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Line Conditioner Question

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EvilAlchemist

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I am building a new house and was speaking to the electrician about different things i needed in the house.

When I was describing to him my server room for my rackmount items, he stated since I was the last person on the electric service and that can cause problems for some items due to "dirty" power or ripple (not sure about those terms or what they mean really)

(Yes I am living out in the middle of nowhere),& i may want to invest in some Line Conditioners for my higher end servers.

Is he correct about needing that or is it a good idea?

If so, is this product what I am needing to help with this?
Tripp Lite LCR2400 14-Outlet Rackmount Line Conditioner

Thanks
 
Probably a good idea. Dirty power kills electronics. In fact, I wouldn't run anything more sensitive than a toaster without a quality UPS / conditioner if you're the last on the line. Plan to buy lots.
 
Does the electrician happen to sell any line conditioning equipment? If not, he's probably right, although I don't understand what he means by "ripple" because isn't AC all ripple?

OTOH almost everything made now contains some line conditioner because otherwise its digital circuitry would lock up every time a slight glitch was generated by a motor, fluorescent lamp, or even another digital device.

At the very least, I'd get a whole-house surge protector installed in the main circuit breaker box.
 
larrymoencurly said:
Does the electrician happen to sell any line conditioning equipment? If not, he's probably right, although I don't understand what he means by "ripple" because isn't AC all ripple?
Click to expand...

To my knowledge, he was not trying to sell me anything. This is a small town electrical installer, so i don't think he was pushing any kind of upgrade on me.
Just warning me about a situation that might come up since i would have around 10 F@H server running in the house and was the very last customer on the electric service.

I just want to make sure I get the right thing to protect me equipment correctly from what he is talking about ... ??
 
line conditioners range from outright fraud to good things to have.
The one you linked is ok.
The little boxes that copier companies sell as line conditioners are fraud.
They are nothing more than over-priced often inferior surge suppressors.
 
I have the smaller version of that TrippLite for my HT rack (it was $11 at a thrift store, and I figured if it didn't work, it had a cool case and probably some decent components, like a fat transformer, it actually did work though)

as far as "does it do anything notciable", I doubt it, with my (likely inaccurate) DMM, the difference from wall AC is minimal (say the wall measures at between 118 and 121 any given day, this box is almost always at around 119.5 output), I don't know if that actually helps, as I would assume my devices are designed to handle *some* fluctation, but I figure, for $11, as long as it doesn't blow up, it can't be hurting anything :cool:

another thing, I remember reading somewhere (now it would help if I knew where somewhere was ;)) that for PC power supplies, a voltage conditioner is worthless, because a good PSU will handle input fluctutations in stride (most PSU tests even try to show this, going as low as ~90VAC and seeing if the PSU continues to run stable, a good PSU generally will pull through that, albeit it will run warmer), whereas more simplistic electronics, for instance my VCR, don't have anywhere near the regulation/quality of a good PC PSU

iirc this was either sourced from some "build a recording studio at home" guide, or from a manufacturer, like APC, TrippLite, or MonsterPower, discouraging users from buying an AVR for their PC, however the AVR/UPS/Surge devices are another story (Because they do more than one thing)

depending on your room's needs, maybe one of those massive APC towers (like the size of an ATX full tower, weighs around 130 lbs) might be more in order, since it'd help with surges/line noise (I have no idea if that actually "helps" to have line "noise" removed), but it'd give you 10-30 minutes of runtime with no power

hope this helps at least a bit :)
 
All you need for your AC line is a service entrance surge protector. I have a Panamax GP8005. You do not need conditioners or UPS or anything else - though I do recommend UPS for stuff like computers to avoid data loss and inconvenience.
 
Maybe I'm missing something here, but do you not have UPSs in your racks? I'd just invest in a quality UPS with AVR and be done with it. No need for a separate line conditioner.
 
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