In the late 1980s a truck hit a power pole which had a transformer on it and the primary voltage went through one of our sub offices. Every electric appliance was destroyed including ceiling fans which had burn marks. The only things that survived were computers which had surge filters on them. The office manager was initially skeptical on the value of surge filters which were expensive at the time but became a convert after the incident.

In German, commas and decimals are reversed in numerical usage

@VeraTR909

5 жыл бұрын

Same in dutch.

@terryendicott2939

5 жыл бұрын

The Germans might just say, "In UK and America the decimals and commas are reversed in numerical usage."

@Pieman93

5 жыл бұрын

I thought it was common across lots of Europe outside the UK (not just Germany)

@AgentTasmania

5 жыл бұрын

This seems like something that could cause a lot of trouble and should be standardized

@pmarintube

5 жыл бұрын

Same in Spain

'i think I'd trust this' that is a compliment from big clive holy cow!

@tiikoni8742

5 жыл бұрын

Ikr. Especially since at the beginning of video I was expecting device that just shines that green led and doesn't do much more :-)

@MGoudsmits

5 жыл бұрын

I would not see above

Think of the star rating diagram as a computer GUI with two (non selectable) options greyed out. The unit is a 3 star unit (coloured option), and should not be used to protect your prized high tech gear. That's my best guess anyway.

@davey2k12

5 жыл бұрын

Where's the active protection monitor the sine wave or somat bin job 🤣🤣🤣

@Sheevlord

5 жыл бұрын

Yeah, that's what I thought too

@TashiMortier

5 жыл бұрын

I have one of the five star ones for my PC etc. and they also have a noise filter and such... Not sure if that is too great, but it has more sockets. So there's that. :D

@Sheevlord

5 жыл бұрын

@@TashiMortier I'm curious about the noise filter. Is it a common mode choke with a capacitor across it, like the ones used in ATX power supplies?

@TashiMortier

5 жыл бұрын

@@Sheevlord I have no idea. I'm far from an expert on these things. They just advertise it as being good for hi-fi equipment. So could just be total snake oil as well. I just wanted the higher power surge rating to protect my expensive PC. :D

the stars you mention on the back are the class of protection, meaning they sell a standard surge suppressor for standard electronics marked 3 stars, then a better one for more expensive devices (4 stars) and then their top of the line surge suppressor for your most delicate devices with 5 stars. Would be interesting to get all 3 and compare if there are any differences in design at all, or just bigger MOVs...

They should change the packaging to read.. Endorsed by Big Clive, He says "I think I'd trust this."

@goose300183

5 жыл бұрын

High praise indeed!

@cheetawolf

4 жыл бұрын

I'd buy anything that said that.

Many homes in the US, especially if they are on rural power coops, have large suppressors on the breaker panel. Once I added one to my house, all that annoying dying of things seemingly randomly, quit. So it was the power company after all. Plus we have many thunder storms here that also take out appliances.

Brennenstuhl is also what we Germans get after eating too much chili.

@ljmike1204

5 жыл бұрын

So thats why germany stinks haha we can smell you guys over here in the netherlands

@matakaw4287

5 жыл бұрын

@@ljmike1204 I can smell them from Canada hahaha

@SuperAWaC

5 жыл бұрын

@@ljmike1204 are you sure it's not your own swamp gas? ;)

@rich1051414

5 жыл бұрын

Burn chair? Sounds like taco night.

@cardinalsin6313

5 жыл бұрын

@@rich1051414 burn stool. Stool as in turd, shit etc.

In much of the world a period is used instead of a comma for thousands separation. Also I believe the 3 gold stars means this device is only rated for consumer electronics, and the other 2 options are 'grayed out', or not meant for this device

@MrEdrftgyuji

5 жыл бұрын

The text on the package is in English, therefore the English convention should be used. If the text was in German, then the German convention should be used.

@AureliusR

2 жыл бұрын

@@MrEdrftgyuji Yeah but I strongly doubt that actually happens. I'm sure they just print whatever seems logical to them. I'm actually very surprised that Clive didn't think of this -- he's lived in the UK/Europe his entire life, and most of Europe uses . as the thousands separator and comma for the decimal point.

One thing that seems nice about this design is that minor surges would appear to be shunted to neutral, with only a major surge directed to ground. This would be an improvement on most of the surge suppression devices I have now, which seem to send everything to Earth including minor events. The problem with this is that a small over voltage will come in on the live line, leave via Earth, the RCD sees an imbalance and before you know it all your power is off. Granted this is desirable for major events but it's a pain for anything minor, so I like this design as it seems it will only trigger an RCD to cut the power in the event of a significant surge.

@asm_nop

5 жыл бұрын

I was thinking the same thing. Convenience is great if it doesn't significantly affect performance. At work, we have a wall of TVs, all on surge protected outlets. One night we had a really big surge, but only damaged one TV on a wall of 33 or so. Seems like all of the sockets shared the load, and tackled the transient together.

@lambertovitali3152

Жыл бұрын

Doesn't bother me, I don't have an RCD, those things are a pest.

@Berkeloid0

Жыл бұрын

@@lambertovitali3152 Seat belts in cars are also a pest but they also save lives, just like RCDs. Sometimes a little inconvenience is worth saving the lives of those you care about.

@lambertovitali3152

Жыл бұрын

@@Berkeloid0 I don't wear a seatbelt either. And I didn't get vaccinated. Because I understand probabilities.

@Berkeloid0

Жыл бұрын

@@lambertovitali3152 Famous last words...

I purchased a couple of Brennenstuhl 8 way power strips. On removing a couple of plugs a couple of years later, the whole front of the socket came away, revealing live mains. I sent them an email and they quickly replied saying it was a bad batch. A few days later I received two replacements from Germany. Fair enough really.

Brennenstuhl translates as "Burning stool" I'm sure there is some soothing cream one can get for that

It's always nice to see one of these videos concluding with "this is in fact a good product" rather than "this will melt your face off if you use it"

Between you and AvE I’ve learned so much about electronics, home game machining and hydraulics, pneumatics. I actually became a patron of AvEs. When I’m old enough to have an actual job I’d like to sponsor you as well. I’ve actually been able to help my uncle John with a few hydraulic problems.

I should think that 13,500 amps would be sufficient to remove the wiring from your home, hence you'd only have to deal with the ensuing blaze.

@pamersiel

5 жыл бұрын

Depends on the pulse duration.

@98dizzard

5 жыл бұрын

Theory being this device and the wiring in your house will be protected from short duration current spikes by your MCB or RCD tripping. So voltage rises>surge protector starts passing current>high current trips MCB. Your electronics have been protected by the voltage spike and then disconnected from the power.

@johnfrancisdoe1563

5 жыл бұрын

Daniel I That kind of event may weld the contacts in your breakers, requiring full replacement ASAP, as they can no longer break the current for normal events.

@98dizzard

5 жыл бұрын

@@johnfrancisdoe1563 this would only happen if the surge voltage and current is too high for the breaker to safely handle. Remember a breaker is designed to break a full short circuit condition in order to protect the wires downstream. If that fails the next step is the main fuse, usually rated at 63 or 100A. At short circuit this will blow not long after the MCB should be tripping. At this point you need the DNO to come out and inspect and replace the fuse, and they will probably want the electrics inspected. If the voltage is still high enough to flashover the main fuse then fuck all is gonna protect you from the spike.

@rowgli

5 жыл бұрын

I think household equipment is only tested up to a certain level because flashover would occur at the socket once the surge voltage exceeds a certain amount.

I'd like to see the PCB tracks after a 4,500A pulse. I suspect the MOVs would be superfluous.

@guytech7310

5 жыл бұрын

Depends on the surge duration. Those traces may be able to survive a 4.5kA pulse if the pulse is just a few nanoseconds. a 10kV@4.5kA for 5 ns is less than 5 Joules of energy. Usually a lot of high current surges are just a few nanoseconds. It's the small ICs\microcircuits that will easy fail with just a small amount of energy (ie < 5 joules).

@curtw8827

5 жыл бұрын

Testing in Europe is a 10 x 100 us pulse. US is 8 x 20 us pulse per IEEE.

@hamjudo

5 жыл бұрын

@@curtw8827 In Europe, protection devices are tested with full duration metric lightning strikes. In the US, our electronics are tested with a cheaper, easier to produce imperial lightning strikes. Exactly how the imperial lightning strike was standardized is lost to history. The legend is that it was based on a lightning strike that killed a Duke that was trying to replicate Franklin's famous experiment where he flew a kite in a thunderstorm.

@Hobby_Electric

4 жыл бұрын

@@hamjudo Great, you made my day :-D In germany we have to use proper Surge protection in new electrical systems. These are ratet for In 20kA and Imax 40kA also 275V AC not like this device over 400v.

Funny, i bought exactly this one about 3 years ago and it's still in use. Nice to see it being opened up and hear positive feedback about it!

These brennenstuhl surge protectors have been my go to for quite a while. Any really expensive equipment I have is protected by a UPS, since those provide better protection against surges than surge protectors. I use brennenstuhl extension cords in the labs at work cause their pretty solidly built and have some nice re-settable fuse versions. Can be difficult to source at times though... often don't see them for sale for months.

1:09 German company ... Germany has in numbers the dot and comma switched around. The silver is not silver but grayed out. Means you have the most basic product.

I started as a telephone engineer. We used to routinely fit lightening protection gas discharge tubes, fuses, local earth and same again at the exchange. When lightening hit you'd be sent to scrape the wires off the wall and once, to pull art of the phone case out of the door. The exchange had bigger separation and usually took little or no damage from a strike. As a mill town we had 100s of mills running massive inductive loads, as well as heavy and light engineering. The mains was pretty noisy most of the time. Spike filters worked quite well on the early digital kit, we had various sizes so could cope with most cases including a huge DC plastic welder. I still use filters. Only powercuts affect anything. I've seen 7 strikes in the nextdoor field, less than 20 yards away with no effect. I don't know if they do work or if it's just the type of land or what - I work on the principle that its hurting nothing and costs nothing, so why not?

@bigclivedotcom

5 жыл бұрын

The power lines have lightning arrestors which are basically stacks of MOVs that shunt the strike to ground on the primary side of the transformers.

My grandfather used to just leave a regular incandescent light on all the time to protect against lightning and such. I always thought it was a bit absurd until the pole transformer outside got struck by lightning, and the lightbulb actually allowed the ~15 kV surge coming in go to ground. Terrifying to watch, but it was effective and saved the rest of the appliances in the house.

@mysock351C

5 жыл бұрын

@CubeAMSPro100 Well, truth be told it was probably several light fixtures that flashed over, but basically the filament was instantly vaporized and the arc went across the small wires that feed thru the glass base in the bulb, making it light up a brilliant blue in the room I was in. Could also see the arc dancing around in the bulb, but it didn't shatter. The transformer shorted out during the strike and fed the HV from the lines directly into the house. It must've been quite a lot of power because the feeder wires coming off the transformer and going to the main fuse panel immediately burst into flames started glowing bright orange and after a few seconds came off the transformer, breaking the circuit.

@theR6969

5 жыл бұрын

the filament acts like a fuse and energy absorber. its resistance is very low compared with other appliances in the home so the electrical surge will choose it to go through, it evaporates thus absorbing electrical energy, the metal atoms fill the void, and then it breaks the circuit and arks thus absorbing more energy. brilliant!!

@mysock351C

5 жыл бұрын

@CubeAMSPro100 Sorry should have put in what was said above as well, but basically since the filament is on, its already conducting and is a current path and doesn't require substantial voltage to start a flash-over. The filament is a couple hundred ohms and is small so wont carry the full voltage surge, but its there long enough to allow the arc to form as said above. It wont carry current for long, though, as the feed thru wires that the filament is crimped to are quite small. I suspect they're probably melted down quite quickly, but at that point the arc is already conducting.

@mysock351C

5 жыл бұрын

@CubeAMSPro100 I will say one thing that with the advent of LED lamps its now a free for all as to what pops first during a lightning strike. My parents also sustained a direct strike to their incoming service, and it ended up being a chunky external power supply that was turned into a melted down carbon pancake. Same thing for the place I worked at before my current job which had just fluorescent lights. Bolt came in and burst the water main, and ended up cooking the ethernet router (and physically destroying some of the cabling), knocking out our network the next day. Makes a good case for getting lightning arrestors installed on your service.

@diymaster1121

5 жыл бұрын

@@mysock351C After i completely switched to LED lights i can't even have light on when there is a storm because where i live lightning strikes like crazy all the time and i already lost 4 LED bulbs

BRENN-ENN-SH'TOOL. I think the start system and the fact the other two are grey is saying this is the base model, not the fancier or fanciest model.

here in sweden 13.500 A means 13 tousand 500 amps. To specify decimals, you use comma, like 3,3v is three comma three volts, slightly above 3 volts. IMHO its best to use spaces as separators instead of dot, when separating digits for readability, makes it clear both for comma and point countries at the same time.

@RFC3514

5 жыл бұрын

That is indeed the ISO norm: www.iso.org/sites/directives/current/part2/index.xhtml#_idTextAnchor105 Commas for decimals, spaces for 3-digit grouping.

@MrEdrftgyuji

5 жыл бұрын

In Sweeden you also speak Sweedish, which makes it clear what convention should be used. All English speaking countries use the decimal point, therefore only this convention should be used when writing in English.

@RFC3514

5 жыл бұрын

South Africa uses the comma for decimals. Also, the IEC recommends the use of the comma for all languages. However, they also recommend the use of a space (not a dot) to separate groups of 3 digits, which is the real issue here.

I always wondered how and _if_ these worked. Thanks Clive!

@bestonyoutube

5 жыл бұрын

They dont work. It is scam.

I can finally protect my lightning rod!

I have my main PC plugged into one of these. Always thought that that number was a bit odd, but Brennenstuhl stuff is usually quite well-made. Especially their "Alu-Line" power strips are virtually indestructible.

I had an RS branded protection device,it actually called itself a power conditioner and did have some chokes inside as well as capacitors along side one very big MOV, I used it on my computer and printer. I came home recently and there was the smell of burning plastic and electronics throughout the house. I traced it to this device and found that there a a big hole in the side of it with scorch marks up the wall, when I took it apart the MOV had disappeared,exploded right off the board leaving just stubs of vaporised wire. As far as I know there had been no thunderstorms in the area and nothing else in the house was damaged.

@stargazer7644

5 жыл бұрын

MOVs degrade with every little spike they eat. Eventually, they short and kill themselves exactly as you describe.

@douglas2lee929

11 ай бұрын

Some of the APC Surge arrest devices are intentionally designed to do this. I had one in my office at work. Just like you, came in one morning to smell of electrical smoke/burn. Dozens of other computers on the same floor and branch circuit were not damaged. Neither was my computer. But the APC gave it's life to protect it. Numerous internal components were blown to smithereens. So, the APC was "sensitive" enough to blow, undoubtedly due to some kind of surge, even though the surge did not kill any other equipment. So it was a $45 fuse. Later research on my part revealed the APC was DESIGNED to do this. Very sophisticated. It is built like a brick house inside. I still use them today (same model). By the way, the plastic housing is flameproof.

Their power strips also have the 13.500A printed on them and "super solid safety". Brennenstuhl is a premium brand that I trust, but they can definitely dial down the marketing wank!

@fromgermany271

2 жыл бұрын

But they are only relatively good, as the quality of the whole market segment went down in recent years.

@WouterWeggelaar

2 жыл бұрын

@@fromgermany271 for consumers, yes absolutely. We buy the expensive stuff at work and they're still good. for the consumer grade stuff everything is getting cheaper. copper strips are getting thinner, the child-proof shutters are harder to use...some even break on insertion of the plugs..

Now it's time to send it to Photonicinduction and have Andy "POP IT!!!" I can hear him now... "I ain't 'avin it!!!" :D

@R33Racer

5 жыл бұрын

If only, he's too busy getting it on with his mail-order Indian wife.

@jamescollins6085

5 жыл бұрын

@@R33Racer He said he was coming back months ago.

@paulvale2985

5 жыл бұрын

@Hunter Higginbotham I reckon he's zapped himself on some dodgy Indian wiring. Shame he's gone (and why) loved his vids.

@jamescollins6085

5 жыл бұрын

@@paulvale2985 He commented 2 months ago saying a series was on its way.

@sauerlandfpv5425

5 жыл бұрын

@@jamescollins6085 he's the head of a company guys there's a video where he is talking with someone about it

Thank you... Thanks to your videos, I learnt stuff all these years, I helped some peps, I was informative enough not to get scammed also even though they raged, I managed to protect my family members not to get scammed. God or/and anything or/and everything bless you.

To everyone acting like the Arabic writing is strange: many Middle Eastern countries use British style outlets and plugs. As a result, this exact device is undoubtedly sold there, as well. It's s bit like how here in the US, a lot of packaging has French as well as English, because the item is also sold in Canada.

As a biomedical technician, I used your videos to understand electronics better.

I'm not suprised at the conclusion of "not that bad at all". That's basically true for all products of that company, which is in the "not garbage" category for extension sockets and such stuff in germany. Nothing exceptional, but solid.

I use a surge protector with my old 1980s 13-inch Sony Trinitron CRT television to protect other devices from the spikes it produces when it first turns on.

Okay before I even finish the video - I own a couple of power cords from them with surge protection and this model that specifically protects my subwoofer. We'll see if I have to reinvest my money elsewhere. Thanks Clive - Keeping the anxiety high.

Nice explanation. Love the added detail of the diagram and the circuit explanation. Well done.

"it might even go back together again afterwards". Superb.

Way back in 1961, we moved from "the old homestead" a farmhouse built by my grandfather in 1910, to a more modern farm some 12 miles away. Dad put his land into the "soil bank" (a program where the farmland is left fallow for a period of time and the government pays the farmer for this) and he rented a farm closer to town so my sister could attend high school. Well we were thrilled, we had electrical power! When dad went to town he stopped at a TV repair/sales store on main street and made a deal on an old used floor model television, and a large antenna since we lived over 100 miles from the nearest station. Along with the package the repair guy sold dad a small round device with a sort of screen case that he said we HAD to have plugged into the socket before we plugged in the television. He also sold us a lightning arrestor that had to be placed in the tv wire leading from the antenna that was atop a 50 foot pipe sticking up the chimney of the old farmhouse which was right next to the small house we occupied. I was just wondering if that little round black deal was anything like an early design of this thing? I think what I remember best about the whole deal was that the set acted like a Ford Detector, any time someone in a Ford car pulled up the TV would show the firing of the spark plugs or something in a sort of interference pattern on the screen.

MOVs are rated in joules of dissipation. They might be 50, 100 joules or whatever. A joule is a watt-second, so if you have a specific voltage and an impressively high ampere rated MOV you can roughly figure out how long that MOV will last before exploding. This is left as an exercise for the student; compare to the length of a lightning strike. The other thing I'd like to point out is that MOVs are good for one time use. After they soak up that one lightning-induced surge (you hope), then you throw them out because their breakdown as been compromised. Many will start to break down over time with no surges, then they just burn up because their dissipation goes exponential. They are not to be used as zener diodes. Also, because they break down in nanoseconds, you will have some interesting spikes ricocheting around your power lines unless you position them at the lowest inductance point across the incoming mains.

@dashcamandy2242

5 жыл бұрын

Thank you for mentioning that MOVs break down over time. Probably a good 95-98% of people don't know that line voltage dips and spikes all day long "wearing out" surge protectors, and they should be replaced every so often to be on the safer side.

I don't trust any kind of surge protector for use inside the house. Reason: I frequently have to investigate house fires. I've seen houses that burned down because the surge protector caught fire and arced all over the place when lightning struck nearby power lines. Not cheap chinesium surge protectors, either. Think of it this way: electricity always takes the path of least resistance to ground. Those "protectors" work by making a lower-resistance path than through your electronics, and for low-energy voltage spikes that works very well. Enter mr. Lightning though, and the surge protector in your living room suddenly becomes the lowest-resistance path to ground for one billion joules of energy. Once that current starts flowing through the surge protector, mr. Lightning doesn't care or even notice that those little fuses and varistors blow up into little clouds of incandescent plasma that light stuff on fire. In my opinion, the only safe place for a surge protector is outside your home in a little steel box on a pole where a fire might cut your power but won't burn your house down. It's your choice of course. Would you rather save your electronics from minor voltage spikes caused by very distant lightning, or would you prefer to save your house from fire caused by nearby lightning strikes? Or would you perhaps wish to do both by having a proper protection device installed a safe distance from your house where it may blow up without causing collateral damage?

@Ultrazaubererger

5 жыл бұрын

That is an interesting point! Shouldn't a sand filled fuse be enough to stop the ark?

@Asdayasman

5 жыл бұрын

I still want my electronics protected from voltage spikes, but can't I _also_ have good circuitry outside my house for lightning strikes? Is this an American thing? Never heard of a lightning strike to a power pole setting anyone's house on fire here.

@stargazer7644

5 жыл бұрын

These are designed to protect your electronics from voltage spikes. Nothing protects you from a direct lightning strike. If lightning strikes the line coming into your house whether or not you have one of these surge protectors will make very little difference. Something (usually many somethings) are going to detonate and burn. There's simply too much energy to dissipate. And you're far more likely to experience multiple voltage spikes on the line than a direct lightning strike.

@dashcamandy2242

5 жыл бұрын

@@stargazer7644 Great point. There are always dips and spikes in line voltage, usually not anything significant but if that errant spike comes through, your stuff gets protected. The device is a "surge protector," not a "lightning arrestor." It's not meant to protect against lightning strikes, but if lightning strikes a transmission tower or pole a mile up the road, you're pretty much covered. There was one time when I was a teenager when a car hit a telephone pole in my town. I was doing homework when the light above me got significantly brighter for about two seconds before the bulb failed with a blue flash. We actually fried two surge protectors that day, but no casualties other than that one bulb.

@Kaboomf

5 жыл бұрын

@@Asdayasman this was in Norway. According to the power company, the distribution line in one case was equipped with a spark gap type protector that should arc across if voltage exceeds 10kVolts so that should be the maximum that makes it to a house, unless lightning hits the low voltage lines directly. In that case lightning struck the line somewhere on the other side of the transformer, but something less than 10k Volts still made it through to the low voltage distribution network. A nearby house simply had the earth fault protection tripped. This one had a fancy surge protector installed inside the breaker box. That surge protector was the path of least resistance, and more or less exploded. The force of the protector blowing up ripped an incoming power line loose and shorted it to the grounded steel cabinet, melting a nice hole in the steel and dripping molten steel into the wall setting it on fire.

I had started to use a surge protector ever since I heard about Energy spikes!

So, as someone who went to school on power quality, I must say, the packaging inspires tremendous confidence. (I haven't seen the inside yet, heh)

@railgap

7 ай бұрын

Oh great, the gas tube protects the MOVs from surges. I was sorta hoping to have the MOVs protect my kit from surges. ;)

McDonald’s happy meal toy screws!

@JimPugh2014

5 жыл бұрын

you beat me to it

@qwertykeyboard5901

5 жыл бұрын

I hate those

@atmel9077

5 жыл бұрын

@@qwertykeyboard5901 I spent hours trying to open those. I eventually found that a flat screwdriver did the job :D and there's nothing interesting inside

@sauerlandfpv5425

5 жыл бұрын

Oh yeah that was like it was screaming open me

@danielbedrossian5986

5 жыл бұрын

Those triangular screws can be easily drived by a strong steel flat screwdriver (hexagonnal star ones similarly)

We used to use gas discharge tubes as trigger devices on capacitive discharge high voltage generators. The tubes were sourced from discarded phones which were full of those tubes for protection.

The 13.500 Amps thing might be a localisation issue, for example, in Germany, we write thirteen and a half thousand point two five as 13.500,25 (it's quite weird to get used to if coming from English where it's 13,500.25 but Germany uses the comma as the decimal separator)

I'd love to see you take apart the APC Schneider equivalent unit to see what the differences are!

The surge protector means that absorbs all the incoming spikes and overvoltages from the mains and cleans it protecting in that way all the other appliances.Absorbs current until limited by the breaking of the mains fuse

I think this is the only time I've seen you approve something. this shit must be good !

You should take an Apple usb cube from America to bits. They're so small, i wonder how they do it

@TeslabladePlaysMC

5 жыл бұрын

I've taken one apart, they've got 2 circuit boards (like some others he's taken apart, I believe) and are really clever, but it takes a Dremel and/or Vice of Knowledge to take apart. They've got glue out of the wazoo.

@davey2k12

5 жыл бұрын

I bet the glue to stop ya opening it and to make it hotter desiged flaw

@johnfrancisdoe1563

5 жыл бұрын

Da ve They had to recall the first ones globally because the live pins could fall out and stay in the socket as exposed live deathtraps. Improved model is made not to fall apart and marked with a small colored dot.

@davey2k12

5 жыл бұрын

@@johnfrancisdoe1563 wot a joke product from China

@fontenbleau

5 жыл бұрын

Very interesting is apple power brick for macbooks, we have one opened (they fail over time because of constant heating), very complex engineered, huge pure copper pieces (many copper inside) , maybe 100+ components with micro capacitors, they made very impressed work for filtering noise (Chinese cheap copies, original are quite expensive, made such noise in whole house that you can see it on TV).

All of my stuff is on Brennenstuhls or APCs, so I am happy to hear they are OK.

@Heisenberg355

3 жыл бұрын

Where did he say/imply that apc is good? Recently ordered one from APC, but I'm not sure if I should have went for the Brennenstuhl one :/

Clive - your DIT400 set to 1000V can determine the DC standoff of the MOVs at 1.6mA. And the new advanced version (which no-one actually sells yet) is able to determine the sparkover voltage of the GDT.

it always amazes me how large most electronic cases are compared to the actual inside parts that are doing the job which are basically an inch long for all of them.. most cases are empty space, room for the actual plug, etc..

Amperage for a surge protector really makes no sense. A surge protector clamps the voltage to neutral and/or ground and it dissipates energy in order to clamp the voltage. The peak current is just the current used under test before device failure and is time dependent. Looking at the datasheet for a S14K385 MOV for example shows 460 volts and 4500 amps absolute maximum. So it dissipates 2 megawatts?! No. Because it can only sustain that for 2ms which equals about 103 watts over a second before exploding into flames. The peak current is really quite irrelevant in terms of current passed to the devices. A device that uses 8 amps to turn on could get fried by a 300v spike and 50miliampres. Further only two of the MOVs would do anything for most surges. Another is for floating neutral or induced neutral spikes. It is important to have as little resistance as possible between the surge protector and the devices being protected. Note that this means it doesn't actually matter if devices are plugged into the surge protector or not as long as they are a low resistance path unless the surge protector also shuts off the down stream devices due to over current. This is typically done with a fuse, resettable fuse or breaker. The joules rating on surge protectors is a slightly more honest but also somewhat misleading metric. It does indicate actual protection in the sense higher is better. But the way electronics are susceptible to surges is still hidden. It's voltage that will destroy most sensitive equipment and many surge protectors do not state their clamping voltage. While joules will tell you the surge protector isn't as likely to fail on you it still doesn't tell you its really going to protect the equipment.

That's a fabulous accent for any kind of teaching.

Brennenstuhl is grammatically wrong German, but it actually means burning chair literally. But it's an over 60 year old German manufacturer of electronical and electrical devices, so I'd guess they deliver somewhat good quality.

@deadfreightwest5956

5 жыл бұрын

In this connection, that's disturbing, lol.

when people ask, "why do you watch this channel" me - "Marketing wank" case closed

"So, that's three of the screws out. What does it say on the back?" I was expecting "Do not remove screws". Haha

As a programmer, the flipping of , (thousands) and . (decimal) separators in certain parts of the world drives me mad. It's almost as bad as timezones.

@zh84

5 жыл бұрын

As a programmer, I have to study the raw .dita files which are turned into PDF manuals for a client's computer range, and construct a script which will change the English-language commas and decimals around for other countries when they are translated. It is tedious in the extreme, but I get paid for it.

@jakp8777

5 жыл бұрын

Yeah, Europe sucks that way. Same goes for IEC prints, eplan for drafting, preferring FBD over ladder logic, 240v (we invented electricity, HELLO!) and using metric.....

@shrikedecil

5 жыл бұрын

The one that get me is mAh. Really? *Really* ?

@ethanpoole3443

5 жыл бұрын

Shrike DeCil Why does “mAh” bug you so? It is certainly preferably to typing out “milliamperes-hours” with every reference to capacity.

@comsubpac

5 жыл бұрын

Brennenstuhl is a German company as far as I know.

Limited protection for other connected devices on the other side of the circuit: 1. It cannot protect against a common mode surge. This occurs when both L & N have elevated voltages which is common for lightning induced surges. 2. Any energy passing through the GDT will elevate the ground voltage providing a reverse path for the surge to reach devices. Its possible the voltage potential will be higher on the ground than L-N for other devices connected to ground. Typically Ground has a high impedance of about 6 ohms and thus lacks the ability to shunt large surge currents. Generally a good Surge suppressor will filter out a surge pulse using an high frequency LC filter such that a fast transit cannot reach the load. The other alternative is to absorb the energy in a Cap bank that slowly bleeds off the collected energy. I've see a lot of cheap MOV surge protectors do more harm when the shunt energy into ground, only to damage other devices connected to the same ground circuit. MOVs are usually only good for very few number of surges. Quality shunt type protectors use Silicon Avalanche diodes (very beefy Zener diodes) which do not degrade with use. Typically MOVs have high clamping voltages well above mains voltage so they are not frequently triggers.

@stargazer7644

5 жыл бұрын

Huh? That's what the gas discharge tube circuit is for. A common mode surge will be dissipated to ground through the two MOVs and the gas discharge tube and the voltage spike on the entire circuit will be clamped to the MOV clamping voltage. Once the tube arcs over, there is essentially zero voltage drop across the tube. How exactly would the voltage on the ground be HIGHER than the L-N pulse that energized it? In the US, the ground connection has to be low enough impedance to trip the breaker if hot is shorted to ground. Any higher voltage will do it also.

According to the company website, it apparently originated in Tübingen and also has manufacturing units in Switzerland, Austria and France.

At last ive found another person who knows how to open blister packaging efficiently

@stargazer7644

5 жыл бұрын

How else would you open these kinds of packages? You can't tear them open. Doesn't everyone cut the sides off?

@bobbyfunface4469

5 жыл бұрын

Nope they dont ive watched loads of unboxing video's for various stuff almost all put one cut in it and try to rip it apart, or cut around the product not the blister seal

I had this surge protector. Good to know that it is worth something. I am also using the extension cord with 5 sockets from brennenstuhl. Hope the idea of protection is the same there.

Nice, so it protects against L-N surges and also E-L E-N surges. Simple but effective.

@RFC3514

5 жыл бұрын

Nothing can protect you from an Ellen surge. Trust me, I've dated an Ellen.

@PatrickLeeUS

5 жыл бұрын

@@RFC3514 Tampax and Midol make arrestors for that.

The 3 gold stars is because that's the "Standard electronics" one. If it was the others, the placquered would be blue, with the stars gold! silly!

0:17 - In most languages, a comma is used for decimals, and (optionally) a point for digit grouping. English is kind of the odd one out in Europe, with the "decimal point".

@RFC3514

5 жыл бұрын

> _Matt Quinn wrote:_ > _actual mathematical notation (which is language independent) represents the decimal point thus ·_ No. Mathematical notation is very much _not_ language independent, and as far as a "global standard" exists (ISO / IEC), that would be the comma: www.iso.org/sites/directives/current/part2/index.xhtml *9 Numbers, quantities, units and values* *9.1 Representation of numbers and numerical values* *• The decimal sign shall be a comma on the line in all language versions.* In practical terms, linguistic conventions tend to override this. For example, Canada uses commas in French documents and points in English documents. South Africa is a bit unusual, and generally uses the comma even for English text, and there are more exceptions (including countries that use neither). If you only speak English and haven't travelled much, I guess your world view is a bit skewed. The character you used is called an interpunct, and it's specifically banned (or strongly discouraged) by international organisations, due to being identical to the multiplication dot. > _the use of a comma to represent the decimal point is an affectation brought about_ > _by medieval typesetters concerned about printing ancient Latin texts_ Again, no. Before printing, the most common notations were to use a horizontal line over the units digit (ex.: 1Ō5) or a vertical line after the units digit (ex.: 10|5). Since the former was hard to do in print and the latter could easily be confused with a 1, this was changed to a comma, in continental Europe (ex.: 10,5). In England, it was actually changed to a symbol similar to an "L" (ex.: 10L5), and later to a point (sometimes a full stop, sometimes an interpunct - the latter having fallen into disuse for the reasons explained above). No one ever "used a comma to represent a decimal point", because the comma was replacing a _bar,_ not a point. In fact, one country almost "used a comma to represent (or rather, replace) the point", and that was the UK, in the 1960s. The comma was preferred in most technical fields (industry, engineering, etc.), and officially recommended by the British Standards Institution, but they were eventually overruled by the government (due to pressure from the financial sector and the USA - same reason why the UK now uses short American "billions" despite its own history and its own national institutions recommending the long scale). > _this product is aimed primarily at the British market_ Aimed at the British market... with text in Arabic? Maybe Fox News was right about Birmingham after all... :D

@RFC3514

5 жыл бұрын

Obvious troll is obvious. I'm afraid feeding time is over.

I had to go back to around the three minute mark to see where line current came into the device. I was thinking the current had to go through the circuitry and then out the other side. Trickily, they connected the gozinta directly to the gozoutta.

7:30 basic specs for ZD2R600: Quick Details Place of Origin: Guangdong, China (Mainland) Brand Name: HUAAN Model Number: ZD2R600/20 , ZD2R800/20 DC Spark-over voltage: 350V Surge Discharge current: 1KA, 2KA, 2.5KA ,5KA ,10KA ,15KA ,20KA,30KA,40KA,60KA,80KA,100KA Capacitance: 1.0pF

Brennenstuhl is a "good" German brand, you can expect at least some quality. They also offer all variants of power extension adapters.

Brennenstuhl is a german company and in the german language the decimals & commas have reversed functions if used with numbers. So its 13,5kA and not 13.5A

I can not remember the brand but there was a surge protector manufacturer cut my dad a check after a bolt of lightening and threw the Wall and hit his tv,, a dish network recever, VHS VCR, & stereo. I thing the check was like 1500 it was a power strip so all was counted to power strip surge protector.

in German 10.000 is 10k, while 10,000 is 10. A comma indicates a decimal and a period a thousands delimiter.

@xfran70

5 жыл бұрын

Same here in Spain

@danielbedrossian5986

5 жыл бұрын

Funny. As student we separated every 3rd nuber with aposthrophes or spaces. Yet I am not sure what is standardised her in Hungary. Ofcourse comma ment decimal separation.

@Asdayasman

5 жыл бұрын

John Smith That's stupid.

@jovangrbic97

5 жыл бұрын

@@Asdayasman it is ze German way, and therefore the BEST way!

@MrEdrftgyuji

5 жыл бұрын

In Germany, they also speak German. However, the text on the packaging is in English, and it is a UK style plug. Therefore, the UK convention should be used for the product and any other convention is incorrect.

Seems like the european thing of swapping the comma and decimal point around on the 13,500A "rating", but that aside, I was kind of expecting to see yet another capacitor in there, but nope, it actually is a real (and useful) device for once... :D

Brennenstuhl is a high quality brand for power distribution in home, office and datacenter. This thing is probably the lowest end surge protection they have. Got one between my computers and the wall.

german packaging with arabic multilinguicity like pottery.

@dsloop3907

5 жыл бұрын

Aimed at the greater population.......

@R33Racer

5 жыл бұрын

Half of Germany is virtually Islamic these days.

@interstat2222

5 жыл бұрын

UK 1363 plugs and sockets are used in those countries, just like Hong Kong and other ex British colonial empire countries. That's why.

@derSkedda

5 жыл бұрын

I smell Arabic scam. Have you ever been to something like Egypt and went on the streets near hotels? Tourist scams everywhere. Everything gets faked today, even chocolate and pharmacy. Don't even think about what these guys do with eBay..

@Mic_Glow

4 жыл бұрын

German design, produced in China for the UK market XD

If you follow Clive's link, the picture of the surge protector has 4,500A written on it now :)

@hamjudo

5 жыл бұрын

On the mobile version of the website, the product overview says "Protects electrical appliances against surges with a maximum up to 4,500A". As of July 3, 2019, the text above the product picture says "13.5" Amps, while the picture says "4.500 A". Note that the outlet is rated for a 16 Amp load.

@Noxoreos

4 жыл бұрын

@hamjudo No that number is German notation and really refers to 13500A and not 13.5A. This number does not refer to how much current it can handle on a constant basis. It only refers to the pulse current that it can take, so just a brief moment. Though, that is still higher than the individual components. Here in Germany it is still marketed as 13500A on the official website.

Such devices often got tested with standard surge waveforms, like 8/20 us and this 13,5kA could actually be the peak current it can withstand

A sparg plug with a small gap and no series resistor would be just as effective, the thermal fuses would vaporise, basically its a pos.

brennen meens "on fire" ans stuhl means "seat" but in medical meaning it also meens "stool" now do with it, what you want ;-)

@cybercat1531

5 жыл бұрын

Was just about to comment this. This company name in Germany is kind of a mini-meme.

@2lefThumbs

5 жыл бұрын

They're "shit hot" then (if you stretch the meanings a bit)?

@thiesenf

5 жыл бұрын

IE... what you'd get after eating too much Carolina Reaper...

Products of this brand here are like 7-8 times more expensive than regular ones. A 6 way extension normally is €6 but this brand 6 way sockets go around €30.

i'd like to see this compared to one of those tripplite isobars everyone seems to love so much

If it has the "Clive Seal of Approval" then it's good enough for me!

You should compare it with APC Surgearrest Essentials.

@ElectroXa

5 жыл бұрын

Xanthopteryx : I tore down an APC surgearrest, they have 3 varistors, each one with a thermal fuse. and the varistors are bigger : they measure 20mm, they trigger at 470V and can withstand 6,5kA pulse. and the APC had also a gas discharge tube

@kwinzman

5 жыл бұрын

@@ElectroXa Which APC model did you tear down?

@ElectroXa

5 жыл бұрын

kwinzman : the model with an on off switch, and 5 outlets (eu style) but I don't remember the model :-/

@schleicher5959

25 күн бұрын

@@ElectroXa I think I might be late, but the model is Schneider -APC : PM5-GR. Cheers.

In case anybody's interested and it hasn't been said before: "Brennenstuhl" is pronounced with "st" like "fi*sht*ail" (don't mind that we leave out the "h", digraphs are complicated ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) and the "h" in "stuhl" stretches the vowel before it to more of a "oo". Actually, "stuhl" (german for chair) and the english "stool" come from the same root, so you can just imagine them sounding fairly similar. So yeah, there's your german lesson for the day.

I have one of those cheap and I cracked open and there's only a fuse in there I was disappointed supposed to be more it came from hubo in NED so I think I need to upgrade thunderstrike risk is pretty high in country side

i decree this skookum-ish Good enough for the girls i go out with

@baileymattson4940

5 жыл бұрын

I knew it. This whole time, that Canadian bastard was working on a cloning machine. Looks like he tested it on himself :P

@stargazer7644

5 жыл бұрын

Please go back to AvE's channel with that shit.

The name pronounced like brennen shtul (chair) it's german and the point is what germans use between the thousands place. Instead of the English comma The language you can pronounce it the way you find easier. It is on English product because in the Gulf (UAE, saudi, etc.) they use the same socket in the UK

@bigclivedotcom Brennenstuhl is a German company and German as well as other European languages use a "." as a delimiter to group digits and "," as a decimal separator, so just the opposite of the English use. To deal with the ambiguity various standards bodies since 2003 recommend the use of a space character.

For what the cinnamon toast frick could you need 13.5 thousand amp protector for?

@pyromen321

5 жыл бұрын

I have a lightning rod connected directly to all my electrical appliances

@ceigey-au

5 жыл бұрын

Lightning (between 10k to 200k amps), thus the product branding.

@ethanpoole3443

5 жыл бұрын

Dissipating lightning strikes, which can be anywhere from 10s of thousands of amps to 100s of thousands of amps. However, this design is never going to absorb a 13,500A surge - the house wiring leading up to this device would likely vaporize (and would likely have much too high an impedance) before you achieved those current levels, much less the traces on the PCB.

@SupremeRuleroftheWorld

5 жыл бұрын

to power a uBeam ofcourse.

@burst1u

5 жыл бұрын

sky electricity

German (and continental generallly) usage swaps the decimal point and comma. So it's 13,500 Amps.to us Brits and Americans/Canadians.

I have one of these :D Nice to see they aren't utter garbage. :)

Hi Clive. I recently bought two InTempo Tailgate speakers. I returned the one that didn't work. Replacement didn't work either, so naturally I took it to bits and found out why. Possibly the thinnest PCB I've ever seen with very misaligned, feebly soldered components and liquid flux still puddled all over the board on both sides. I'm not skilled enough to fix it, and don't care, but I'd appreciate if you get hold of one and do a teardown vid. If the manufacturer had spent a bit more change on the board, this would be a nice bit of kit for busking. Sadly they didn't want to charge me £10 extra for that durability on a £30 retail item. A shame. :(

I’m really struggling with having a GDT *IN SERIES* with the MOV’s. Maybe I’m just asking for too much (or did _Ohm’s Law_ change since I graduated in 1976? 😣), but I’d (at least _naively)_ expect to see different protective devices *CASCADED* rather than in series … I remember another KZreadr had designed a _”three stage”_ surge suppressor (designed for handling EMPs) with MOVs, GDTs, and TVS diodes cascaded. If I remember correctly, one stage acted *FASTER,* another stage shunted more current, and I can’t remember the purpose of the third, or even which was which. But … as far as *EMPs* go, sure it would be *NICE* to be protected against them, but considering the ways they could happen, I might just have bigger things to worry about!!!

Great video, great explanation. Thank you so much. I wonder that many brands put Joule ratings for their surge protectors, but Brennenstuhl never doing that. From the scheme you sketched the MOVs are rated 2x 115 J and 1x 125 J. So, can we add them to get total 355 Joules? Is it really the most important thing while you seeking a new surge protector for your single devices like a washing machine or a refrigerator only? If you look at product dimensions like this and a popular (and good) brand like APC, they also got single plug surge protection device like this and it's rated as 918 J, peak currents of 24 kA common mode and 12 kA normal mode. If we compare this one 13.5 kA. Can you please answer that what to look exactly, better to go with more Joules or more peak current? I mean when a bad event occurs like lightning strikes etc.. Thank you so much.

I'm pretty sure the stars indicate that it is suitable for Standard Electronics (with the coloured square). The Advanced and Professional sections are greyed out, indicating that it is not suitable for those applications

It's a shame that failure of the gas discharge tube isn't indicated though - you could go for years without knowing it wasn't there any more. I know of a similar Belkin device up in north Wales, added to the wifi router mains socket after lightning took out 4 routers in succession :o( Don't know what's inside the Belkin device. I do know that the last blown up router would have made a great BC video - the wall psu was blown, some components at the router power input were vaporised, the phone line input txformer was blown, and on closer inspection several chips had cracks in them .... however, after fixing the power side I found I could, almost unbelievably, talk to the router via wifi - no use for anything else mind you :o) There's a very rigid rule now about disconnecting phone line and power when not in use and/or storms are expected - latest router has done about 5 years so far...

@stargazer7644

5 жыл бұрын

Under what situation would the gas discharge tube be destroyed yet the MOVs would survive? The tube is rated for more Joules than the MOVs.

Didn't know they made any sketchy devices (like the lights you mention), they're generally quite a trusted brand.

1.100,50€ .. one thousand one hundred bucks and 50 cents. Brennen(der)stuhl (burning chair ....) might use the german punctuation. what i have learned in industry is: if you do not have a real big lightning protection installation in your distributor panel, that lightning wont be stopped in a small plugin device if it came that far already. - Always wondered how often these producers really pay up the sum of 100.000 bucks or similar they promote, if you get really damage by lightning...

Great video i enjoyed the Clivecad

Interesting that the CPC listing says "Primera-Line Surge Protected Adaptor, 13.5A 230V - 1506953" and then lower down says "Protects electrical appliances against surges with a maximum up to 4,500A"

Great Video Big Clive