UPS/surge protector for flat screen TV

[ad61]

I need to buy an UPS to protect my flat screen tv against the damages of sudden power surges but do not know which one to choose; the first one is rated 600VA/360W, the second one 800VA/320w and the last one 1000VA/600W. Thanks for your help.

[Pib]

On your TV and/or on its manual's specifications page the "wattage" of the TV will be listed. Let's say it's 300 watts...then get a UPS rated for at least that...preferably around 25% more like around 400 watts...more watts is better but it won't improve your "surge" protection just how long the device would continue to run after the power goes off. Also, a UPS is primarily used to keep an electronic device running, for at least a short while, and some UPSs don't really provide good "surge" protection...they'll sure keep your device running for a while when the power goes off but still might allow most of a surge to go through them. So, if buying UPS be sure to get one that has good surge protection also.

[ad61]

Many thanks Pib

[tifino]

aside from Line Filters, whenever I have an UPS running, I consider the threat of short term brownouts, and even those nasty bup, bup bup surges that really do damage to UPS's.

So, innbetween the Input Filter and the UPS, I unstall a 220v Time Delay relay - the type of unit that stops an aircon compressor/frig=dge compressor etc from surging micro-starts,whn the compressors are still at pressure.

Any line loss fault kicks the Relay OFF.

The mains loss could be be a second, or a half of a second, maybe repeating.

The Relay stays OFF for the duration of the 'Mains-losses'.

Meanwhile, the UPS is happily churning away, waiting for a steady mains restoration.

Now, lets say the power failure is for longer than the UPS battery can last for.

UPS shuts down, of course.

Eventually Mains is Restored, and the UPS fires UP.

We know that's not very healthy to have a Compressor on the output, as the UPS takes 'it's infinitesamal' time to come up to normal. And of course the compressor makes life hard for the UPS on 'switch on of the UPS anyway.

So, there is a way around that too! Instal another Same-capacity of Relay on the UPSs' output.

It only has to have it's Delay set for a handful of seconds.

The same applies to some big power hungry panel TV on switch on.

Plus the threat of it being damaged itself by the initial hiccups from the UPS starting up.

Set the Input Relay for a handful of Minutes

Set the Output Relay for a handful of seconds

The range of contact-rating capacities of the Delay relays is quite wide, so just calculate the Current (or simply read the Served-Equipment's specsheet), then get a Relay a bit bigger than the devices start-up amperage...

[curtklay]

Hmm...Could you repeat that, please?

[Bpuumike]

 

Hmm...Could you repeat that, please?

For dummies

[mokwit]

If you just want to protect from mains power surges you can buy a surge protector without UPS - I use Belkin multi plug which they claim to guarantee up to Bt40,000 compensation for any surge damage. If you want to a monitor, let alone a TV to run via UPS for more than a few minutes it will cost a lot. The Bt4000-8000 single battery ones last a few minutes with one PC and one monitor - after that price point they get very expensive - if you want to run for more than the 15 minutes it takes for most power offs to resolve you are talking a lot more.

[rendos]

I think his need is actually is not the UPS mainly but a surge protector. The UPS is for when you have black outs then keeps your , I.e. computer running so that you can save your work. I too am interested to know what are the determining factors if you want to buy surge protectors.

[Rimbuman]

If you just want to protect from mains power surges you can buy a surge protector without UPS - I use Belkin multi plug which they claim to guarantee up to Bt40,000 compensation for any surge damage. If you want to a monitor, let alone a TV to run via UPS for more than a few minutes it will cost a lot. The Bt4000-8000 single battery ones last a few minutes with one PC and one monitor - after that price point they get very expensive - if you want to run for more than the 15 minutes it takes for most power offs to resolve you are talking a lot more.

You can parallel more batteries to your UPS and run a lot longer no need to invest ++++ baht for an expensive UPS unit and surge protection can be included if you buy a decent one, mine cost me about 2000 baht for 1000VA power bank and surge protector in one. If you parallel batteries don't use regular car batteries but the deep cycle type.

Really easy to do.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Rimbuman

[Pib]

Yea, I've got so many electronics/electrical items around my house (i.e., TVs, settop boxes, stereo, computers, kitcken appliances, etc.) if I had to buy a UPS for each one I would go broke and be spending lots just on UPS replacement batteries every few years. But I do have 3 line mode whole house surge protector installed on my main electrical circuit boxes and surge protected power strips...and I modified each of my power strips by putting three 275V varistors/MOVs in each one...one varistor for each line mode of operation where surges can right in on, especially lightning. By three line modes I mean Line to Neutral, Line to Ground, and Neutral to Ground. Most of the time when you buy a surge protected power strip it merely comes with "one" varistors/MOV (normally close to 400V which gives less surge protection) and that one varistor is only across the Line to Neutral for a two wire strip and either across Line to Neutral or Line to Ground for a 3 wire strip....beleive me I know, as I've modified quite a few to including the Belkens with all their fancy advertising on the packaging.

The only place in the house where I have a UPS is on the TrueVisions settop box and DVD recorder to prevent loss of recording in process...the wife records certain Thai TV soap shows and twice during a brief power outage (just for a few seconds) it caused loss of the DVD recording. But since getting a UPS to power the DVD recorder and settop boxes those brief power outages that occasionally occur don't damage that particular recording session. And since I've put the whole house surge protection in along with my surge protected power strips almost 3 years ago I haven't had any electronics/electrical items damaged by lightning/day-to-day power surges...but before I got that protection setup I would have a couple items per year fail, usually power adpaters powering an electronic item. And one time I had multiple items smoked during a lightning storm but that was before I got all my surge protection setup...after getting my surge protection numerous following lightning storms haven't caused any problems.

And please don't tell me (or my wife) just to unplug everything during a storm...I have an eight room (not counting the 3 bathrooms) two story house with electronics/electrical items in each room...I'm not going to run around those 8 rooms unplugging everything from the wall--if the wife and I happen to be home. That approach might be easy enough to do in a small residence with few electronics but its far from and ideal approach in many residences....especially if only the wife is home and trying to run around the house to unplug a bunch of electronics or turning off main circuit box breakers to kill power to a whole room(s) even with people still in them.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Pib

[curtklay]

Well, I would definitely pull the plug on the Thai soap shows, and blame it on a lightning strike.

[Krataiboy]

Reading this makes me even happier I don't have a TV.

Edited August 13, 2014 by astral
Removal of long quote - Please use Reply button a the bottom

[KhnomKhnom]

Many thanks Pib

Some UPS have surge protection, some do not. Read the label.

A UPS on a TV is specialized because the main job of a UPS is to provide temporary power to a device like a computer where your loss of power also loses data sometimes, and UPS are there to keep the computer operational until YOU can shut down the computer in the normal safe way. Similarly, big UPS powering your TV is only useful IF a knowledgeable person is present to turn off the TV before the UPS battery is exhausted.*

OVERVOLTAGE...To try to protect a TV, use a specially marked SURGE PROTECTION outlet strip. If it is indeed such a device as the label says, buy the best you can get, it has circuits and components inside which electrically clamp off voltages coming in above a certain value. The clamping voltage should be on the label and can be 20% to 50%, for example, above normal line voltage of 220-240 volts AC. The components are only strong enough to take very short duration upward spikes. Some models of strips will burn out this clamping function BY DESIGN as part of the way clamping is obtained in that model. Thus, with some strips (and UPS), one good spike will be clamped, but all following spikes will obtain little, and finally no, effect. Some models show this burn-out and some look the same all the time.

The basic overvoltage shunting function is done by an MOV (a little part that should be inside a surge protection outlet strip). The MOV clamps and sends the overvoltage to GROUND/earth. If it shunts a surge to the neutral wire in Thailand's system, problems can occur. And, the two main problems with MOVs are that.....

1. they wear out after one or several surges, and unless your outlet strip blinks its power switch light, you will not know if the MOVs inside are worn out or not.

2. you must provide a ground for the MOV to shunt into; most Thailand home wall electrical outlets/sockets do not have a ground. If only two pins are present, there is no ground. If three pins, there can still be no ground connected inside. Point is, NO GROUND, NO SHUNTING regardless of the quality of your surge strip.

The absence of a ground negates all the clamping function of a surge suppressor outlet strip. No protection. However, the MOV can shunt to the neutral of Thailand's system, but you usually will not know which wall outlet socket pin is neutral, so you can not connect your strip neutral to your electrical supply neutral (50/50% chance of being right). Shunting to Thailand's neutral, even if you get it correct, provides little to no protection.

UNDERVOLTAGE.... Under voltage, called brown-out if planned to happen, is thought possible to do damage to modern electronic and electrical devices. However, such modern devices almost always have "switching power supplies" which are designed to work at voltages from Japan's 100VAC to Thailand's 240VAC, continuous. That means if your voltage drops in Thailand, it is almost never below 150VAC (because the electric company's transformers vastly overheat in that condition and usually burn out, so co. tries to keep voltage up).

All that means that for a device marked 100-250VAC, a "brown out" will not hurt it. If voltage goes below 100, the device simply stops functioning with no harm.

Older devices are transformer powered (and heavier to lift) and the transformer designed to work at around 220VAC will get very hot at LOWER voltages and can burn up or associated parts burn up due to the extra load. Then, that device could be saved by using a UPS to switch on, provide the correct voltage, and have YOU turn off the device (because of limited battery supply in all UPSs). YOU turn off during the UPS supplying voltage because soon the UPS will quit normally and whatever voltage you had first, you will have again.*

Note, most UPS are designed to switch on only in the event of total power failure... the lights go out... and not for only lower voltage. There is a threshold. Also, UPS do not clamp off surges unless that function is built into it AND if it has a ground/earth.

Summary:

No ground on your wall outlet, then no surge suppression, UPS or strip, regardless.

Undervoltage can be managed only if a person turns the TV off before the UPS batteries are exhausted.*

[Pib]

I would disagree with the part about if you don't have a ground wire a varister/MOV in surge suppressor doesn't accomplish anything. If a varister/MOV is across the Line and Neutral in a two wire setup (which is quite common in parts of the world where two-wire connections are still quite common like in Thailand) and the surge/spike rides in on the Line wire (the wire with the 220V), varister/MOV would shunt the excess voltage (that voltage above the varister's trigger point) to the Neutral which is basically at ground potential. It is best to shunt a surge/spike to ground but shunting to Neutral is effective also. It gets quite complicated when looking at the 3 line modes that surges can occur over...Line-to-Neutral, Line-to-Earth (Ground), and Neutral-to-Earth...having protection on all three modes is best.

[lucifer666]

A modern flat screen tv shouldn't be even clost to using 300 Watts. My 50" one only uses 60 Watts.

[Pib]

A modern flat screen tv shouldn't be even clost to using 300 Watts. My 50" one only uses 60 Watts.

All depends on your definition of "modern." Brand new, 2 years old, 5 years old, etc. Also, whether its LCD, LED, or Plasma...size of the screen, etc. I have a 6 year old 52in Philips LCD flat screen and it's rated at 330W. And I have put an energy monitor on it and depending on the varying picture and varying sounds levels...and how high you crank up the volume I've seen it pull around 250 watts...but normally it's pulling around 200 watts.

[Rorri]

Rimbuman, on 31 Jul 2014 - 10:49, said:

mokwit, on 31 Jul 2014 - 09:49, said:

If you just want to protect from mains power surges you can buy a surge protector without UPS - I use Belkin multi plug which they claim to guarantee up to Bt40,000 compensation for any surge damage. If you want to a monitor, let alone a TV to run via UPS for more than a few minutes it will cost a lot. The Bt4000-8000 single battery ones last a few minutes with one PC and one monitor - after that price point they get very expensive - if you want to run for more than the 15 minutes it takes for most power offs to resolve you are talking a lot more.

You can parallel more batteries to your UPS and run a lot longer no need to invest ++++ baht for an expensive UPS unit and surge protection can be included if you buy a decent one, mine cost me about 2000 baht for 1000VA power bank and surge protector in one. If you parallel batteries don't use regular car batteries but the deep cycle type.

Really easy to do.

Most small/home use,UPS's come with non deep cycle batteries, in fact they use the same as most security systems use,... deep cycle batteries are designed for repeated discharge, recharge cycles. Batteries by the way, act as a very efficient line noise filter.

[tifino]

@Curtklay & @Krataiboy

heh heh, maybe I should have just drawn a picture:

anyhows, until i installed the ups, I lost 3 set top boxes and one PVR, burnt out by mains surges.

Later on i lost my 900w ups, same deal, but after adding the 2 delay relays i never lost anything else.

I have tried different capacity UPS, but the good thing was that, even using just the one 500w 'iCube'ups, I was able to maintain 3 STBs, and 2 PVRs(both recording) for average 82 minutes.

One feature I look for in a UPS, is the type that you can USB-connect to your computer, to allow programming of the UPS into how it will respond to power failures. This feature is what drew me towards the iCube family.

I set the UPS to auto-shut down after 60 mins on batteries, and it's been like this now for 2 years without any problem.

Edited August 2, 2014 by tifino

[astral]

The delay relay detecting the incoming voltage is the only way to go

A simple UPS is unlikely to do the job

[Crossy]

If you can find a ferroresonant AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulator) rather than a tap-changing one they are very good at stopping slow edge overvoltages.

A MOV will kill the fast lightning induced ones but doesn't have the dissipation to trap longer lived surges.

The AVR will be cheaper than a UPS (I actually have on on the front end of my UPS) and, in conjunction with a quality MOV, will do a better job of protecting your kit.

As a bonus, it will also protect against under-voltage which can be equally damaging if for prolonged periods.