M. Butkus Whitfield pellet stove page - UPS and surge protection.
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Warning, this is for your knowledge only!.
I do not assume any responsibility to you or the safety of your property.
By-passing any safety features and you and your home can become ash!
This is what I have discovered and repaired on my own pellet stove.
I have been a computer user since 1987, yea.. 8 Mhz . .
raw power. Around the late 1990s I started to use a UPS for my home
equipment along with my pellet stove so if a power blip or "lights out for 30
seconds" the stove would continue and power zaps would not fry the controller.
So my suggestion is to put a UPS on a pellet stove. The batteries will
last 3 - 5 years, they are replaceable as long as they are removable from the
UPS.
There are also whole house surge protectors.
They have made a model (What I installed ) which is two half-breaker and a surge
filter. It fits into a standard double breaker so you don't lose two separate
breaker circuits. The other half (which protects both sides of the 120
volts coming in) then goes to ground. This item (according to many places)
states it should to at the very top of the box - either side and is suppose to
protect against surges for your whole house. The reason for the top of the
breaker box is if places further down in the box, the power surge can move to
the above circuits and find a ground in the milliseconds it would take for the
whole house surge protector to direct it to a safe ground.
Most experts
agree, this will not protect against a direct lighting strike, but should
protect against the standard "distant hit" or the telephone pole transformer
shorting (EG lights flickering, going off/on). Those are your standard
problems a household can have. With all the electronic boards in TVs,
ovens, dryers and other modern electronic, this could eliminate some hefty
bills. Or in a recent case, my 1990s oven's display was too dim to see the
setting. But the 30 year old oven no longer had parts available. So $800+
for a new oven. Having a surge destroy some 20+ year old large appliance,
electronic parts (as I found) may no longer be available. Have you priced
washers, dryers or ovens recently ?
Whole house dual circuit replacement
surge protector
This is a link to pages showing the insides to a "better" surge protector.
https://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/661-power-strip-bar-surge-protection.html#s18
This is a standard "surge protector"
https://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/676-cheap-power-surge-protector.html#s10
That's it folkes ! Those two tiny parts are protecting your $300+ controller, TV set (O.K. they are dirt cheap), and other electronic item that is plugged into this power strip.
Now lets see what's inside a UPS !
Now true, many of the UPS parts are to create AC power from just a 12V battery or two. But the choke coils and multiple capacitors and MOVs will do a much better job then the items above. I have had my power go out, blink, surge (dryer kick on- light dim for a second) and lights go on-off from power pole shorts over the last 20 years. So far, never lost an item. (During Sandy, 2011 I lost a power adaptor that was plugged in to a regular socket)
More on battery backups or UPSs
Another link on UPS and power surges
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