Power Strip Vs Surge Protector vs UPS

But power strips and surge protecting devices are two different things..............

kelper said:

But power strips and surge protecting devices are two different things..............

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A power strip without surge protection is kind of useless .........................

I don't think the surge protectors in a typical power strip could offer any real protection. I have been advised to fit a type 2 SPD in the meter cupboard where the power enters the house.

kelper said:

I don't think the surge protectors in a typical power strip could offer any real protection. I have been advised to fit a type 2 SPD in the meter cupboard where the power enters the house.

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I use a powerstrip with surge protection in conjunction with a UPS. The powerstrip was designed to be used with Computers.

newmann said:

Are you telling me you can use it as a UPS

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That EcoFlow IS a UPS in addition to being a power station. It comes with UPS monitoring software and uses a USB connection back to the PC for monitoring and to perform an orderly shutdown just like a real UPS. That incredible versatility is one of the reasons that I like it so much.

Where I live it is not uncommon for bear and moose to wander through town. Deer have a regular passage here. Power in this semi-isolated territory is not always "safe" or "clean". We get surges every day pretty much and brown outs aren't rare. All the mains are backed with UPS systems. Most of them are made by CyberPower. I've seen units here left to the mercy of power bars with surge protection : cooked circuits and melted. A direct hit from a lightning strike can kill your PC if a simple power bar is your only protection. I've seen this twice and in each case the occupant was in a trailer. Perhaps houses are wired differently. A lightning strike can also kill a UPS but odds are you will have enough fusible material between your PC in that UPS to protect your PC. Retailers of power bars will make boasts but I've seen the results. I highly recommend using a UPS if your PC is valuable to you and your area is known for power surges. IMO power bars aren't enough.

Where I live, the tornados dissipate due to the rolling hills I'm surrounded by. Tornados love flat land where they can grow and become devastating, so they wind up turning into bad thunderstorms by the time they get to my area. Power outages? I've lived here about 10 years or so and the longest outage I've dealt with is about 2 hours. Then the power comes back on again and everything runs as before. (knock on wood) Everything's hooked up through Belkin and GE powerstrips. So far that's worked but it's not ideal.

TraderGary said:

I've not had a desktop computer for more than 25 years, our home is all laptops. The laptops themselves already have excellent protection against power failures.

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Same here. I like the semi-portability of laptops.

Smartphones don't cut it. Blah! My fingers aren't that tactile anymore and my eyesight isn't what it once was so a laptop is the best of all worlds to me.

MisterEd said:

The problem with these power strips is that a surge protector permanently loses its internal protection after a large surge because its sacrificial components—called Metal Oxide Varistors (MOVs)—wear out or burn out when absorbing excess electrical energy. The power strip may continue to work after that even though there is no longer any surge protection.

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Good point. Sounds like most of them are good only for one-time use, anyway...

MisterEd said:

Better power strips have an LED that indicates when the MOV has failed. Cheaper ones don't indicate any failure so you may never know you have lost surge protection.

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Any suggestions on those kind of power strips?

Josey Wales said:

A power strip without surge protection is kind of useless .........................

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I think all of them have some kind of surge protection in them. At least all the strips I've seen. I'd guess ones that don't, wouldn't typically sell except to those totally clueless out there.

Josey Wales said:

The powerstrip was designed to be used with Computers.

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What powerstrip models are you currently using for that?

I did see the UPS you use but that isn't currently in my budget.

I will just speak for the surge protectors.

Highly recommended surge protector brands: TRIPP LITE and APC.

let through voltage is just as important or even more important that joules. This is the threshold voltage at which a voltage surge will trip off the power. The closer to 120V the better (they won't get too close to 120V though) - 330V is good.. If this threshold is too high, a surge could damage your equipment.

I prefer TRIPP LITE myself. They also make data center surge protectors and UPS and also consumer UPS.

When you use a surge protector, every piece of equipment that electrically connected (including cable and other wired connections) must go through it. For instance, If you have a PC with monitors and a cable modem with an Ethernet connection to the PC, they must all go through the surge protector. Otherwise, current from a lightning strike or power over-current may travel through house power, to the peripheral, and through its conductive connection to the PC, even though the PC power is protected.

Also, every time there is a surge, it weakens the surge protectors ability to protect. They usually come with a "protected" light, which if indicated unprotected, you should replace it. If you get a lot of power outages you should check that indicator periodically.

I am using three of these in my office, and have numerous others in my house:


You can also get a whole house surge protector for surprisingly little - anywhere for A few hundred dollars to a thousand, though I have not any experience with these, I have looked into them.

kelper said:

I don't think the surge protectors in a typical power strip could offer any real protection. I have been advised to fit a type 2 SPD in the meter cupboard where the power enters the house.

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An SPD is exactly what is fitted in my consumer unit. To be honest, certainly in the UK, there is a drive by most professional electricians to swap out ancient fuseboxes with the most up to date consumer units which are now exclusively fitted with RCBO’s with SPD or AFDD’s. We just don’t get any power outages at all on our supply infrastructure and power spikes are probably few and far between.

I recently bought a tower extension lead, with surge protection and is flame retardant and provides USB-PD ports, too.

iko22 said:

I recently bought a tower extension lead, with surge protection and is flame retardant and provides USB-PD ports, too.

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Yes, but what is its ability to deal with local lightning strikes? What is its rating in Amperes and Joules?

Nothing beats running on battery but the circuit breaker type surge protector is better than the power strips. Combination even better imho

kelper said:

Yes, but what is its ability to deal with local lightning strikes? What is its rating in Amperes and Joules?

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It is rated at 13A/2990W at 230V with 1420J Surge Protection and tested to 850 degrees Celsius.

No surge protector would survive 850 Celsius!

kelper said:

No surge protector would survive 850 Celsius!

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Indeed, it would burn hole in my carpet at that temp. What I wanted was a unit that was stable in many conditions, and that is what I believe I got.

Very few protection devices have a chance against an actual lightning strike, that's a pipe dream!

I'm disappointed westom hasn't found this thread. It's been a couple of days... a wellness check may be in order.

Josey Wales said:

I use a CyberPower UPS CP1500PFCLCD along with Surge protection.

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Ditto, with power/surge protection equipment from Home Depot. My setup has been protecting my PC's well for a number of years. Learned my lesson when my old iMac was zapped by a lightning bolt that struck near my home. BTW, it wouldn't hurt to provide similar protection for all of your major electronics.