Honestly, I recommend you to my apprentices. You have great information that cannot always be conveyed on the job, where time constraints exist. The best ones always listen and want to learn and the worst... Well, you know... Will never read this comment.
I've seen a lot from Dustin, and its great, but i mainly do industrial and right now our main job is for Formet/Magna automation sector and its mostly installing cable tray, mounting panels and doing cable aesthetics. I've been on the same site about a year and a half and didn't learn all that much. Should I move on?
Thank you so much! You have taught me so much! I'm an apprentice, and a lot of times when I see something at work that I don't understand, I turn to you to teach me about it!
I hope to meet you one day man and shake your hand you were the one to get me into the trades and I have been busting my ass going to school and with the help of your videos got raises and more in depth knowledge there is so much a class can teach you God bless you man 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Perfect timing for this video!! Just finished installing my first panel with surge protection, my journeyman wants to test me on how the surge protection works tomorrow aha
Hi Dustin - Electrician U! I liked this video and wanted to say that you are right on! I get a lot of emails from people and everyone contacts me all the time asking me about portable surge protector power strips and what ones are best for lightning protection and what people do not seem to fully understand just like you as well were saying in this video is that a surge protector is not lightning protection. A surge protector can sometimes help from light surges from far away from lightning that might come through the lines but not direct strikes as you and i know. I also get a lot of people contacting me asking me by one of my videos on my youtube channel videos why i was saying its so important for people to replace there surge protector power strips every 3 to 4 years and people do not seem to understand that either how even if the Green LED lights that say Grounded & Protected are still lit that it does not mean that people are still getting full surge protection anymore and surge protection power strips are only good for so long and after 3 to 4 years if people do not replace them then they might not be getting the full protection anymore regardless if the LED lights are on or not. Do you ever get people contacting you about that to? Another thing i get from other people is people who think that surge protectors last forever and and are a one time deal however that is not the case and all surge protectors all have there lifetime to. I have told people before how i know that some surge protectors are expensive or sometimes even surge protector power strips to but they are a lot cheaper than all the electronics and appliances Owners have bought and rather than risking destroying all there things to just keep there surge protectors up to date and replace surge protector power strips every 3 to 4 years and avoid damaging there stuff. I also have told people before during severe weather that the best solution for sure is to just unplug any expensive things they cannot afford to lose until any severe storms are over. I was going to see if you want to join in with me and make a video about these topics as well?
Just want to thank you for sharing your knowledge in a clear and concise manner. Your explanations always clear things up and allow my understanding to get to the next level.
Best info I've seen on surges. I would add the importance of a bonafide outlet ground for type 3 SPD's, otherwise no protection. And equally important, the system ground rod minimum of 2 rods when upgrading with SPD's, though some would say even more, in order to adequately dissipate surges.
SPDs operate by passing CURRENT to (ground, neutral, common) which reduces the VOLTAGE due to the resistance of the source. The rating is how much current they can handle. The combination of voltage, current, and time is energy (joules). Again, the rating is how much energy they can bypass or absorb.
I wanted to say the same thing, but you beat me to it. The SPD works like a switch. When the voltage is normal, the switch is off and no current flows. When the voltage is too high, the switch closes to intentionally create a short-circuit between hot and neutral. This adsorbs the energy from the transient event, converting it into heat inside the SPD. Energy = voltage * current * time, so a higher the Joule rating means the SPD can short more current for a longer time. The voltage should stay constant if the SPD is doing its job.
Hey, just a homeowner here, not electrician, looking for some clarification. Dustin mentioned certain high drain loads like a central ac that strains the system could have an effect on other devices in the home over time. If I were to install surge protected breakers on the large appliances in place of regular breakers, would this protect the other devices and breakers in the home or does that only protect surges coming in from the service line to that particular breaker? Thanks in advance.
@@db0nn3r Putting an SPD at the panel should protect your property from all types of surges, including ones caused by your own appliances. It's like the overflow drain on a sink - once the water reaches a certain level, the sink will stop filling, no matter where the water comes from. An SPD is like an overflow drain for electrons - once the voltage reaches a certain level, the SPD will "drain" it down, no matter where the extra voltage comes from.
@@db0nn3r the AC is less likely a source as the electronics are high quality..you have capacitors helping start the motor and keep it running..the swamp cooler motor I had however, it may have caused my attic fire, but of course no one actually investigated. The power surge which was evidenced in a power strip surge protector, and a fried transformer and control board on the furnace, well, who can say, chicken and egg, did the surge cause the fire, 0r did the fire cause wires to melt which caused a surge in the other stuff??..
I greatly appreciate your videos. Really quite good . As you say it is a very complex subject and some percentage of what your are saying is going over my head, yet it still has a lot of value for me . I am 72 and still working part time as a handyman. In my career I have worked in the AirForce , residential homeowner properties and rental plus commercial restaurant and hotel chief of maintenance and high rise certified safety. so I have had a fair amount of exposure . But you are broadening my knowledge base . I find it very scary that there is so much unsafe grandfathered or stuff done unsafely by people who didnt know what they were doing type electrical situations out there . And finally you are reinforcing in me that I should not take on projects that are beyond my knowledge and experience .
I would say to anyone studying out there to keep trying and learning you will eventually get it. Sometimes other lessons will turn a light on so to speak. Never stop learning.
In 2018 We had lightning strike a tree in our backyard about 25’ from the house. It traveled across the ground, blew a small trench in the dirt across the yard, arced on the metal astragal on the French door in our basement that I was standing 5’ away from, blew the ramset nails off the wood piece under the door threshold. We had WHSP on both panels. We lost all the TV’s, AV equipment, garage door openers upstairs on both garages, a fridge in the garage, a ceiling fan on the opposite side of the house on the 2nd story furthest away from the strike, the LED string lights on the back deck, a remote control switch for my dust collection in my workshop, an HDMI cable (had to cut open the ceiling and re-fish a new one because the old one got stuck on something grrr), and the main control board on our Trane Heat Pump in the basement. It was totally random the things we lost and didn’t lose.
Wow, so much good info! I’m a real estate inspector in Texas and these videos are helping me have a better understanding of these systems. Thank you sir!
Man! That was an awesome explanation, nice way to convey in a few minutes a subject you obviously have devoted a lot of time to, I was planning to hit the suscribe button as soon as you mention the NEC update 👨🏫 Thank you!
There are 3 types of non desirable voltage fluctuations as follows. To start with we normally get a 120 VAC (RMS) 60 Hz sine wave. A surge is when we have condition where the RMS voltage of the mains increase past the nominal 120V. An overvoltage surge typically lasts for several cycles or even minutes. The second type is spikes. These are short term (ms range) high voltage transients that are only present for small fraction of a cycle. The last type is EMI/RFI interference. These are typically low voltage high frequency waveforms that appear in addition to the 120 VAC waveform. These can extend right up into radio frequencies. All electronic devices should contain circuitry to filter EMI/RFI interference and it has very little impact on power equipment. The types of protection that are needed against Surges and Spikes are completely different. Obviously you cant have a piece of equipment that cuts power every time the waveform slightly rises otherwise stuff would continually be turned on and off. Instead surge protection will kick in after a few wave cycles. A spike by its definition is very short term. If one was hit by a very high spike say 10,000V the event will be over before a surge protector can act. Spikes must be acted on and very quickly (typically in mS or uS). Some electronic equipment contain basic spike protection. What they do is run the AC lines on the PCB near a ground line. When the voltage rises on the AC traces it will arc over to the ground line dissipating the energy. For those of you who think that power bars provide adequate spike protection think again as most are useless against a high voltage transient. ALso dont fall for snake oil salesmen trying to sell you power conditioning equipment for your home audio, a complete waste of money. Most spike protectors work by dissipating energy in a spike. This is why they are rated in Joules. I live in Canada and my experience is that power surges that damage equipment are pretty rare. The only one I can think of is when a utility installed the wrong transformer and people got a much higher voltage deliver to their homes. The utility paid damages in that case. Spike damage I have seen and usually it is because the dissipating/switching device has failed. EMI/RFI are annoying but not damaging.
exponent mantissa, you are absolutely 100% correct, unlike electrician U in this video. It is essentially important to know the DIFFERENCE between surges and spikes, as you have described above, as well as the Joule rating of the protective device, to get the protection you actually need for sensitive devices. If your device needs SPIKE protection there is no reason to purchase any but the (misnamed) "Surge Protector" with the HIGHEST Joule rating. Another source of over-voltages, or surges, is an open neutral wire in a residential 120/240V system (common in the USA). The 240V remains the same but the two 120V "legs" fluctuate up and down as loads are turned on and off, often resulting in burned out equipment and house fires. Open neutrals do not threaten the building's wiring unless the building burns. The Utility is usually responsible for "open-neutral" damage and may try to duck that responsibility by claiming the neutral - ground connection was faulty or the devices were not "surge protected" which is actually "spike protected." Neither of these are actually relevant to the over and under voltage "surges" caused by open neutrals. As an expert witness forensic engineer in many disputed cases, by understanding the difference between surges and spikes, I have caused the Utility company to pay for their open-neutral damages,
Type 1 vs Type 2 is particularly relevant if you have an old panel without a main breaker. Our house has a split-bus panel, so we'd need to use a Type 1 device if we wanted to add surge protection to the top half of the panel.
This was a great video. I thought I have a good understanding but you're a Master for a reason! Reevaluating my priorities and saving up for those practice exams
Many thanks, you cleared up much of my confusion. For that upcoming video you might get into dedicated surge protectors for particularly surge-prone devices such as HVACs. The exist as much to stop a surge from leaving the device as to protect it from them. My sister was regularly having control boards blow out in her A/Cs. The two were installed alongside one another, so a surge from one would hit the other. I suggested she get HVAC protection on both and that seems to have helped.
The mention on monitoring made me check my UPS and it records why it went to battery and so far thankfully only a few flutters from storms but it does switch off grid for under and over voltage as well.
Hi Dustin, Love your video. First of all I am not an Electrician. I just know the basic and that is why I watch video like yours to learn more. I have a question regarding Surge Protector and how some surge protector work. I'm talking about the one you install next to the unit like the AC compressor unit. I saw a video in installing a ICM493 and the connection to this connected is like a series connection. I can understand how it work. The surge will get detected by the ICM493 first before the AC compressor so it can cut off the power to the compressor. But the one that connect like a parallel connection like the ICM518 or the RSH50. Its connected or pigtailed to the L1 and L2 of the wires that goes into the AC compressor unit. Since it shares the same wire, when the line get a surge, it will send that surge to the AC compressor and the surge protector. Can you shed a little more light in how protector like the ICM518 or RSH50 protect my AC compressor. Thanks, Phil
Dude, my forte is mostly in avionics, so I've had some technical classes and getting to know construction electrical in my retirement years can be so interesting and yet confusing. I'm sure you have your own business going, but because of your uncanny ability to instruct and in an understandably effective way, you should always keep training/consulting as future aspirations. If the money is there, you should go for it. Be the next Mike Holt and beyond. Thanks once again for sharing your knowledge, it's what makes the world a better place to live. God bless you and all of your endevours!
Great info, a lot to take in, but you did a great job explaining it. I understand what and how you describe the 4 different types. I also left understanding that you barely scratch the topic. Keep the content coming. Idk if I’m nerdy enough, but I do enjoy it!
I wish you had also mentioned more technical specs related to selecting devices. technical things like L-L, L-N clamping voltage, response time, and joule ratings. Perhaps this would be an idea for a future video.
I appreciate you a lot man 🙏 its refreshing to find someone genuinely and passionately trying to help spread knowledge (especially without acting like a 12 year old on/for YT) Keep up the good work!
I've made service calls to residential customers. Many had no surge protection. One customer used surge protection with a cheap $5-10 protector. After a car crash sent a major spike down the line and into her house, her $10/15 k printer survived. Not the same could be said for her other electronic devices. Never thought a low joule rated surge protector would ever work that well. Now I recommend these for all your electronic devices.
Type 1 SPD's are on the line side of the service disconnect, like you said. Typical "type 1" devices are installed between your meter and the meter socket. They need to be approved by the Poco, and installed by the Poco.
As an engineer they are not that confusing. Simply search metal oxide varistor's. It simply changes resistance in the presence of voltage. For SPD's they are chosen so that resistance is about zero below a threshold voltage say 300V past that it becomes more resistive, This causes the excess voltage to be converted into heat. Over time these heating cycles will break the device down or if a spike it too large melt it. This is where the joule rating comes in. The joules of heat the device can soak up because there is a time component to it and how long the spikes are.
Highly appreciate it bro just a lot to learn in the tray with this new technology I do commercial and residential currently in California and there’s a lot to learn take care Happy new year!!
I actually had to explain to an electrician why my sub panel needed a surge protector in addition to the main panel..the sub panel has a circuit which goes back outside via aerial to a chicken coop, rendering it vulnerable to any outside variables..
In addition to the main panel that the overhead neighborhood supply line comes into the house where the “main” surge protector is, I have two breakers panels inside, one upstairs and one down, the downstairs panel I had a line w two breakers run outside to the chicken coop, so if a lightning strike happened to hit near the coop line, it would go to that downstairs panel (and fry everything that panel provides power to) and bypass the surge protector in the main incoming panel..so, I had an additional surge protector placed into that downstairs panel. The electrician was saying the other protector would still provide protection, (which is dubious) but agreed that it was proper to go ahead with the caution.@@MrsBuddevil
I was in computer sale for a time. One of our customers was a bookkeeping service and as a result had numerous computers. There was a lot of sensitive data on these devices. We put in a surge proctor in the circuit that powered their computers. One day a large truck hit a power pole right outside their offices. it brought down a transmission line (the one that feeds the transformer) across the line from the transformer to the building. I'm told it was 35K volts. It indeed blew up the surge protector. The result was the computers were fine, but the surge protector was toast.
@ElectricianU i just noticed the first book on the left you have on your shelf introduction to electrical theory I have the same one! wasn't ever able to get through any of the math. instead I read mike holts electrical theory. book a few times
I think a better example with surge protectors and lightning, is packing a vase in bubble wrap. The surge protector is the bubble wrap, it won't protect electrical equipment, or the vase as an example, from the epicenter of an earthquake, but it will from the tremors felt far away from the epicenter.
I install these on Fire life Safety Equipment all the time, they work however they must be installed at least 36 inches from load to work lots of installers put them directly on the equipment.
Question: I just purchased and connect a whole home generator, and after its first test run…both of my refrigerators are now having issues. It’s obviously from the generator, but Not sure what the issue is. When the air conditioners kick on while on the generator the lights to the house dim pretty aggressively for 1 second and then go back to normal. Could this be because of a voltage dip, which then causes the refrigerators to have an issue? And if so is there a surge protector that protects against dips? Thanks so much!
5 year electrical here, Very informative thank you, I am going to buy that book you mention at first, I study the 2017 nec with my electrical courses, I am going to get the 2020 edition, So on that bathroom you could have designed a placement of a two gang gfci on the wall between the two sinks that's my observation on that...again thank you...!
Decent voltage surge can take a lot of electronics with it. It happened to a friend of mine after sub station failed during the storm and Hydro reconnected power a few times.
Finally in the US SPD is required) But, what can you say about how should we design surge protection systems for different facilities?? I didn't find near to nothing about it in the US. In Europe, where I'm from, we used pretty clear IEC 62305. And it was pretty useful and easy to use. What would you recommend in the United States?
This is such a hard subject to explain. In the UK we have also made SPDs a requirement in new installations or upgrades. Our electrical software even struggles to understand that the OCPD is only there for over current. The kA rating of SPDs is really throwing people off.
I was thinking of making an electrician youtube channel for a long time. But I always though, who the hell would watch this stuff? Great job dude. You've proved me wrong. Are you IBEW too?
Kinda weird question put I feel like it’d be a cool video. Could we get a GoPro POV of you doing rough in? I’d love to see it. Great video and great content
Surge protectors are rated in by their Voltage Protection Rating (VPR). That is the minimum voltage that the device will engage. The minimum rating by definition is a VPR of 330 volts. They are also rated for Maximum Continuous Operating Voltage (MCOV) which is the max voltage that the device can be exposed. Joule and short circuit current ratings have no meaning for protection. The problem is they are all the same device so they have to try to differentiate from each other. A $10 protector can work as well as a $100 one.
VPR does not represent when the device engages. VPR represents voltage (MLV) that gets passed the SPD after a surge has been applied (6000V/3000Amps) after SPD engaged it (UL 1449). VPR also is not the actual voltage it let through - but result is placed into a pre-set range which begins at 330 (generally increases between 100-1000 volts per stage). It provides an idea of how SPD can perform when installed correctly. A $10 SPD works as well as a $100 SPD? How and for what? What SPDs are used for may be the same but SPDs are not the same. MCOV - every electrical piece of equipment has an operating range (MCOV for SPDs). That's why you have 120/240, 480, 240, 120/208, 24VDC, 48VDC etc and equipment that require those voltages to operate. Short circuit ratings are represented for safety and application but certainly can affect overall surge protection capability.
To quote a friend of mine from Florida (half a century ago), "When you see lightning arc out of a receptacle, you stop wasting money on surge suppressors and just unplug your shit." NOTHING will protect against the power of a direct strike. Yes, they're rated in VA / J as that's a measure of the _energy_ they can absorb. [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varistor ]
Haha.. Yeah I've done a lot off grid power systems which often has solar. Invariably a customer asks "what if lightning hits the solar". Without hesitation and perhaps a little too eagerly I tell them "it destroys it" .... then after a pregnant pause... I explain that I've installed a lot of these and have never lost an off grid system to lightning, mostly due to not being connected to the grid but that we also take great care to ground everything and use top quality SPD's.
Lightning at a distance can induce a current on the big antenna called wiring. When that current meets an impedance a voltage presents until the current can continue to flow or it peaks/arcs, if it hits near-infinite resistance of an open. Similar happens if the current is flowing opposite the system current on ac circuits. The current is a pulse so has a finite amount of energy of short duration. Similar happens when an inductor/motor is switched off and the magnetic field collapses. The ground rod provides a voltage limiting resistance path on the neutral side, but the currents on the hot side interact with the loads before getting on the neutral. SPDs provide a voltage limiting parallel path across the load for when the voltages spike above the design threshold to the neutral/system ground. We see all this as voltage spikes.
I have a home built in 2003 which has a square D breaker panel with a QO Surge breaker installed. It says that it is a whole house surge protector. When I had a Generac 22 kw generator installed a couple of years ago, the company installed another whole house SPD in the automatic transfer switch under the lugs of the customer load terminals. One of the LED's for the L1 is out meaning that the MOV's for this leg are no longer capable of doing their job. The whole house SPD QO2175SB green LED still is burning brightly and therefore this device is supposedly still functioning normally. My question is, do I really need to worry about replacing the SPD with one leg LED being out? I am thinking that I don't need the one which was installed in the Generac automatic transfer switch. By the way, you produce awesome and informative content.
I had lightning hit my transformer, blew my LED light fixtures in my home 2 days ago. last night lightning hit my neighbors transformer, blew mine again. Now my garage door motor is broken, more LED lights broke, and blew my modem, and EGO charging station. Living in FL, in a strong lightning strike area I think I need to do some protection upgrades like this and other devices
I was hoping for HOW they work, but lots of good information. I am also trying to understand WHY I would want one. My Tv's and computers have always aged out prior to failure, Like many appliances, I doubt the oven is affected, But I also don't have a bluetooth refrigerator. What is the justification for making this mandatory?
Yes, fine. But to what standard do the SPDs need to be to satisfy 230.67? Listed, 90.4? Fine, then why are inspectors saying if not certified to UL1449, it's not NEC approved? UL1449 tests MOV-SPD's only, not SOV-SPD's which provide better protection and are IEEE 62.6234 certified. Alot of confusion out here in the field.
ELECTRICIAN U, you didn't talk about what the surge protection joules rating means because the MOV or VAR data sheets are based on the MOV or VAR joules rating? The Transient over Voltage Surges are a transient TIME and the surge protector has to have a response time that is longer than the transient time or it will damage all the equipment plugged into it.
Although I’m not a registered electrician I am quite capable. Correct me if I am wrong please, if I have only one device and it is electronic in my house, is it more vulnerable than if I have many appliances on the consumer (fuse box) unit along side with it? This is without any surge protection device. Do capacitors in other devices protect against spikes or surges. Many thanks for your video.
Hi Dustin, Joules is just another measurement unit for energy like watts, therms, btu and horse power. Typically Joules is used with the metric system.
