I’m just putting my support equipment and materials together for my Pro unit and am curious what everyone is going with for a power strip, surge protection and universal power supplies.
I’m definitely planning for a high end power strip with surge protection. Not sure yet on an UPS though.
everything i’ve ever read about plain “surge protectors” has told me that any surge strong enough to damage your equipment will blow right through a plain old surge suppressor and damage your equipment. they’re more glorified multi-plug units (which is what most of us really use them for).
UPS will have better protection and will provide that safety net for power loss.
Check the warranty - different levels of protection have different warranty values. If your equipment is damaged by a surge, APC will reimburse or replace equipment up to a certain value. If you get a surge protector that is cheap, you may not get the full equipment value coverage.
I have an Tripp Lite for my computer gear, probably get another for the laser and 3d printer to share. Bit pricy but built like a tank and bonus of easy to mount to the back of a desk to keep cables up off the ground and out of the way.
I’ll check out the Tripp Lite as well. Looks like a great possibility. I realize that if it comes down to a lightning strike for a serious surge, nothing consumer is probably going to help protect the equipment. The APC model I referenced does include $100,000 equipment protection policy. Now the real question is, how hard is it to get that to truly cover the equipment if you have a loss. More research required.
I am lucky to be in the Seattle area as we have very reliable power here and very few lightning storms.
Thanks for the recommendation on the Tripp Lite. I’m still looking and considering UPS units as well.
I have some of my printers plugged into a Tripp Lite Isobar surge protector like that.
Last week, a lightning strike a few miles away cause a 1 or 2 second blackout that caused my big vinyl printer/cutter to reboot in the middle of a job. No damage and I only lost a few inches of vinyl. It would have been more frustrating and more costly if it had printed several feet of vinyl but hadn’t gone back to cut yet.
Power blinks out momentarily often enough here that I’ll be looking into some kind of UPS solution for the laser.
Amazon prime day starts tonight at 9pm, and they have both strips and UPS units on the watch list already. No idea if they will be good deals or not, but things to check and maybe jump on tonight.