You do not have to take our word for it. Consider the following:

IEEE (The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) states that 6000V is the largest transient that the interior of a building would experience.

IEEE defines its harshest interior surge environment as one that could experience 100 surges of 6000V, 3000A in a years time (category B3).

A new federal guideline recommends that a surge protector utilized in a harsh environment should be capable of withstanding 1000 surges of 6000V, 3000A or ten years worth of IEEE’s category B3.

UL (Underwriters Laboratories) now provides a new adjunct testing service (in addition to the 1449 safety classification) that will test to the 1000 surge, 6000V, 3000A federal protocol.

Passing such a test is a virtual guarantee that a surge protection device will never experience a surge related failure.

Early in 1996 UL applied 1000 surges (at 60 second intervals) of 6000V, 3000A to an off-the-shelf Series Mode Surge Filter.

There was no failure. There was no performance degradation. Let through voltage did not exceed 290V. Certified by UL.

You cannot do any better than this for a building interior surge suppressor.

Reliability is usually the number one parameter for selecting a surge protection device. Unfortunately most of what is available is not very reliable. Surge suppressors are notorious for failing.

MOV’s: SACRIFICIAL BY DESIGN

MOV’s are the mainstay component of the surge suppression industry. For certain electronic applications they are an excellent choice. AC power line surge suppression is not one of them. MOV’s function by creating a short circuit (usually to the neutral and the ground) when a preset voltage threshold is exceeded. Essentially they divert surge current away from what is being protected. Unfortunately MOV’s are sacrificial components. This means that the performance life of any surge protection device utilizing this technology is finite. With every surge current diversion above a modest level an MOV comes closer to its inevitable end.

JOULE RATING/SURGE CURRENT LIMITATIONS

The joule rating of any MOV is a measure of the amount of energy it can absorb at one time without failing. With an MOV this level declines with use. When exceeded it can cause an explosion or a fire. In a harsh, lightning prone environment this limit can easily be reached. Our massive inductor limits current (hence voltage) and has no real world surge current/joule rating limitations. The product can withstand the harshest surge environment indefinitely.

THERMAL RUNAWAY (FIRE)

Clamping threshold is the voltage level where the MOV activates. Typically it is set around 220V at 1 milliamp current. With the peak of the sine wave normally at 172V, a surge of only an additional 50V will activate that MOV. Just as repeated usage causes the joule limit of an MOV to drop it can also cause the clamping level to do the same. Eventually the clamping point can fall below the peak of the normal sine wave. In essence the MOV turns on with every cycle of the powerwave and experiences thermal runaway (fire). This characteristic of an MOV made them totally unacceptable to our engineers. Our surge protection products do not utilize MOV’s and have none of their inherent limitations. Brickwall Surge Filters will not catch on fire.

DEMAND UL ENDURANCE TEST RESULTS

The mechanisms are now in place for a manufacturer of a surge protection device to certify a product to very exacting specifications. Ask to see the UL test results that certify a product to 1000 surges of 6000V, 3000A.

POWERLINE FILTERING

Powerline noise first encounters a series inductor (choke). The inductor will act as an open circuit to higher frequencies and a short circuit to lower frequencies. The higher frequencies that do leak through then encounter a series of dynamically inserted capacitors. Here the opposite takes place. The capacitors act as short circuits to higher frequencies and as open circuits to lower frequencies. The capacitors will return the noise and any surge current slowly (harmlessly) to the neutral. The dual filtering aspect of a Brick Wall Surge Filter makes for superb powerline filtering characteristics, even in non-surge applications.

FULLTIME POWERLINE FILTERING

Being a passive component, the series inductor is always operational. A 2µf capacitor is also always active. Attenuation: 3db @ 3kHz, 38db @ 100kHz, >50db @ 300 kHz.

POWERLINE FILTERING UNDER A SURGE CONDITION

In a powerline surge situation up to three additional dynamically inserted 180µf electrolytic capacitors come on line(Figure 2). A Brick Wall surge filter will interpret any two volt rise above the peak of the sinewave, regardless of powerline voltage, as a surge condition. A small powerline voltage fluctuation will activate this capacitor arrangement. Attenuation: 8db @ 100Hz, 28db @ 1kHZ, 46db @ 10kHz, >70db @ 100kHz (50 ohm).

DATA LINE PROTECTION?

Our sales staff repeatedly hears this same story: It seems a company has experienced considerable surge damage to electronic equipment. The shunt mode surge suppression devices would appear to have done their job by protecting the loads from the front end (power line). The damage, in their estimation, resulted from surge current that traveled down the data lines. How do they know this? All the damage appears to have originated at the data ports, hence they conclude that the surge must have traveled this route. Their solution: They need data line protectors.

They are right in as much as the damaging current did propagate through the data lines. However, damaging surges do not originate in dataline circuits.

Their systems do not need data line surge protectors. Interconnected systems need powerline surge protectors that do not divert surge current to the ground wire.

INTERCONNECTED SYSTEMS AND GROUND LOOP CONTAMINATION

Interconnected (networked) systems, so prevalent in today’s commercial/industrial world, have made shunt mode technology (origins 1972) inappropriate. Equipment sharing common power and data lines form circuits between themselves via the ground wire (both referenced at the load). What does current do in a closed circuit? It flows. A powerline surge diverted to the ground wire will make its way to the chassis, through the motherboard (which is also grounded at the chassis), onto and through the data lines (which use the powerline ground as a voltage reference and are also connected at the motherboard) and to the data ports of the rest of the connected system. This is how most data line surges originate.

DATA LINE NOISE

Smaller surges diverted to ground wires may not immediately damage equipment (though the cumulative effect can eventually cause failures). On the other hand, low level surge current diverted to the data lines (via the ground wire) can immediately scramble data, slow down data transfer and cause mis-operations or lock-ups as a consequence of its effect as system noise (unwanted current on the data lines).

SERIES MODE TECHNOLOGY

Brick Wall products are based on the current (hence voltage) limiting of a massive inductor. Residual energy that leaks through is captured by a series of electrolytic capacitors. There it is slowly leaked back to the neutral at a harmless level. Outside of trivial amounts of parasitic capacitance our Series Mode devices do not put any surge current on the ground of your systems. Engineers of an MOV based surge suppressor face the dilemma of what to do with potentially large amounts of surge current. They don’t want to overload the neutral and want to prolong the life of the MOV. Using two of these elements and diverting equally between the ground and neutral wire prolongs MOV life and prevents overcurrent on the neutral. Series Mode technology presents no such dilemma.

Be sure to also look at our Minuteman True online backup power systems.   At SELLCOM we use Minuteman for our True Online backup power and we use a Brickwall unit to protect our Minuteman unit.