APC Power Conditioner Owners Thread

[solarrdadd]

I think many people either take for granted that everything will be ok or it won't happen to me. I also think many people have no idea about power quality or protecting their equipment. The power utility is notorious for two things brown-outs or sags and spikes or surges. Nature is notourious for lightining strikes which cause massive surges if your electrical system or is hit by it or metal members of your homes.

most of if not all of your metal members are "bonded" metalically to keep from having a large enough diffrence of potential to harm or kill people. They are also bonded to allow quick action on the part of Over Current Protective Devices OCPD in your home (circuit breakers or lord help you fuses!) I have the benefit of being a master electrician and I understand these things all too well. If you can in your existing setup or if you are building a new home theatre then I recommend running dedicated 125v 20amp circuits to your equipment. Use nothing smaller than #12awg conductors (wire) and for runs over 100' from the panel use #10awg conductors.

You should have incorporated in your protection scheme a reliable form of AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulation) this can be in the form of a good line conditioner or a UPS. many people make the mistake of just having a surge suppressor (usually a cheap one) plugged into the wall and they plug their goods into it (usually exensive goods) and think that is enough. I am here to tell you to spend a couple of hundreds to save thousands. Think of the cost of your hdtv, ps3, xbox 360, blu-ray player relative to the cost of a UPS, a line conditioner and good sound wiring. We pay lots of money for our "goods" but little to protect them. Most of us dont' know the condition of the outlet we are plugging our stuff into to begin with. are the prongs worn out from over use or age? is the wiring connected to it tight or loose? is it on a dedicated circuit (alone) or is it being shared with the kitchen microwave or the bathroom receptacle that your ol lady uses her hair dryer in? is the receptacle properly grounded?

Grounding is one of the most abused parts fo the electrical system. most of the time it is believed that you really don't need to use that ground wire. My friends i'm here to tell you that one day, know it or not, that ground wire will and may already have saved your life and your belongs from death and or fire, CONNECT THE DAMN THING!

is the correct size wire being used based on the circuit breaker size. remember #14awg wire should be on a 15amp breaker and #20awg is good for a 15 or 20amp breaker; for your equipment, I'd recommend using the #12awg with the 20amp breaker. most of us cannot answer these questions. we spend hundreds to thousands to have our equipment setup and callibrated and we nor the people who do these "calibrations" are aware of the power quality or the lack of it that the equipment may be in.

poor power quality will shorten the expected life of equipment, cause unexplained failure of that equipment and cause audio/video problems with our equipment. it will also make said equipment run hotter which again shortents the life of the equipment. i recommend to everyone take the time to protect your equipment. invest some of that money towards the one thing that every single component in your system has in common, electricity!

I use a 1500va APC UPS w/AVR and downstream of that an APC surge suppressing plug center all connected to a new 125v 20a grounded receptacle with #12awg wire run to a 20amp circuit breaker and it is dedicated to only that one receptacle. I also have a panel mounted whole house surge arrestor. All of these things in concert are in place to protect all of my equipment. I take no chances, niether should you!

I know this was a bit off the beaten path but, I hope it helps you protect and keep your stuff for a long, long time! Until you decide to upgrade to the lates and greatest!

[OMH]

my house is not grounded will the power conditioner give me any protection ?

[liquidice]

Originally Posted by OMH

my house is not grounded will the power conditioner give me any protection ?

I've been dealing with the same issue at my rental house I'm in. I have been able to yank apart my outlet (breaker flipped off of course), bought a brand new GFCI outlet (13 bucks Lowes), and hooked a ground wire to something metal in the receptacle box. This will at least get a major surge somewhere other than my equipment, and even away from my APC H15. Wasn't that hard to do, and may not be the best option, but still makes me feel better about what I have hooked up.

[solarrdadd]

Originally Posted by liquidice

I've been dealing with the same issue at my rental house I'm in. I have been able to yank apart my outlet (breaker flipped off of course), bought a brand new GFCI outlet (13 bucks Lowes), and hooked a ground wire to something metal in the receptacle box. This will at least get a major surge somewhere other than my equipment, and even away from my APC H15. Wasn't that hard to do, and may not be the best option, but still makes me feel better about what I have hooked up.

Howdy, when you say "gooked a ground wire to something metal in the receptacle box" what do you mean? If your receptacle has only two wires inside of the box (black & white, hot & neutral) and the box is made of metal it may in fact still be grounded. If your cable is the spiral metal type, trade name b/x or armor cable as long as that cable is connected to the box properly for bonding purposes and it is connected to the electrical service panel correctly for bonding purposes and is not (the metal sheath) broken anywhere in between then using any self grounding 3prong receptacle will do the trick. if you have a voltmeter or a multimeter set it to volts a/c and set the volts to 200 and check between the hot/black wire and the metal box. if you read 120+ volts then your box is grounded. you can either use a self grounding type receptacle or you can use a bare or green bonding jumper from the receptacle grounding screw, the green one and inside the box, near the back there should be a threaded hole for a 10/32 treaded screw to attach your ground wire. as for the use of the GFCI receptacle, it will not protect you from surges that come to the receptacle from the source. these types of recetacle use micropressor based sensors inside of it to measure the flow of voltage and current being used by the load plugged into the receptacle or the feed through load downstream of the receptacle. it measures this in mili-amps and it will trip say between 4 - 6 mili-amps to protect you from shock that could cause your heart to loose it's rythem and not pump blood properly and you will of course die. in the event that you do not have a grounded receptacle box say romex (non metallic cable with a plastic like sheath) was used, the NEC says if you have a 2 pronged receptacle and no raceway or dedicated conductor grounding means you are allowed to install a GFCI type receptacle as long as it is labled "not grounded" on the cover. it will still trip if it senses leakage current because it will see voltage and current being used but not returnning to the source and trip to protect you. if you (or in your case when you) move to a house that you own you should have a dedicated circuit run from your panel box to where your equipment is and that is the start of your protection. put your UPS, line conditioner, surge suppressors or whatever after that and you will be fine. with new, everything will be properly wired and grounded. I hope this helps out. and to answer that other guys question, yes, you can use the ungrounded receptacle but you would be better off and better protected with a properly grounded receptacle. you can buy a plug tester at lowes or home depot for about $10 that you plug into the receptacle and it tells you if it is grounded and wired properly for polarity. best of luck to you all. drop me a line if you need more detailed information.

[liquidice]

there is some deep knowledge in that message! I don't have the metal lined casing for electrical lines. In fact, I don't think this house is grounded at any outlet. I more or less fooled this particular outlet into thinking it's grounding by buying a 12 gauge copper wire, and running that from the ground screw of the outlet to that metal plate I found in the wall. No, it's not grounded, but I'm ok with what I have rather than the 2 prong outlet installed in this house originally. I'm not in an area of extreme storms either, so that also makes me feel better. Quite honestly, I can't wait to move, but this makes me feel better about the situation I'm in till that time. Thanks for the info, I feel smarter now!

[Jbald87]

Just ordered mine for 99.99 from Amazon. I hope this is as good a people have said.

[Slec]

Originally Posted by solarrdadd

Howdy, when you say "hooked a ground wire to something metal in the receptacle box" what do you mean? If your receptacle has only two wires inside of the box (black & white, hot & neutral) and the box is made of metal it may in fact still be grounded.

If your cable is the spiral metal type, trade name b/x or armor cable as long as that cable is connected to the box properly..... is connected to the electrical service panel correctly ..... and is not (the metal sheath) broken anywhere in between then using any self grounding 3prong receptacle will do the trick.

if you have a voltmeter or a multimeter set it to volts a/c and set the volts to 200 and check between the hot/black wire and the metal box. if you read 120+ volts then your box is grounded. You can either use a self grounding type receptacle or you can use a bare or green bonding jumper from the receptacle grounding screw (the green one on the receptacle). Inside the box, near the back there should be a threaded hole for a 10/32 threaded screw to attach your ground wire.

As for the use of the GFCI receptacle, it will not protect you from surges that come to the receptacle from the source. These types of receptacle use built-in micropressor based sensors to measure the flow of voltage and current being used by the load plugged into the receptacle or the feed through load downstream of the receptacle. it measures this in mili-amps and it will trip say between 4 - 6 mili-amps to protect you from shock (that level could cause your heart to loose it's rhythm and not pump blood properly and you will of course die).

In the event that you do not have a grounded receptacle box say romex (non metallic cable with a plastic like sheath) was used, the NEC says if you have a 2 pronged receptacle and no raceway or dedicated conductor grounding means you are allowed to install a GFCI type receptacle as long as it is labled "not grounded" on the cover. it will still trip if it senses leakage current because it will see voltage and current being used but not returnning to the source and trip to protect you. if you (or in your case when you) move to a house that you own you should have a dedicated circuit run from your panel box to where your equipment is and that is the start of your protection. put your UPS, line conditioner, surge suppressors or whatever after that and you will be fine. with new, everything will be properly wired and grounded. I hope this helps out.

and to answer that other guys question, yes, you can use the ungrounded receptacle but you would be better off and better protected with a properly grounded receptacle. you can buy a plug tester at lowes or home depot for about $10 that you plug into the receptacle and it tells you if it is grounded and wired properly for polarity. best of luck to you all. drop me a line if you need more detailed information.

Good post, its a good read so I cleaned it up a bit for easier reading, hope you don't mind.

[brett_day]

this thread is fixing to explode because of the amount of forum members who purchased this yesterday for $99! looks like i have a lot of reading to do to get caught up!

[Drew664]

Originally Posted by brett_day

this thread is fixing to explode because of the amount of forum members who purchased this yesterday for $99! looks like i have a lot of reading to do to get caught up!

Ha, I'll add my thoughts when I hook up my APC H15 when it arrives. :P

Looking at my current set up, the only problem may be that all of my power cords won't reach to my AV rack, which is where I'll put it. PS3, receiver, and maybe the TV could reach. If not, the Wally World surge can protect the TV and sub.

[SDBlu]

Originally Posted by brett_day

this thread is fixing to explode because of the amount of forum members who purchased this yesterday for $99! looks like i have a lot of reading to do to get caught up!

Yup...It's hard to pass up at that price. I also just pulled the trigger on it this morning. Can't wait to get it all set up

[JJ]

Again!

Reminding everyone of the original terrible trio, often imitated but never duplicated, of the crazy ol' H15 owners: Johk, Slec, and myself.

Glad everyone's getting this unit, she's a gorgeous piece of work that will protect your system for years!

[tilapiah6]

Not to mention it's pretty nice looking too.

[Slec]

Originally Posted by JJxiv1215

Again!

Reminding everyone of the original terrible trio, often imitated but never duplicated, of the crazy ol' H15 owners: Johk, Slec, and myself.

Glad everyone's getting this unit, she's a gorgeous piece of work that will protect your system for years!

The Triumvirate!

[JJ]

Originally Posted by Slec

The Triumvirate!

HA! That's perfect. I love it. Triumvirate. Nice.

[liquidice]

Originally Posted by JJxiv1215

Again!

Reminding everyone of the original terrible trio, often imitated but never duplicated, of the crazy ol' H15 owners: Johk, Slec, and myself.

I think Johk has the H10.

[PhilTomaskovic]

Does the type of tv (lcd, plasma, crt, projection) have any affect on which outlet you should use like digital vs video? Also I have a NAD T785 receiver, given its built in amp which is pretty powerful, am I better using the high current filter outlet vs the analog filter?

[Drew664]

I've got the same question that Phil does.

Which plug am I going to want to use for my equipment? Are they only labeled to keep things organized, or will each plug give off different power?

[liquidice]

type of tv shouldn't matter, I would still hook it into the video filter. As far as the receiver, I asked APC about this through email, and they said you should always use the analog outlets for a receiver, and save the high current for an external/additional amp. You should be fine with the normal setups recommened.

[liquidice]

Originally Posted by Drew664

I've got the same question that Phil does.

Which plug am I going to want to use for my equipment? Are they only labeled to keep things organized, or will each plug give off different power?

this is covered earlier in the thread. Each bank has certain qualities for certain items you would want to plug in, but that does not mean you have to plug tv into tv. You could plug tv into VCR, and vice versa without there being a difference. Look to the very beginning of the thread, there is alot of info about this, some being directly quoted from APC help desk.

[MetalHead84]

Does the APC AC H15 will be a good addition to my home theater ?
What I will have is a Yamaha receiver, some polk audio speaker (TSi), the PSW10 sub, my PS3 and my Sony TV.
Currently I juste have a little surge protector with something like 8 inputs, which I use for my tv, ps3 and my PC.

Does the H15 is too much for my need or will it be ok?