Surge protection

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Mustwin351

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I am trying to protect some expensive led fixtures rated at 120V on two circuits. The LED lighting comes from a 120/240v single phase panel. That panel is fed by a transformer and then a 3 phase 277/480v panel. Is it advantageous to protect it on the 120/240 panel verses the 277/480v panel? I’m sure it’s more expensive on the high voltage 3 phase panel, but would I have the less, equal, or greater protection on this side? Of course this in a perfect world with all surge protector components being equal.

One circuit is about 30’ away from the panel and the second is about 150’ away.
 
You can never have too much surge protection. Put it on both sides and at the outlet. You may find this is kind of pricey though. It all depends on how much protection you want, and how much you are willing to pay for that protection. In the end it may not do you any good anyway. Surge protection is largely about improving your odds, it's not 100%.
 
If equipment is expensive, a multi level protection is usually better than single point. Start with the whole panel protection, then add branch circuit protection then you can add protection at the utilization equipment for best protection. As @petersonra already indicated, no level no mater the complexity is 100% but you can greatly reduce the risk the more levels you add.
I use one made by PSP Products, they have a very good warranty to cover damage if a surge gets thru.

Industrial Surge Devices that protect facilities from power surges

Industrial Surge Devices specially designed to handle the highest levels of surge activity found in the most demanding commercial and industrial facilities
www.pspproducts.com www.pspproducts.com
Had a customer that was having to replace refrigerator motherboard multiple times a year from surges installed one of these and he hasn't had to repair fridge in 2 years.
 
Mustwin351 said:
I am trying to protect some expensive led fixtures rated at 120V on two circuits. The LED lighting comes from a 120/240v single phase panel. That panel is fed by a transformer and then a 3 phase 277/480v panel. Is it advantageous to protect it on the 120/240 panel verses the 277/480v panel? I’m sure it’s more expensive on the high voltage 3 phase panel, but would I have the less, equal, or greater protection on this side? Of course this in a perfect world with all surge protector components being equal.

One circuit is about 30’ away from the panel and the second is about 150’ away.
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If your only concern is the LED fixtures, then you probably get more bang for the buck focusing on the single phase panel and the two legs feeding it at the 3 phase panel. On the other hand, I think the more upstream the surge protector is, the slightly better it may do. So I'd do both, as suggested by the others. It's very much like any insurance policy: the more you pay for the more coverage you get, but there's always something that isn't covered.
 
Fred B said:
If equipment is expensive, a multi level protection is usually better than single point. Start with the whole panel protection, then add branch circuit protection then you can add protection at the utilization equipment for best protection. As @petersonra already indicated, no level no mater the complexity is 100% but you can greatly reduce the risk the more levels you add.
I use one made by PSP Products, they have a very good warranty to cover damage if a surge gets thru.

Industrial Surge Devices that protect facilities from power surges

Industrial Surge Devices specially designed to handle the highest levels of surge activity found in the most demanding commercial and industrial facilities
www.pspproducts.com www.pspproducts.com
Had a customer that was having to replace refrigerator motherboard multiple times a year from surges installed one of these and he hasn't had to repair fridge in 2 years.
Click to expand...
Thank you all for your replies and if you have product recommendations it would be much appreciated.
Fred do you recall which specific PSP product you have used and maybe approximate cost? Of course everything has gone up but maybe give me some idea

We recently lost about $14k in lighting at our front entrance sign.
 
Surge protectors are in parallel, not series with the load. Surge impedance of #14 THHN circuits works out to roughly 20 V per foot, both line and ground side. What is the maximum voltage rating of your LED fixture? Say it’s 500 V. So with a 150 V MCOV surge arrester (a very tight rating) that gives us 500-160 = 350 V / 2 / 20 .= 9 feet away, as the line runs. So you want to place a surge arrester in a panel and go up the wall and over to some fixtures? Do you see why this might be an issue?

Panel surge arresters are there to protect electronic breakers (AFCI, GFCI), NOT loads. Place load protection as close to the load as possible or you are wasting your time and money.

This is why anyone calling them “whole house” should be fined or jailed for false advertising.

Outside of this there are plenty of inexpensive ones out there. Erico makes nice ones where you drill a 3/4” mounting hole, Mount with the included conduit nut, and attach the included pigtails to existing wiring and ground. Installation is maybe 15-20 minutes. Put it as close to the load as possible.

As far as direct lightning strikes, only lightning rods work. This is a metal surface mounted above the equipment to be protected and grounded with stranded large (around 1/0) wiring to a ground rod. The “surface” can be a metal pipe, angle, or a suspended cable. Very simple. You don’t necessarily need a fancy looking thing with a ceramic ball and a chicken symbol on it…that’s just for decoration and to ward off witches and warlocks.
 
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Mustwin351 said:
Thank you all for your replies and if you have product recommendations it would be much appreciated.
Fred do you recall which specific PSP product you have used and maybe approximate cost? Of course everything has gone up but maybe give me some idea

We recently lost about $14k in lighting at our front entrance sign.
Click to expand...
I've used the hurricane 2000 series, it was for residential connection and comparable pricing to the Eaton and SD whole house offered at the big box but a much better warrenty. The vortex series is rated even higher thresholds. The Vortex A used at utilization equipment end, supported by upstream protection as well. Best result are acheived where very sensitive equipment involved by having multi level protection, each level drops a portion of a large surge, eventually to get the transient down to a level equipment can tolerate.
Cannot attest to or deny the statistics and math given by @paulengr but do know experiencially that the whole house surge protection does provide downstream protection installed on a system that has had significant history of transients. Surges are not just from lightning strike but also from utility distribution equipment and switching even if working within specifications, and is more often the cause of equipment failures than simple lightning strikes. A lightning rod at your building does nothing to protect against a strike at utility equipment and resulting surge.
 
This is somewhat similar to my story. I'm working in an electronics repair shop and would often saw a sharp escalation in damaged electronics after a storm. A few of my stuff was also taken out by storms especially my fridge which was in a condition that cannot be repaired and finally I have given it to the disposal team. Nowadays I switch off the entire house main breaker when a storm rolls through, but I think even that is not absolute bulletproof for the electronics equipment. So I also recommend surge protectors.
 
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petersonra said:
Does it ward off witches and warlocks?
Click to expand...

I think you have to pour a continuous line of borax around the house or use a basic hex sign.

barn hex sign at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.
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But I’m not Mennonite. All I know about this stuff is typical farm culture knowledge.

But I do understand lightning and grounding. The NFPA and LPI standards are pretty good at explaining what you need to do. In commercial/industrial usually good structural grounding takes care of direct strikes. In wood structures or when the equipment is roof mounted it may need improved with supplemental protection. Same with overhead lines. Then it’s just a matter of blocking any indirect strikes traveling down a utility seeking a ground, and looking at your insulation ratings to prevent back strikes.

A direct strike is obvious. An indirect strike is where it hits something else then travels to the equipment. A back strike is where it hits somewhere else then jumps across the insulation to the conductor. Obviously structural grounding and lightning rods where needed handle direct strikes. Good grounding and surge protection stops indirect strikes. Good insulation stops back strikes. Lightning evaluations should look at all 3. Often I find broken of missing structural grounds and no connection underground or motors on top of conveyors or well grounded sensors on top of insulated tanks. The issues are usually very obvious if you know what you are looking for.
 
" You get what you pay for, more is better" Mike Holt
Install a high quality unit at the service, and feeder panels. Then point of use for electronics equipment. This scheme uses the impedance of the building wiring to reduce the surge to the point of use SPDS
 
As far as whole house SPDS not being effective, I disagree. I managed about 50 sites with instrumentation, wells, reservoirs, treatment, pump stations, 60 amps to 1000 amps. In the late 1980s I started installed Levition 32,000 and 42,000 series SPDs at all sites some had one on the 480 and then on the 120/240 transformer. I quickly noted a decrease in electronics failures, esp on power supplies.
While most SPDs are parallel mount, I have installed some from Allen Bradly and Levition that are series, but these are 15 and 10 amp units at 120 Volts.
 
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