.....even to charge the wine cork puller.

Jeff Liebermann wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

LED is a surge INDICATOR. If there is a hole where the LED used to protrude through the case with small radiating black carbon trails, it INDICATES a surge has taken place!

Obviously, only BLUE LEDs contain any kind of magic, because all the most expensive computers all have BLUE leds lighting up everything! Recently, blue LEDs have been found to increase the acceleration and top end speed of production motorcycles by at least 12%! Having blue leds lighted near a 1935-designed Harley-Davidson engine V-twin is MOST effective.....

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When I was a smartassed young sailor aboard USS Everglades (AD-24), we got a fresh new Ensign, straight out of some EE mill put in charge of the electronics gang. After some really stupid pronouncements, it was decided to build our new Ensign a "Fuse Tester" and present it to him at Quarters. He was most impressed. There were 16 different fuse holders with a big neon indicator light that stayed lit while it was plugged in.

The fuses were in series with a big pushbutton switch marked "TEST" you pressed while watching the big neon indicator. Pressing the TEST button put the fuses right across the power line, causing the fuse to blow, of course, and the indicator to blink off until the fuse blew which told you the fuse you tested WAS good, before you blew it in the tester, of course.

Our Ensign must have blown a hundred fuses of different size and amps. I don't think he ever actually "got" the joke. He was that dumb.

Of course, Navy promoted him to LTJG and transferred him to a more important post after a short cruise to a more suitable position for a young, aspiring engineer who couldn't figure out which end of the resistors was positive (obviously, the end with the bands).

Luckily, our captain kept him out of our hair and away from any vital equipment that might put lives in jeopardy....standing watches and looking important.

al.net:

Switching wall warts are notorius for extremely high RFI.

You can use them as long as you never want to use an AM radio at the same time.

..

.

sparky wrote in news:ae98d763-38da-4ad9-9c7a- snipped-for-privacy@f18g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:

Not a problem as there's nothing on AM radio to listen to any more.....

Who needs AM radio??

Not always a problem I'm sure.

That's for sure. What a shame. And now, even if there were something interesting, I'm no longer used to the endless commercials.

Thanks for the list.

Also, AOL radio, to which I'm listening now:

Maybe one or two commercial minutes an hour, perhaps dependent on time of day. I wonder if that will increase.

About 50 or 100 genres iirc, many stations in each one, thousands altogether. It remembers which station you were listening to plus you can set others as clickable presets. Music, news, Sports, Favorites.

What I don't understand: If I put it on pause for 20 minutes, it starts up again right where it left off, in the middle of a song. It continues wihtout a jerk, and I don't think it's playing just what was in my my buffer. Also, when I first start it, it always begins at the start of a song. Plus I don't use it, but it has the ability to skip a song or more. It's as if I have my own personal stream, instead of just listneing to what it sends everyone else who is on that channel.

How can that be? Doesn't this take many times more processes running and more cpu's to run them all? And many times more RAM for many times more output buffers?

And why bother? Wouldn't it be simpler and cheaper and just as good to play one thing for each of the thousands of stations/channels, and let everyone on that station listen to it?

I bought 2 pairs of very old stock RCA wireless speakers. One each in my bedroom, kitchen, basement, and bathroom. I don't care much about stereo. I don't see RCA anymore, but Best Buy has something for 100 dollars a pair. A lot more than mine were at full price, but if I didn't have these, I'd buy them.

I notice that radiosure has to be downloaded. Do radiossure or shoutcast have any drawbacks, like requiring a tool bar or anything?

BTW, NPR in Dallas had programming made in California, or somewhere west of texas that I never hear from in Baltimore or DC. I think there may be quite a bit on western public radio that isn't on in the east. I keep planning to listen via the web but never remmeber.

Please, everyone, let me know if this turns out to be true.

mm wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

It's a server, not a live station.

Give this one a try:

Download/install for Windows (only I think) It's safe....no spyware, adware, crapware.

Stations found: 17664 on the webpage list tonight. You can probably find something to listen to without the damned car ads on US AM stations. They never learn.....too bad. I miss real AM on my

1939 Motorola "D" 4-tube portable. At night, it's big loopstick picks up Cuba and Central America on AM. Every part in it, except batteries no longer available is ORIGINAL! Its only fault was the glue holding the 4" speaker cone in place disintegrated. I fixed the speaker and added a mini stereo cable to the voicecoil using two 5 ohm resistors, one to each channel so both channels will play through the radio's original speakers.

The screws in the back had holed the cardboard back so I added two cabinet magnet latches to get inside and keep the flat loop in place when it was carried. A friend with a leather shop made me a new handle.

An old Archos Studio 20 hard drive MP3 player was resurrected and filled with OTR and 1930-40 big band music. With the radio actually off, a little IC amp board from an old Radio Shack computer speaker powers the speaker from some nimh cells in a holder. Plug that amp into the MP3 player and slide it in over the homemade battery packs that really power the radio on AM and the radio plays the same AM stations it did in 1939, not the noise and hate on AM radio today.

Set on any diner booth table, it attracts lots of fans who want to hear The Green Hornet or Amos N Andy or the 1930's recordings of the World Series baseball games.....like would have been on a diner radio before WW2.

HI HO SILVER, AWAY!

mm wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Shoutcast is commercial but you can listen to anything on it with your fav media player like Winamp. There are pointers to the M3U playlist for each station that outputs MP3 or other formats. I think AOL/Winamp owns Shoutcast.

The Linux boys have a great, open source of course, radio system you might want to listen to called Icecast.

The software on the site is SERVER software for Linux and Windows so you can become one of their radio stations and get sued by the RIAA money mongers. They'll just want their license fees when they catch you....or else. Click on STREAM DIRECTORY to get to the station list. Again, any player that supports M3U or XSPF playlist streaming can connect directly to the servers across the planet. Icecast has: Statistics

• Total streams: 7274 * Ogg Vorbis: 269 * MP3: 6677

on it tonight. Totally open source supported, like any good Linux group. All free to anyone who cares to connect. Many national radio stations, like Radio Swiss, use Icecast for free distribution so there's some really great professional sources across the planet to listen to without being trashed by spam, spyware and hounded to death to buy something. Spamming is not allowed on Icecast...jealously protected by a dedicated group of hackers.

Radiosure has no load. I've never seen it do anything in all the time I've used it. It's not a commercial venture....just a bunch of radio lovers and hackers.

My nighttime station is classic country and western from KSEY in Seymour, Texas. If you're gonna listen to cowboy music, you need to be in cowboy country. The local ads with that Texas drawl are great. At night KSEY plays a syndicated classic country feed called "Legend Radio", very well done, the old network way! They're playing "Just Another Bridge To Burn" as I'm typing this. The former pirate radio kid from high school inherited it from his mother, still a true family radio station. His picture of his pirate station is on the webpage...(c;] KSEY also has a repeater in KS. His server supports 4 different protocols. The low-res

24Kbps mono MP3 feed sounds just like AM without the static, of course, which goes along with the historic music being played. "I Got Texas In My Soul" is on now. He bills the station as "Anything you'd hear from a honky tonk jukebox"...and it's very close!

Teens from the high school take control of the console after school in the afternoon and he trains his continuing replacement operators from the high school. The kids also do the high school basketball and football games with LIVE narration just like they did when I was a kid. KSEY is a great little station in N central Texas town of Seymour, where you can still get lunch at the old folks home, CHEAP!...(c;]