Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-lcc!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!jade!lapis.berkeley.edu!oster From: oster@lapis.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Surge Suppressors Message-ID: <2105@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Wed, 7-Jan-87 03:06:58 EST Article-I.D.: jade.2105 Posted: Wed Jan 7 03:06:58 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 7-Jan-87 18:44:21 EST References: <1094@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU> Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: oster@lapis.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 19 Keywords: Power Supplies, Surge Suppressors, AC Power, PG&E If you remember MacWorld Vol.1#1, you'll remember there ewas a discussion of the mac hardware in that issue. You can see the surge protector on th Mac boards. I've been in a room with 3 Macs and 2 Lisas, and watched a power glitch crash the Lisas without touching the Macs. The Mac is simply better than most computing equipment when it comes to coping with real world power. However, surge protection is done with a circuit element called a MOV. The problem with MOVs is that for every surge they suppress, they wear out a little. Eventually, they are all used up and nobody has a cheap tester to tell you when you should replace yours or augment them with an extra surge protection box. Steve Ciarcia had a long article discussing surge protection a few years ago in Byte magazine. It gave tips for building your own surge suppressors buy buying your own MOVs and soldering them into your extension power strips. --- David Phillip Oster -- "The goal of Computer Science is to Arpa: oster@lapis.berkeley.edu -- build something that will last at Uucp: ucbvax!ucblapis!oster -- least until we've finished building it."