ever1ast15 wrote:
I was looking at the Progressive Industries as well as the Surge Guard brands. I know you have to look at Joules and all that stuff. Just don't know whether to get hard wired or portable.
List of anomalies that a surge protector might protect from is long. No protector protects from all or even most. Selection of a protector starts with a short list of 'surges' that are a concern.
For example, protectors for campground, at minimum, should protect from high voltage, reverse polarity, open safety ground, and low voltage. Joules does nothing for any of those.
Joules is for a completely different surge - that hunts for earth ground destructive via appliances. An effective protector does not 'block' or 'absorb' that anomaly. It must connect that anomaly low impedance (ie as short as possible) to earth ground. Then hundreds of thousands of joules dissipate harmlessly outside.
Earth ground is (should be) in the pole. Therefore a protector for that anomaly must be attached at the pole and is best as far as possible from appliances.
Described is a significant difference between a fixed protector and a portable one chained to the pole. Without that low impedance connection to earth, then joules does little to nothing useful.
