SurgeX Electrical Power Management
“It’ll never happen to me!” You’ve said it. Admit it. The chances of getting struck by lightning are almost as remote as winning the lottery – almost.
One of our clients may have thought the same until recently. Awhile back, I picked up the e-mail that said, in essence, “Hey Dave, it appears that lightning struck the church. We’re not sure of all of the damage, but our mixer doesn’t work, a couple of mics are blown, the DVD player doesn’t work, and the video projector is dead.” The church is limping along with replacement gear, but it has been an inconvenience to say the least.
It’s amazing how dependent we have become upon technology in the worship setting. Sure, you can teach without the video screen, and if your church is small enough, it might not matter that the mixer doesn’t work any more, but no matter who you are, you don’t want to be the victim of a power surge that knocks out your equipment. We still haven’t found a way to put the blue smoke back once it escapes.
SurgeX makes the best power protection there is, tests its units to withstand at least 1000 occurrences of surge pulse voltages up to 6000 volts and 3000 amps, offers a 10-year warranty, and has never had a reported failure of any piece of equipment connected to its devices.
There is absolutely no way to protect equipment in a part of a building that gets a direct hit by lightning. Usually, however, when a building or a utility pole gets hit, the equipment itself does not receive the direct discharge; the equipment receives a surge conducted through the building wiring.
Research has shown that because of arc-over at the service entrance and within the building wiring, the maximum voltage that reaches a 120V outlet is 6000V. It has also been determined by the same research that the maximum current is 3000A.
So, although lightning itself has millions of volts, we don’t get millions of volts jumping out of the 120V outlet. We also now have an idea of what a surge protector must be able to reliably handle in order to protect equipment from lightning damage.
There is a difference in surge suppression devices. Plastic power strips with circuit breakers and even more-expensive rack mount units with sacrificial components (one surge and the protection is used up) can’t compete with the safety you get from SurgeX. Check out some of the SurgeX products we sell here.
We know another church that sits out on top of a hill, in a clearing. Lightning struck nearby and wiped out lots of of office equipment, but the audio and video gear survived. Why? Proper surge suppression from SurgeX. Not kidding.
When your message and your equipment matters, an investment in SurgeX products will pay peace of mind dividends for years to come.