Transient Voltage Spike Protection Home Made Device

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
I'm stubborn. When I found out how stupidly expensive adequate "Surge Protectors" cost, I hit the roof. Screw that. I ordered the components.

Designed for 180 volt peak-to-peak protection ((the standard down here is 127vac 60Hz.)

20 mm Metal Oxide Varistors
10 mm Metal Oxide Varistors (10 volts higher rating)
Transient Voltage Surge Protection bi-directional diodes 4ns reaction time
Gas Discharge Tube devices

L1-L0
L1-Earth Ground
LO-Earth Ground

(8) MOVS
(4) TVS
(2) GDT

I'll see about sending some images to NinerBikes.

If you can do basic soldering, you can do your own and end up with genuine protection and not a vastly overpriced fraud.

BTW: A fully functional grounded isolation transformer is 100,000 times better than my gizmo.

Mex,

I am not sure what you are looking at that is so expensive..

The parts you listed plus RFI/EMF suppression (IE RF choke/capacitive network), on/off switch AND a 12A-15A breaker are typically included in good brands of computer type surge protector/outlets.. Additionally good quality surge protectors will also have the surge (MOV and bidirectional diodes FUSED, when the diodes blow, the fuse opens and the surge protection fault indicator light will show that you no longer have surge protection..

You can get a Panamax protector for $33 HERE

APC makes a good one for $33 HERE

by the time you buy ALL of the parts PLUS outlets, pigtail wire and a pretty box to put it all in AND your time (my labor isn't cheap) you could have bought a ready made unit..

If you don't want RFI suppression you can get surge protection only for $8.99 which would have MOVs but not the diodes HERE

I would definitely not recommend using those bare parts without adding a fuse in series with the protection.. I HAVE seen those bidirectional diodes SHORT and if you don't fuse those things you will end up with more fireworks than the Fourth of July.. :E

Not a place to "cut corners"..