Brown out protection ?

I see a lot of mention about surge protection and power filtering but what about brown outs. Where I live brownouts are much more likely then a surge.

I was originaly considering a brickwall or tripplite but now I think a Panamax with under voltage protections may be smarter. But more expensive of course.

Thoughts ?

As far as I know, the only four solutions are:

A UPS or Power Inverter that will handle the load and provide, possibly with additional filtering or with more expensive internal power inversion, a reasonable approximation of a sine wave.

A power conditioner that not only filters the current, but has circuitry to provide ~120VAC output even if the input varies between 90-150VAC. If the input voltage falls to 95VAC, however, the unit will draw more current so that the total wattage throughput remains relatively constant. Because of this, such a unit that can output 15A might need to be on a 20A circuit, or, if it is on a 15A circuit, the load should draw a maximum of 10-12 amps.

A relay with a monitoring circuit that cuts the power cleanly if the voltage or current goes outside of proper parameters. During off-on-off-on-off-on power situations, the relay should remain off.

This last one is rather ‘exotic’ and expensive by home standards, but we did use this setup for a television production (not the transmitter) facility overseas: a motor-generator. A motor that can handle varying voltages and other irregularities spins a flywheel and a generator. If voltage falls some, the motor draws more current to keep the revolutions per minute correct. If the voltage fails, the flywheel allows things to ‘spin down’ over a few minutes while critical systems are shut down properly. This setup totally isolates the equipment from the outside world, electrically speaking, and anything but a lightning strike directly on the facility is stopped. If someone really needed to change 50Hz power to 60Hz power, or visa-versa, this type of system can do that too.

At the nuclear research reactor where I worked in the early 80s, we used everything from mechanical flywheel effects (to keep large coolant pumps spinning long enough for backup power to switch over) to huge rooms full of lead-acid batteries, to two (redundant) very large diesel generators, with all of the related converters and inverters needed to keep the whole thing running in case of outside power failure.

Overkill for my home - but surely there's gotta be some high-ender out there that craves THAT level of protection and reliability?

Jeff Mackwood

they make/sell voltage regulators/compensators. i think monster might even make one, though it costs a ton. i think a battery backup would be the cheapest solution (like one for a computer).

The Panamax states that it protects against undervoltage but cutting off power under this situation. Shouldn't that do the trick ?

Panamax 5100

Although the nuclear research options sound like fun.

It also includes a 10 second delay before restoring power, which would prevent rapid on-off power cycles during periods of unstable low or high voltage. That should do the trick. My MAX5100 got me through a nasty power failure about a year and a half ago, when the power dipped almost to nothing three or four times in a few seconds before finally going out for good.

I tried the diesel generators for awhile, but my wife didn't think they went with the furniture in the living room of our condo. Plus the engine sounds made it hard to hear DD5.1 at reference levels. I went to Tripplite Isobars.

In fact, we just had a series of brown-outs here in my LA neighborhood a couple nights ago. Everything came through fine.

You can pay more for a lot of tricked out, dressed up, overpriced power filters aimed at the consumer market but the two professional audio/video engineers I know both recommend Isobars.

All of the UPS systems I have installed would take care of any brown out situations.

Not to mention the smell of the Diesel fumes in the living room.

How do Tripplite isobar's protect from brown-out ? I thought they only protected from surge.

I assumed UPS systems that generate enough juice for audio equipment would be very expensive and take up a great deal of space. Honestly I didn't research it but I only need the equipment protected I don't care about keeping it running in a blackout/brownout.

Brownouts are not really equipment endangering, just aggrivating. Over voltage spikes are more dangerous if they are high enough, in which case a surge protector will take care of them.

Really I didn't know that. I assumed it could hurt the equipment. I guess that's why you don't see too much emphasis on "Brown-out" protection.

Brownouts are of course more critical with computers that can loose data, but the worst that can happen with a typical brownout with audio gear is that the processor may lock up, in which case you would just need to turn the gear off and then on again to reset it. My 950 looses it's display dimming setting and my Sony DVD player looses it's preference settings when the power is completely lost, but not during brownouts.

I just purchased a Panamax MAX 5100 on your recomendation, gonk! (No pressure...
Bill

- cool. I think you'll be satisfied with that choice.

Just for the record I went with the Panamax also.

Can't say I can tell the difference in the sound quality. I don't think I had much noise from my power lines. But it is a nice unit and make me feel that my equipment is better protected.

Same reason I got it...peace of mind...
Bill