Chromatography Forum

We have 2x: Agilent 6890 network GC, 5973 MSD and a 220V supply. Both instruments have their own dedicated power line. I was investigating surge protectors and found "AC 220v Surge Brownout Voltage Protector 3600 Watts Air Conditioner Freezer". A full UPS is out of our price range at the moment, but I was wondering if the surge protector would be of any use to protect our instruments. Data loss/analysis interruption is not that big of a concern compared to replacing a board, etc. due to a nasty power surge. I was hoping someone had experience with a good, cost-effective means of protecting equipment without the investment of a UPS.



Thank you for any insight into protecting our equipment.
NR

The surge protector can only protect you against voltage spikes from your power supply (p.a. after blackout).

Sometimes there is one integrated in a power strip.

But this cannot protect you against failures of the power supply of your instruments. When the power supply is dying it is possible, that this causes a power surge on p.a. a board. Against this a surge protector can't protect your systems.

Thank you very much. That makes sense and the instrument's power supply was not a risk we had assessed. The bigger concern is the building's power supply and surges through lightning, power outage etc. Now I have a little more information to send up the chain.



NR

Thank you very much. That makes sense and the instrument's power supply was not a risk we had assessed. The bigger concern is the building's power supply and surges through lightning, power outage etc. Now I have a little more information to send up the chain.



NR

You should look into the surge protectors the power company can install on the incoming line to the building. Those are good at arresting large spikes like from lightening without costing too much I believe. We have one built into each breaker panel in our new building so we don't have to have one at each instrument. In the past ten years we have had to have three replaced because the did their job. At least they blow out first instead of passing it on down the line. This way even our ICP/MS units are protected.

you can get the same kind of surge protection by replacing your breakers to the instruments with surge protected breakers. They're not very expensive. They only trip once; you have to replace them when they blow, but they keep spikes out of your systems.