Electrical fire 101

[Junk Parts]

Don't know why but the suge protector on the wife PC gave up this morning. The only thing on it that was turned on was a little portable DVD player. It still works fine. It was impressive! First there was lots of white smoke then black smoke. Then there was one loud bang and it was all done with. The board as well as all the componets are burnt black. There is a hole burnt in the center of the board that is the size of a dime. Two disc compasitors as well as a diode were blown clear off the board. I wonder if the PSU in her PC is dead now. It could have taken out her monitor to. Going to have to plug up her junk to and extention cord and find out. The power strip was made in CHINA!

[kc8adu]

Re: Electrical fire 101

generator overrev on you?
this is why i wont use surge strips in plastic cases!wounded mov's can go white hot and not pull enough to trip the breaker.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Electrical fire 101

gthis is why i wont use surge strips in plastic cases!wounded mov's can go white hot and not pull enough to trip the breaker.

This is good to know
Where can fire proof versions be bought?
Or you just use a UPS instead?

[stj]

Re: Electrical fire 101

nothing to do with china,
mov's do fail - i'v had them go on the bench - bang-flash!

put simply, they kill spikes by shorting out for a microsecond or whatever - like an AC version of a zener diode.

each spike stresses them - eventually they just go boom.

[stj]

Re: Electrical fire 101

btw, if you put a couple of layers of thick heatshrink over them they generally dont damage anything other than the pcb around the pins when they blow.

this used to be common practice in pc psu's

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Electrical fire 101

Don't know why but the suge protector on the wife PC gave up this morning. The only thing on it that was turned on was a little portable DVD player. It still works fine. It was impressive! First there was lots of white smoke then black smoke. Then there was one loud bang and it was all done with. The board as well as all the componets are burnt black. There is a hole burnt in the center of the board that is the size of a dime. Two disc compasitors as well as a diode were blown clear off the board. I wonder if the PSU in her PC is dead now. It could have taken out her monitor to. Going to have to plug up her junk to and extention cord and find out. The power strip was made in CHINA!

My living room powerstrip was real close to doing the same thing!

Because I had a leak on July 10, 2010. Water was dripping right near the powerstrip and cable box!

[Junk Parts]

Re: Electrical fire 101

Since I started this post I've blown up another surge protector. This one was even more dramatic than the first. The whole plastic case melted. You can see the outline of it in the carpet. The carpet all around where it was is now chared black. All you have to do to take one of these thing out is rev the generator some and Kablam its gone. Junk Parts can learn new things like "DON'T REV THE GENERATOR if given enough time.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Electrical fire 101

Since I started this post I've blown up another surge protector. This one was even more dramatic than the first. The whole plastic case melted. You can see the outline of it in the carpet. The carpet all around where it was is now chared black. All you have to do to take one of these thing out is rev the generator some and Kablam its gone. Junk Parts can learn new things like "DON'T REV THE GENERATOR if given enough time.

Huh? Then would that mean your TV and PC are F-ed now?

[Junk Parts]

Re: Electrical fire 101

Everything is fine. Its the Laptop that gave up and it wasn't plugged in at the time.

[severach]

Re: Electrical fire 101

So what will your next surge strip do? Blacken the entire house? Are you're going to let it?

Fireproof surge strips are available at every store and are cheaper than the fire hazard type. I only purchase non surge strips and I opened all the strips I had already and cut or disabled the surge parts. Strips where the surge parts could not be disabled were discarded. Surge suppression at the strip is unsafe and useless.

My surge suppression is in the breaker box where it beats down lightning with the greatest of ease. All other unimportant surges are handled by the power supplies which don't need any help from carpet burners.

Generators are voltage regulated. Reving it would increase the frequency but shouldn't increase the voltage. I burned out some surge strips with a generator because the neutral damaged allowing more than 120v on some circuits and less than 120v on others.

I've seen blackened PSU where the MOVs that didn't go were heat shrink wrapped. The wrap isn't good for much.

[ratdude747]

Re: Electrical fire 101

it blew because he was horsing the throttle... as long as he leaves it alone, it will be fine... it is an old generator so it might not have been regulated... the frequency change might have been too much for the strip anyway...

[stj]

Re: Electrical fire 101

mov's arent frequency specific.

luckily they are only about 50c each - you can parallel a big line of them in a metal case if you wanted.

[Junk Parts]

Re: Electrical fire 101

I was Reving the gen-set to clear the carb. This was the original busted junk carb. The unit now has a newer carb off a tecumseh lawn mower on it. The unit starts on the first pull and runs great now.