Members Fender&EHX4ever Posted September 10, 2015 Members Share Posted September 10, 2015 I just shelled out some cash for my first Furman... a P 1800AR http://www.furmansound.com/product.p...01&id=P-1800AR Hopefully I made a good choice. Up to now I've been using an old Juice Goose Twelve PAQ that a friend gave to me. http://juicegoose.com/discontinued/12%20Paq%20Lit.PDF What are the major differences between these? Will the P 1800AR accommodate my amps, my tube compressor, my power mixer, etc. ? Which of the outlets at the back should I be using for which purposes? Is it okay for me to run power strips from the P 1800AR? How do I distribute the power load? Thanks in advance for any education you can provide in this very confusing, and very expensive endeavor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members t_e_l_e Posted September 10, 2015 Members Share Posted September 10, 2015 what are you trying to achieve with it? we in our rehearsal space have 60cycle hum issues, especially with single coils. our local store let us try out a Furman M-10-XE (i guess it was one of these, it was a while ago) once.for our noise issue it had no effect at all. they can for sure help, if the power from your outlet jumps regularly between 110 and 140v or so, and they can filter HF noise from the power source etc.but for some other problems they can't help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fender&EHX4ever Posted September 10, 2015 Author Members Share Posted September 10, 2015 what are you trying to achieve with it? we in our rehearsal space have 60cycle hum issues, especially with single coils. our local store let us try out a Furman M-10-XE (i guess it was one of these, it was a while ago) once. for our noise issue it had no effect at all. they can for sure help, if the power from your outlet jumps regularly between 110 and 140v or so, and they can filter HF noise from the power source etc. but for some other problems they can't help I rent an historic bungalow with some pretty sketchy electrical installed. I noticed having more gear needing repairs after living here for a couple of years. Also, being in Florida, neighborhood transformers blow out almost every other month from storms and falling limbs. So mostly, I want to protect my gear investments and feed them clean power. I have minimal noise issues, so I'm not overly concerned with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members t_e_l_e Posted September 10, 2015 Members Share Posted September 10, 2015 in that case i guess it will help a lot. over here in europe, furman is the only brand you can get and its kind of a reference. at least if you search in music/studio/stage equipment stores. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted September 10, 2015 Members Share Posted September 10, 2015 My company sells them with every piece of electronic gear they sell. We buy for ESP because they have a Lifetime Warrantee. If they blow out from a Lightening strike or transformer blowing, its likely to take out the box before it does the gear. We send the dead one back and they send us another back free, no questions asked. In reality, most electronic gear has some surge protection built in. The Transformer and caps absorb the spikes and the fuses protect from over voltages. Cheaper gear usually has a bare minimum of voltage protection so it can benefit from some kind of surge protector. It doesn't have to be your high end surge units that cost hundreds, it can be a computer power strip in many cases, especially if the gear is solid state. Over the years I acquired several Isolation Transformer type surge protectors which are the best. The transformers completely isolate the gear from the line. The best any filter can do is protect from over voltage and spikes. Under voltage, brown out conditions require a battery backup to make up for the lost current. No surge protector is going to fix hum issues. The voltage has to be AC in order for the gear to work so its not like its being converted to DC by a filter. Also most hum either comes from EMF (Electro magnetic radio wave emissions) transmitted through the air into your gear because the shielding around it isn't good enough, or you may have AC leaking into the DC power supply. Weak caps or voltage regulators can let AC ripple pass into the DC supply to the components and they wind up amplifying that ripple. The other possibility is a ground loop. If you have two pieces of gear connected to different outlets, the distance back to the breaker box can be different lengths or wire and therefore have different resistances. When the two pieces of gear are tethered together you can have the current from one box (that has a high resistance ground) crossing over and using the other boxes ground (because its a better path to ground) This is passes a additional AC current through that gears chassis and it emits hum in the circuit. Of course if the two boxes "weren't" connected together and you touch both you can get a shock at varying degrees because depending on the amount of resistance or difference in potential between them. Ground loops are solved by connecting gear to the same grounded outlet. Some may think a power filter fixes that hum but in reality its the fact they two pieces of gear are using the same outlet that fixes the problem. In other cases, using an isolation transformer with a ground lift can do similar things so it really depends on the particular filter and the gear setup when it comes to filters fixing ground loop issues. Main thing is Filters can protect your investment in many cases if their current ratings and the amount of capacitance/inductance in them is enough. I've seen budget plug in adaptors like these do just as good a job ad the expensive power strips protecting against lightning strikes. Of course they don't do as good a job against spikes you may have from electric motors running and such, but the main thing is you can buy many of these for a few bucks to protect the stuff you don't have on the main filter for your expensive gear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fender&EHX4ever Posted September 10, 2015 Author Members Share Posted September 10, 2015 My company sells them with every piece of electronic gear they sell. We buy for ESP because they have a Lifetime Warrantee. If they blow out from a Lightening strike or transformer blowing, its likely to take out the box before it does the gear. We send the dead one back and they send us another back free, no questions asked. In reality, most electronic gear has some surge protection built in. The Transformer and caps absorb the spikes and the fuses protect from over voltages. Cheaper gear usually has a bare minimum of voltage protection so it can benefit from some kind of surge protector. It doesn't have to be your high end surge units that cost hundreds, it can be a computer power strip in many cases, especially if the gear is solid state. Over the years I acquired several Isolation Transformer type surge protectors which are the best. The transformers completely isolate the gear from the line. The best any filter can do is protect from over voltage and spikes. Under voltage, brown out conditions require a battery backup to make up for the lost current. No surge protector is going to fix hum issues. The voltage has to be AC in order for the gear to work so its not like its being converted to DC by a filter. Also most hum either comes from EMF (Electro magnetic radio wave emissions) transmitted through the air into your gear because the shielding around it isn't good enough, or you may have AC leaking into the DC power supply. Weak caps or voltage regulators can let AC ripple pass into the DC supply to the components and they wind up amplifying that ripple. The other possibility is a ground loop. If you have two pieces of gear connected to different outlets, the distance back to the breaker box can be different lengths or wire and therefore have different resistances. When the two pieces of gear are tethered together you can have the current from one box (that has a high resistance ground) crossing over and using the other boxes ground (because its a better path to ground) This is passes a additional AC current through that gears chassis and it emits hum in the circuit. Of course if the two boxes "weren't" connected together and you touch both you can get a shock at varying degrees because depending on the amount of resistance or difference in potential between them. Ground loops are solved by connecting gear to the same grounded outlet. Some may think a power filter fixes that hum but in reality its the fact they two pieces of gear are using the same outlet that fixes the problem. In other cases, using an isolation transformer with a ground lift can do similar things so it really depends on the particular filter and the gear setup when it comes to filters fixing ground loop issues. Main thing is Filters can protect your investment in many cases if their current ratings and the amount of capacitance/inductance in them is enough. I've seen budget plug in adaptors like these do just as good a job ad the expensive power strips protecting against lightning strikes. Of course they don't do as good a job against spikes you may have from electric motors running and such, but the main thing is you can buy many of these for a few bucks to protect the stuff you don't have on the main filter for your expensive gear. Thank you for this very thorough response, WRGKMC ! Should I read between the lines and infer that I spent way too much on something that had a much simpler solution? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted September 11, 2015 Members Share Posted September 11, 2015 A rack mount power conditioner in say a PA rack has many benefits. You have power switching on the front to power up your gear and the strip in the back keeps all your power wiring tidy. The coils and caps are tuned to be effective for audio frequency smoothing between 20~20Khz. 60hz AC is only one frequency within that range. I'm not saying you made a bad choice, in fact its probably one of the better choices for audio gear, but you can get good protection at budget costs too. If you're in a band playing out in clubs, you really want something decent. Last club I played at the AC outlets should have been condemned as a fire hazard. You got bands jamming them packed with god knows what kind of cords. The plugs are so loose the cords fall out or vibrate causing static. You don't know how many amps the gear before you drew before which could have cooked or carbonized the contacts. The grounds may even be fried making the outlets a shock hazard. Having good protection with power is a must in those situation. In a home where you may have the gear set up all the time, its a matter of judgment. I originally grew up in the north east. Many of the homes and clubs there still had two wire outlets growing up. Laws changed and they eventually switched to 3 way outlets, but that didn't necessarily mean they gutted the buildings and replaced all the Romex cable to the latest wire. Electrical services could be ancient too. Screw in fuses even. Here in Houston, much or the wiring is underground making it much safer. We have the same lightening storms roll through (I was awoken this morning from one that's rolling through) and the huge power consumption caused by every home and building being air conditioned 9 months out of the year is similar to Florida. I protect the gear in my house, computers, TV etc. with budget solutions and haven't had any issues with gear going out in the past 25 years. I use the best conditioner and batter backup on my DAW because I have around 5000 recordings of original music on there I don't want to loose. Other gear, like my foot pedal board I use a protected power strip. The spike would need to fry the power strip and wall wart before it could make it to the pedal, plus I'm not running that gear 24/7 so the chances of it being blown are low. Same thing for the amps. If I were running the studio as a full time business, I'd invest more because I'd have people hauling their own gear in and out and I wouldn't want my own gear damaged by some funky rig the guys using with unknown issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted September 11, 2015 CMS Author Share Posted September 11, 2015 ~$800 ???? Yeah, in my opinion you paid far more than you should have. These units are a "feel good" solution to problems that either don't really exist, or that the units can't really correct. I'm sorry to rain on your parade, but..... The unit handles up to 15 amps. If voltage drops to 90v, the unit's regulation can cause the unit to draw 20 amps. As you can clearly read at the power cord inlet, the maximum power draw is 15 amps. If you've got the unit plugged into a 20 amp branch circuit in your house/venue, (which you shouldn't as that's more than the unit is rated to handle) that will work, but most common outlets in homes are 15 amp, and this will trip the breaker or open the fuse. As WRGKMC wrote, only battery units will have reserve current capacity, and only for a limited time, to handle this situation. I suspect the unit may only be capable of effective regulation up to perhaps an 11.25 amp power draw at 120v, which would allow input power to drop to 90v without exceeding maximum capacity of 1800w/15a. The irony of all this is that most modern electronic devices run fine on input voltage within the range this unit handles. What's disconcerting is that I don't see a UL/CSA listing on pics of these units. That's a basic safety minimum I'd expect for something this expensive that's supposed to protect your gear...the ratings basically ensure the unit won't cause a fire in the event of an internal failure. If you were to use the unit in a venue subject to safety inspection (not the avg corner dive bar), this unit would be excluded from use. It's unclear as to whether the spike protection will handle multiple maximum rated instances, or has a one-shot MOV device which handles ONE max instance, or some number of lesser instances. This is the same protection in the cheap small units WRGKMC shows us. $800 for that level of protection would be insanely expensive. The filtering is also minimal, as noted you need something far more costly to "clean" power. Basically an inverter/battery system that's larger and heavier would do this. It takes "dirty" power (which in the US is an extremely rare occurrence) and uses it to power a 12v battery charger. This charges a 12v battery bank. The clean battery power is then used to power an inverter which raises voltage back up to 120v. This won't fit in a 1U space for a 15a device, so we know it uses some electronic components in-line to try and smooth over the voltage. As I mentioned, it's not commonly needed, so is not a big deal. But $800 bucks..... Given what you need and have, I'd have used the $800 to buy basic power distribution (some quad boxes) and put the rest toward several years of good insurance coverage on your gear. In the odd chance you need it, just replace the failed gear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members t_e_l_e Posted September 11, 2015 Members Share Posted September 11, 2015 Given what you need and have, I'd have used the $800 to buy basic power distribution (some quad boxes) and put the rest toward several years of good insurance coverage on your gear. In the odd chance you need it, just replace the failed gear. knowing of some gear what Fender&EHX4ever is using, replacing gear is not an option, with ancient vintage stuff which you can't get a second time, at least for what the insurance would be paying for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted September 11, 2015 Members Share Posted September 11, 2015 I have a pair of Liebert Battery Backup units similar to these that were given to me. They have liquid acid batteries in them and they weigh a ton. Cost for the pair were $8500 The second unit connects to the first to provide twice the amp hours. The units are too noisy for the studio with the fans going. They're designed for a computer server room. They were connected to my old companies phone system to keep it running. I don't keep my home computers running 24/7 so they really aren't needed. Last time I used them was before a Hurricane hit last time. I charged them up ahead of time and when the power went out I could charge headphones and run a radio on them for awhile. I haven't powered them up in awhile and the batteries my not be good any more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fender&EHX4ever Posted September 15, 2015 Author Members Share Posted September 15, 2015 Thanks again, guys, for educating me in all of this. I need a class in electrical theory. I really want to understand better how this stuff operates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted September 15, 2015 CMS Author Share Posted September 15, 2015 The most basic things to understand are that power is rarely "dirty", which isn't even defined anyway, and voltage in the US rarely ever fluctuates beyond the capacity of electrical devices to handle it. It's far more likely that the venue has a wiring problem than that the power at the service is bad. Wiring problems are relatively easy to fix, as it's usually a loose/broken neutral at the service, or a loose or broken branch circuit wire. If any of these conditions are present, don't play the venue until it's fixed, as regulators are simply not feasible to cart around, and it shouldn't be the band's problem anyway. If it's your own house, get it fixed, as you probably don't want wiring issues in your home under any circumstances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted September 15, 2015 Members Share Posted September 15, 2015 Quick surges and spikes can come from a number of sources, many times, not even in your home. You can have someone hit a telephone pole, have a transformer short out in your local area, storms taking down lines or lightening strikes. Even sun spots can affect the electrical grid voltages. The electrical grid is very reliable however. The system uses a system of step up and step down transformers to transmit electricity from the generation station to your local door step. I'm sure you may have driven past a generator station (or will) some time in your life. The generators make a high current voltage and use huge transformers to convert the high amps low voltage > high voltage low current. This high voltage is what's sent across those huge towers long distance. If you had High Current and low voltage, the resistance of the wire would cause huge losses in the form of heat. Wire resistance has little affect on high voltages so getting that voltage out to all the places that are needed are done by the Low > High voltage transformers. As the voltage gets closer to its destination, they use the same kinds of transformers working in reverse. The input is high Volts and low Amps which is converted to lower voltages and higher amps. Its the amps that do the work so they have to be converted close to the destination. Then it gets broken down into all the legs of distribution. Your neighborhood likely has a medium high feed coming into it, and then it goes to a transformer that supplies your block with 220/110Vac. The next block over has its own transformer. This way if one block has a short and takes out a transformer, or blows a line breaker, the entire town isn't taken down. The initial surge from a transformer going down some place in your area may cause a spike, even though its not the transformer that supplies your block. This spike when the next block over goes can send a pulse back to the main transformer and then over towards your loop. Your transformer filters most of it however and there are many safeguards along the entire path from the generator to the destination that prevent your home from seeing those spikes. (including your own circuit breakers) Of course you can have a lightening bolt hit the line, but that bolt is trying to take the shortest path to ground. Lightening arrestors are strategically placed on poles and will take most of that lightening to ground. Even if its close to your house, every home has a ground system and Should have a rod going into the ground outside the home near the breaker box. These are things that have been designed over hundreds of years to work. Ben Franklin invented the Lightening rod to protect homes and businesses and its still used today. The AC wires themselves don't just carry 60hz AC however. You can have all the radio waves in the spectrum collecting on the same wire. Just because the AC is the highest voltage, it doesn't mean you don't have all those other frequencies running along the same wires. Wires on poles make good antennas and unless the wires are buried or those frequencies are filtered out, they can wind up riding into your home and causing havoc. Luckily the Transformers phase cancel most of the noise, or the threshold of that noise is so low it cant get into your gear. What's at the heart of most noise filters are tuned choke coils and capacitors. They aren't that much different then an analog EQ or Crossover you find in a Hi Fi system except they handle much higher voltages. They band pass 60 hz and band block frequencies above and below They let the low frequency AC pass through the noise filter and block just about all other frequencies. Again, the Power supply circuit in most hear does this already. The transformer is a coil and the caps are used to smooth and remove noise. Diodes are one way gates that convert the AC to DC. Any radio frequencies or noise would also be converted to DC by the diodes and given the fact radio waves are so low in voltage and the power caps would completely erase any kind of DC voltage fluctuations, the stray noise really shouldn't make it through to your gear. So in essence, much of what is called "dirty power" is just a bunch of hyped up poop used by manufacturers to sell added protection. The way I look at it is like this. If you have gear with weak power supply components or those components are getting old, just powering it on is going to be a bigger shock to those components then maybe 99% of what may come in on the line while its already running. Add to that the limited hours you may be running the gear say an hour a week cuts that 1% down to a one in 40 chance of ever damaging your gear. Power supply components are oven selected with over rated parts. I think the Power caps in my fender amp collectively rate at 2200V (3 X 500V and 2 X 350V The transformer may feed them 5~600V for the DC tube bias. The caps are rated over three times what's needed to smooth the AC and can easily handle most surges. Same over ratings for the transformers. Of course the solid sate stuff in more delicate. May of the components only see 3 to 12Vdc. Many wall warts may be good for normal spikes and the size of good caps have gotten much smaller. A spike is likely to take out those small power supplies however and its unlikely to make it past into the main circuits. That's just some of it but having extra protection cant hurt. I look at it this way. If I can get similar protection for $10 vs $1000, I know I'll opt for using $990 of that money on something else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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