![]() ![]() The most common method is the use of surge protective devices (SPDs). There are different methods that can be used depending on magnitude of expected surges and the powered equipment. The surges can be suppressed before reaching the equipment. How to protect equipment from electrical power surges The larger power surges cause instantaneous damage, blowing up fuses, semiconductors, resistor and capacitors. Low level surges won’t cause instant damage such as blowing fuses or melting electronic components, instead it causes gradual degradation of the components until they completely fail. Surges are common causes of failures in electronics and computer equipment. The power surges, which are brief overvoltage disturbances or spikes may reach amplitudes of as high as tens of thousands of volts, and can degrade, damage, or destroy electronics equipment within an industrial or manufacturing facility, or within a home or commercial building. comĮffect of power transients on Electronics components Positive impulsive transient – Image Credit surgex. These can lead to physical damage of equipment, data loss or corruption and more. The impulsive transients are caused by poor grounding, lightning, utility fault clearing, switching inductive loads, etc. ![]() These are further classified by their speed which is either fast if the rise time from steady state to the peak value of the impulse is about 5 nanoseconds. The impulsive surges are the non oscillatory transients which are sudden high peak events that raise the current and/or voltage levels in either the positive or negative direction. The surge is softening oscillatory and it decays over time and caused by switching inductive or capacitive loads. The waveform may be oscillatory or non-oscillatory for the impulsive transients. Most of these are often of short and only last between several microseconds to a few milliseconds. The transient overvoltage varies in waveform, shape, and the duration. Other causes may be when the power resumes after an outage, or come through the Cable TV or telephone lines. These surges stem from outside the premise or home and are caused by lightning striking utility equipment, a tree limb touching the electric power line, or a small animal getting inside the transformer and getting short circuited. These cause diversion causes high currents to flow and divert some of the electricity to and from other electrical items on the circuit.Īir conditioners and refrigerators are the main household items that cause surges, however, smaller appliances such as the power tools and hair driers can cause problems too. These are mostly domestic, industrial and other commercial buildings, they are usually caused by the start up and shut offs of inductive loads such as the motors. A surge can range from five to ten volts when a hair dryer is turned on or several thousand volts when a lightning strikes a transformer. There are different types of power surges based on the sources and voltages involved. The ability of the equipment to withstand the transients greatly impact on its reliability. Surges are produced by various events such as equipment faults, lightning discharges, capacitor bank building and load switching. Typical surges may last for 50 microseconds and even though it’s only a very short duration, they surge can reach 6000 Volts and 3000Amps by the time they arrive at the powered equipment. This is usually an oversupply of the voltage from a source such as mains supply or generator and lasting only for a few microseconds. ![]() This is usually a sub-cycle overvoltage lasting less than a half-cycle of the regular voltage waveform, and can either be additive or subtractive with positive or negative polarity. Inlets, Outlets and Connectors StandardsĪ power surge is an abnormally high voltage lasting for a short period of time.Ī power surge is a transient wave of voltage, current or power in an electrical circuit. ![]()
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