UPS/Power conditioner for HIFI systems?

One of the FM's had bought specialized fast switching circuit breakers that he had installed to prevent overload to hit any of the devices. He had imported it from UK, do those kind of devices help?
 
Folks, I've gone through many threads and information on power management. There are varied thoughts and solutions. I've personally used a simple UPS and also an isolation transformer. There are pros and cons of different approaches. So, I find it a bit confusing.

What are the main points one should consider before making a decision? From what I understand, one of the main issues is power surges and voltage fluctuations. Anything else that could harm the equipment? Also, there is EMI/RF noise that could be filtered out. (I've personally drawn a dedicated power line/phase for the audio system).

I'm considering a different/ better solution and Rontek Aviron LX or HTB sounds good. What are your thoughts on this device or similar ones. Any other recommendations?

(For me fan noise is a deal breaker)
 
Folks, I've gone through many threads and information on power management. There are varied thoughts and solutions. I've personally used a simple UPS and also an isolation transformer. There are pros and cons of different approaches. So, I find it a bit confusing.

What are the main points one should consider before making a decision? From what I understand, one of the main issues is power surges and voltage fluctuations. Anything else that could harm the equipment? Also, there is EMI/RF noise that could be filtered out. (I've personally drawn a dedicated power line/phase for the audio system).

I'm considering a different/ better solution and Rontek Aviron LX or HTB sounds good. What are your thoughts on this device or similar ones. Any other recommendations?

(For me fan noise is a deal breaker)
Found this explanation good for beginners with no electrical knowhow



 
One of my friends who work for Honeywell and consults for commercial projects (electric) told me that having RCCB (Residual Current Circuit Breaker and a proper SPD (Surge Protection Devise) between Mains and Meter is the first and important start towards protecting your equipment and also the personal safety.

Do we have any FMs here who have this in place and still had equipment breakdown despite of this protection?
 
One of my friends who work for Honeywell and consults for commercial projects (electric) told me that having RCCB (Residual Current Circuit Breaker and a proper SPD (Surge Protection Devise) between Mains and Meter is the first and important start towards protecting your equipment and also the personal safety.

Do we have any FMs here who have this in place and still had equipment breakdown despite of this protection?
None of these help when you have consistently high voltage coming from the power distribution company. I have RCCB from Schneider Electric for all rooms. Ever since the lockdown the voltages being supplied here at Pune has been consistently hovering around 250 volts. Most equipment are designed for around 100-240 volts. I have lost apple phone charger, two computer SMPS have gone burst. My water purifier SMPS fried. My Yamaha AVR SMPS got fried. My Allo shanti power supply fuse blew off. Each time it has been the SMPS and all of this has happened after the lockdown. Before the lockdown the voltage never used to go above 230 v. Maintaining 230 v requires better power equipment. I believe India has diluted the regulation requirements for economic reasons / allow certain private players to install lesser costing equipments for power generation. https://www.hifivision.com/threads/...ower-equipment-for-ht-setup.87835/post-987314

Since then I have installed voltage stabilizers in all rooms. Since then I have not lost a single equipment.
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I was thinking about installing main line voltage stabilizer https://www.vguard.in/product-details/vgmw-1000-plus-mainline-stabilizers
Any idea how good they are ?
They are good. Many in my apartment complex have installed these after the lockdown spate of blowing television sets and kitchen equipments. I took a different route in having stablizers installed in every room. Only my hot water geysers are not on stabilizers. Rest all, including AC, dishwasher, washing machine, clothes dryer, micowave oven, electric oven, fridge, audio equipments computers, etc are on automatic voltage stabilzers.
 
One of my friends who work for Honeywell and consults for commercial projects (electric) told me that having RCCB (Residual Current Circuit Breaker and a proper SPD (Surge Protection Devise) between Mains and Meter is the first and important start towards protecting your equipment and also the personal safety.

Do we have any FMs here who have this in place and still had equipment breakdown despite of this protection?
OMG!!!

Purpose of RCCB is not to protect your equipment but YOU. RCCB and ELCB are the same. They won't act until you touch an equipment case that has phase or neutral touching it and ground it through your body rather than the safety earth.

SPD - yes is for protecting the equipment from surges.
 
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One of the FM's had bought specialized fast switching circuit breakers that he had installed to prevent overload to hit any of the devices. He had imported it from UK, do those kind of devices help?

CBs work on the principle of current detection while surge protectors work by detecting fast front surges. Fast acting CBs will protect the equipment from internal short circuits or overloads.

The fastest electro-mechanical CB is about 1.5 cycles or 30ms at 50Hz. And this is used in 400kV or above or for generators.

While surges do their "job" of licking clean your equipment in a few microseconds. No CB can protect. You need proper surge protection.

This may be an IGBT based electronic circuit breaker. Still it's function is for overload protection.

If you got more information please share. It is interesting to know about it. As far as Google goes it does not protect from surges.
 
None of these help when you have consistently high voltage coming from the power distribution company. I have RCCB from Schneider Electric for all rooms. Ever since the lockdown the voltages being supplied here at Pune has been consistently hovering around 250 volts. Most equipment are designed for around 100-240 volts.

Indian standard is 240V and +/- 6% regulation or 225.4V to 254.4V. This is normally at the service point. 6V above nominal shouldn't fry anything 😯

If you have 250V at your sockets then at the transformer it is set high to cater for any voltage sag at the far end. And your apartment may be close to the trafo?
 
Indian standard is 240V and +/- 6% regulation or 225.4V to 254.4V. This is normally at the service point. 6V above nominal shouldn't fry anything 😯

If you have 250V at your sockets then at the transformer it is set high to cater for any voltage sag at the far end. And your apartment may be close to the trafo?
The trafo is inside the complex.
 
The trafo is inside the complex.
These trafos have off load tap changers that don't act automatically. The tap may be set high so as to have nominal voltage at the load farthest from it rather to cover the voltage drop at that end. You may be close it so you have near no-load voltage with not much drop in the cable?
 
These trafos have off load tap changers that don't act automatically. The tap may be set high so as to have nominal voltage at the load farthest from it rather to cover the voltage drop at that end. You may be close it so you have near no-load voltage with not much drop in the cable?
I should have added "electrically close to the trafo".
 
According to the company the time to cutoff is user settable - lowest setting is 0.1 seconds.
Against a surge of what origin? For power surges from the grid, possibly good enough. For a direct lightning flash, nothing will protect except physically unplugging the equipment. For a side flash, maybe. But there's no absolute guarantee and I wouldn't bet on it - there are too many variables.
Lighting is faster and more powerful
Surges are classified into two - a Switching Impulse from the network that has a rise time of 250 microseconds and a tail of 2500 microseconds. These are important above 220kV.

Lightning Impulse are very fast 1.2 microseconds rise time and a tail of 50 microseconds. These are the ones that affect us consumers. They can strike the lies supplying our houses and that's it.

As you wrote nothing is better than complete disconnection.

The other kind is surge for common folks but are swells or spikes caused by faults in power systems or light loaded transformers with high tap setting etc. For these a properly selected MOV should be good enough.
 
They are good. Many in my apartment complex have installed these after the lockdown spate of blowing television sets and kitchen equipments. I took a different route in having stablizers installed in every room. Only my hot water geysers are not on stabilizers. Rest all, including AC, dishwasher, washing machine, clothes dryer, micowave oven, electric oven, fridge, audio equipments computers, etc are on automatic voltage stabilzers.
My Krykard (servo) did not help protecting my equipment, had it installed dedicated to on HT equipment :(
 
My Krykard (servo) did not help protecting my equipment, had it installed dedicated to on HT equipment :(
servo stabilizers are slow. They depend on a motor to move an arm. In many cases they may not be enough to save delicate electronic items. For fast voltage corrections one must use static voltage stabilizers


 
servo stabilizers are slow. They depend on a motor to move an arm. In many cases they may not be enough to save delicate electronic items. For fast voltage corrections one must use static voltage stabilizers


I wish I had known this earlier :(

We need a Master Thread on this Topic to tried and tested solution for the power issues.
Forum has multiple confusing threads and FMs like myself who have zero electrical knowledge gets carried away by solutions which may not work in most of situation.

Do you think Online UPS (double conversion) is answer to most of the common power problems?
 
I wish I had known this earlier :(

We need a Master Thread on this Topic to tried and tested solution for the power issues.
Forum has multiple confusing threads and FMs like myself who have zero electrical knowledge gets carried away by solutions which may not work in most of situation.
This was discussed earlier
 
Do you think Online UPS (double conversion) is answer to most of the common power problems?
I think this will be at the cost of harmonics. For video this shouldn't matter. But if someone has excellent ears the harmonics may not give the best audio quality.

In reality, we should be holding the govt accountable. We pay for electricity apart from taxes. But that is a rant for another day and probably another thread.
 
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