Technology has advanced to the point that necessitates clean power regardless of the site.

Power anomalies have always been around. The issue is being noticed now because components are far more sensitive to such irregularities.

Fridges, washers, air-conditioners and fluorescent lights all contribute to problems – even turning a switch can have an effect. Some or all of these services will usually be fitted somewhere on site.

Power surges are the most common source of damage to electrical devices. Most power utilities recommend power-protective devices for sensitive electrical appliances, so there power protection should be an integral part of any solution.

Most people think they are covered by their home and contents insurance for any problems stemming from the power supply. However, the fine print in many insurance policies states that ‘reasonable care’ should be taken to protect equipment and failure to do so can compromise a claim.

Damage from spikes or surges can range from blowing a $2 fuse to ‘cooking’ a component beyond repair.

The provision of power protection and filtration will eliminate the problem, or at worst minimise the cost of repairs, as well as ensuring insurance claims remain valid.

Touch panels or programmable boards in smart-wired homes can also be damaged or reset by power issues. This can be a big negative for your customer, especially if power filtering and protection have not been incorporated by their ‘expert’.

If you don’t recommend power protection or filtration when quoting on an installation and your competitor does, who is the customer going to have more confidence in?

It is crucial to employ a reputable product that offers filtering as well as substantial power protection.

Just be careful with products that shut down equipment – especially if using them on plasma, LCD or projector equipment – as this can cause dead pixels, reduce globe life, and so on. These devices are not designed to be unceremoniously shut down.

A device that can provide a pure, unpolluted 240V or 220V supply is ideal. Some uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) offer this solution but there can be sound quality problems, especially if they regenerate the sine wave and affect total harmonic distortion.

Clean, unpolluted power 24/7 will ensure the system delivers close to its design performance and reduce the effect of other appliances.

When equipment is being manufactured it is generally designed and tested in pure environments with pristine power. When released, it is usually subject to all sorts of other electrical equipment and anomalies that prevent the system from achieving its potential.

Ensuring the power is conditioned – taking out radio frequency interference (RFI) and electromagnetic interference (EMI), voltage spikes or dips – allows a constant, even supply to the system.

Most installers understand the need to have shielded cabling for audio or coax applications to reduce or eliminate RFI and EMI interference, but they fail to ‘clean’ the mains power. Doing one without the other is only a partial solution.

Motors switching on and off, washing machines or dishwashers changing cycles and fluorescent lights can cause set-top box scrambling or generate a low-level hiss or thumping noise from speakers, robbing the home entertainment system of its true performance.

A power filter can assist. Not all frequencies are filtered, so it’s best to look for a product that has active filtering technology, as this will clean a greater range of noise.

About 70% of the time an active filter will fix the problem. If it doesn’t, you may need the manufacturer to tweak the filter so that the problem frequency can be cleaned. This is where a local manufacturer comes in handy, as a distributor will not be able to change filtering ranges.

There is a range of products that can be adopted to tackle the many issues that power and power quality create in an installation.

One in particular is the surge-protecting and filtered power board.

The main thing to look for in a power board is reaction speed, but be wary of any detection period stated, as this can be misleading. Detecting a problem is not the same as reacting to it, therefore anything reacting in less than one nanosecond should be considered.

Next look at what the clamping voltage is. Some boards will clamp only when 770V or more has passed through them. If this is the case, what damage has been sustained by the time this has happened? Any board that offers 275V clamping should be seriously considered.

You should then look at benefits like isolated circuits. Some boards promote isolation – that is, frequency isolation, which is not as effective as circuit isolation.

Most manufactures use a common metal strip to transfer power to all components plugged into a board, so if a frequency isolator is put between two outlets this will stop noise from travelling between the two outlets.

Usually, noise simply travels down the common metal strip and accesses the outlets, which again can cause one to question the effectiveness of the isolation.

A board that has circuit isolation will stop this from happening. The outlets on that circuit are separate in every sense of the word. The opportunity for crosstalk or noise between circuits is zero.

Finally, look at the amount of joules or amps the board contains for protection.

The general rule is: the higher the joules or amps the longer the board will be able to sustain a surge. But be careful, as clever marketing has quoted some incredible figures.

Look for the UL1449 figures, as these are accurate to the Standard quoted and have not been manipulated. Unfortunately, too many manufacturers fail to show the UL1449 Standard figures.

A good UPS will depend on its application. If PC-based, the main role of a UPS is its ability to maintain a back-up power supply in the event of a power dip or outage.

In a home entertainment environment a UPS is seldom required to act as a battery back-up and is generally required because of its effect on conditioning the power. So a true online double conversion UPS should be considered for this application.

This means that when the UPS receives AC power, it converts it to DC then reconverts it to AC. The resultant output will be cleaned of impurities.

A stand-by or line interactive UPS should be avoided unless the battery back-up function is required. This type of UPS will only switch to battery mode when there is a power dip or outage.

Generally there can also be a switchover delay from mains power to battery back-up of up to five milliseconds, which can be a very long time in electronic terms.

The rest of the time, the equipment it is attached to will simply be receiving mains power.

Some applications, like projectors, may need a battery back-up option to prevent damage to an expensive globe in the event of a power outage.

In this case, a UPS is used for maintaining power to the projector during an orderly shutdown and allows the fan in the projector to run to cool the globe.

But there is a trap when sizing a UPS for this application. Some projectors do not use power as efficiently as others, and the measurement is done in the power factor. This is very difficult to find out.

The more inefficient the use of power the bigger the UPS needs to be. If sizing the UPS based on the manufacturer’s power use, you could be setting yourself up for problems, especially if the projector has a poor power factor.

The UPS will not work. It will shut down without supplying the back-up power or will blow a fuse.

Also be wary of any UPS unit that claims to have surge protection. Most will promote this feature, but some of the advertised protection can be lost due to a small spike generated by simply turning on a light switch.

One fact that often gets overlooked is that power surges can also come down phone lines and aerial connections. This is highlighted through Telstra’s warnings in the front of the White Pages about not using phones while electrical storms are around.

A person using a phone in this situation can be harmed. The same goes for equipment attached to the phone line.

Many power protection boards offer telephone and aerial protection – look for separate earth lines to divert excess energy. Some of the better-quality boards have separate earth lines on their telecommunications circuit.