Sounds like woot should sell beer instead… I need some energy!!!
I bought one of these a few years ago for my entertainment center in the living room. It handles the big blocky AC adapters well and I like the coaxial and telephone options. My electronics have all survived the one or two outages and thunderstorms I’ve had here, so I guess it’s doing it’s job! I hate the child-safe feature though, it’s so blasted hard to plug some of my stuff in.
I beg to differ with this statement, in part, for the fact that there are different types of UPS systems – the Online UPS is the safest and most effective device available for protecting any electrical equipment susceptible to the detrimental effects of power outages, brownouts, power surges, power spikes, etc.
If I may suggest a concise primer on How Surge Protectors Work, this outlines the various devices available and their respective utilization…
To further qualify what has previously been stated I offer this SBS - UPS Tutorial for further rumination and mastication.
Quoting your “primer”:
‘When lightning strikes near a power line, whether it’s underground, in a building or running along poles, the electrical energy can boost electrical pressure by millions of volts. This causes an extremely large power surge that will overpower almost any surge protector. In a lightning storm, you should never rely on your surge protector to save your computer. The best protection is to unplug your computer.’
‘Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) - Some units combine surge protection with a continuous UPS. The basic design of a continuous UPS is to convert AC power to DC power and store it on a battery. The UPS then converts the battery’s DC power back to AC power and runs it to the AC outlets for your electronics. If the power goes out, your computer will continue to run, feeding off the stored battery power. This will give you a few minutes to save your work and shut down your computer.’
So to further my point, surge protectors do not protect from lightening strikes and UPS systems are simply surge protectors with built in batteries made primarily for computers to allow for graceful shutdowns when the power goes out. Ironic your source recommends a surge protector to protect the UPS itself.
An excellent safeguard is to power a computer from an uninterruptible power supply (bottom) that plugs into a series mode suppressor (top), which plugs into the wall. The high energy of a surge is brought down to low levels before it reaches the UPS. The Zero Surge suppressor and American Power UPS are high quality units.
http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/encyclopedia_images/_UPSSURG.JPG
This may well be the best method for protecting our investments… Zero Surge seems like one option…
Thanks for the input, MurphsWoot…
Shipping Update
Philips 8-Outlet Home Theater Surge Protector has completely shipped via FEDEX SMART POST. All tracking will be emailed by the end of the day to members who purchased this item. If you would like to find your tracking information sooner, please click the following link and use your ORDER NUMBER as the reference number.