DA Reefkeeper Question

Obviously a reef controller is an appliance. Obviously. And obviously a UPS provides surge protection - near-zero surge protection. Did you read the number? Just enough above zero so that a sales brochure can lie. Call it 100% protection.

Why do you believe what retail salesman ordered you to believe? Did you not read the tech specs? Did you not ask damning questions? Apparrantly not. Even reef electronics are electrical appliances.

Anything that plugs into the wall is an appliance. That includes motors and heaters. Electronics and the reef are a potential electrical path to earth. Surges permitted inside the building will go hunting for earth - destructively. Nothing adjacent to an appliance can stop the hunt. Nothing. A battery absorbing a surge also screams zero electrical knowledge.

Informed consumers never install protection only for high end electronics. Protection is installed for everything including bathroom and kitchen GFCIs, the furnace, dimmer switches, digital clocks, and reef controller. Anything that a surge will destructively go hunting through if surge energy is permitted inside the house.

Why are free floating creatures is safer than ones attached to a tank side? Reasons why are obvious by knowing how surges do damage.

In any location that must never have surge damage, a plug-in protector or UPS is not used. That UPS is a perfect example of how one is told what to think rather than first learn the science. Same manipulation technique also proved Saddam had WMDs. Where is the UPS manufacturer spec that claims protection? Where are the reasons why? Numbers do not exist. How does a UPS relay stop damage? It doesn't. Even power supplies in high end electronics do protection superior to that inside a plug-in UPS. Obvious in the UPS numeric specifications. That UPS claims no protection where they cannot lie - numeric tech specs. Did you read those tech specs? Or just blindly believe advertising?


Protection is always about where energy dissipates. Either surge energy dissipates harmlessly outside the building. Or that energy is inside hunting for earth ground destructively via appliances - ie the reef. A surge permitted inside will hunt for earth destructively even via a reef. Effective protection has always been about earthing BEFORE a surge enters the building – always about one 'whole house' protector.

Surges are hundreds of thousands of joules. How do hundreds of joules in a UPS absorb that energy? It doesn't. How does a 2 centimeter protector part stop what 3 miles of sky could not? It doesn't. But a majority will believe the advertising - where lying is legal. Where numbers are missing. Power strip protectors: a $3 power strip with some ten cent protector part sells for $25 or $150. Promoting lies and myths is that obscenely profitable.

Informed homeowners earth one 'whole house' protector for about $1 per protected appliance. Then energy does not go hunting inside a building. The only protetor that is effective protection is located and connected short (ie 'less than 10 feet') to single point earth ground. Earth ground - what that UPS manufacturer will never discuss so that consumers remain naïve. A protector is only as effective as its earth ground.

Others - be forwarned abut some who know without ever learning the numbers or science. Who declare knowledge only from hearsay. For over 100 years, in facilities that can never have damage - 911 response center, radio stations, telco switching center, munitions dumps - plug-in protectors are not used. Only earthed 'whole house' protectors are used. They use science - not retail myths - to install effective protection. And for tens or 100 times less money. Yes, the superior solution costs that much less money. The superior solution is not selling a profit center.

 

Most good protectors will warranty the products plugged into them, given you keep the original sales receipt(tape it to the bottom). That way if they fail, you can recoup the cost of your equipment.

 

NEC 2008 (National Electric Code):

Appliance: Utilization equipment, generally other than industrial, that is normally built in standardized sizes or types and is installed or connected as a unit to perform one or more functions such as clothes washing, air conditioning, food mixing, deep frying, and so forth.

Sounds like the reef equipment is NOT an appliance, right?

WRONG.

Utilization Equipment: Equipment that utilizes electric energy for electronic, electromechanical, chemical, heating, lighting, or similar purposes.

OR...anything that plugs into a receptacle, or is hard-wired into the circuit.

UPS systems provide short-term power solutions, and I have never been convinced of their surge-stopping capabilities. I have installed lightning arrester systems in many buildings, and have seen first hand what happens when successfully installed. Lightning struck a building, traveled down the appropriate path, outside, to the earth-grounded electrode, and exploded...creating a crater in the ground. Not electrical systems inside were effected. Not to say that Lightning Arresters are good...in my opinion, they attract electrical discharge, making it more likely for you to end up with craters...but your fish will thank you.

 

Its getting steamy in here.. Woo

 

They are selling a scam. They know you will ignore numeric specifications that say it does no effective protection. And they know you will ignore the find print in that warranty. The warranty is so chock full of exemptions as to not be honored. Or read what others learned:

Albert Spencil on 19 Jun 2003 in "UPS for computer and TV":
> That UPS warranty is a crock ! They lay it out very clearly in the document that
> comes in the box. They will at their option repair or replace your equipment at
> the current value as given in Orion Blue Book. The value of a two year old home PC
> would not replace a motherboard.

HolyCow! on 13 Mar 2010 in "Can a cheap surge protector cut down the life of my new HDTV" :
> Had my computer system "protected" by an APC SurgeArrest, and it failed (my
> computer was fried). APC refused to repair or replace, which means that APC lies when
> they print on their packaging that they will repair or replace your equipment
> which their surge-stopping equipment fails to protect. NEVER will buy APC again.

Or Newsman on 10 Sept 2002 entitled "SONY TiVo SVR-2000":
> I got a Belkin surge protector with phone line protection soley for Tivo purposes.
> Yet my Tivo's modem still failed. And the '$20,000 connected devices warranty' did
> not help me. I jumped through many hoops, including finding the original recept
> for the surge protector (just under a year old) and I sent my surge protector to
> Belkin (paid for shipping), and was denied my warranty. They gave me a ton of crap,
> including that it was null and void b/c the Tivo was also connected to the coax line
> for cable (this was not mentioned as a thing in the warranty that can nullify it).
> Eventually it boiled down to a line in the warranty that said "Belkin at it's sole
> discretion can reject any claim for any reason".


Or you are educated by the free market. GM cars have the best warranties - 100,000 miles and five years. That proves GM products are superior to Honda and Toyota? The best warranty is often the worst products.

GM has numerous outs on their warranty. For example, they stuck the dealers with a reimbursement of 10 or 25 cents on the dollar. Dealers will do everything necessary to not have the warranty honored. A warranty traditionally targets the most naïve.

Why did you post without first reading the long list of exemptions in that big buck warranty? Because that is how plug-in protector scams get promoted. You ignored the numeric specifications. And did not read the warranty fine print.

Effective protector – one ‘whole house’ protector – means the protector makes a short (ie ‘less than ten foot’) connection to single point earth. So that the protector does protection – does not promote myths.

 

What happened to you with a UPS system that made you HATE the so passionately? I was just giving definitions of terms used...not stating who's right or wrong...just my experience.

 

ummmm... OK guys. so back to the op and now my question: what should the DA reefkeeper be plugged into to prevent power surges? i cant have all my stuff fail!

 

I have mine plugged into a simple surge protector. I believe it helps no matter what those guys say. Also without a whole earth ground there will be a surge looking for earth on december 21, 2012 and the surges will fly through the aliens and out of our volcanoes and flying dinosaurs will come back to life and the mayans will attack the europeans and it will piss the chinese off and the world will end.. So get a surge protector..

 

Is that really going to happen? I'm scared of Chinese people.

 

yay!