Surge Protect Cable Systems

How To Correctly Surge Protect Cable Lines?

Count incoming cable lines as well as outgoing cable lines to additional buildings and outdoor equipment etc. Surge protection and proper grounding these pathways are needed for proper performance of the equipment it is feeding. The TPD-CABLE allows two-way communication, unlimted data rates and will not degrade UHD, 4K and 8K signals.

The cable company should at minimum ground the sheathing of a cable wire to the electrical ground as it enters a structure. Grounding the sheathing only prevents an old style non-electronic telephone along with the wiring in the building from burning up. This antiquated style protection lets so much voltage and current through that anything electronic will likely get damaged or destroyed. TPD-Cale line surge protection is a solid state device that will not only ground sheathing but also give center pin a reference to ground making for a more robust and tighter clamping unit. Because our units are solid state they will not simply fail open and leave your equipment unprotected the next time a storm comes around. Our units will continue to work day after day.

Why Use Surge Protection on Incoming Phone & Cable Lines?

Lightning can ride into the building on ungrounded and/or unprotected cable and phone lines entering or leaving the structure. Accordingly, it should be a priority to surge protect and correctly ground all phone and cable company conductors which enter or leave the building. This includes surge protecting all phone or cable conductors as they leave and enter other buildings on the property. Of course, whole home surge protection of any facility starts by protecting all breaker panels. Protecting all systems with good quality surge suppression will pay for itself in short order, particularly in moderate to high lightning areas.

National Electric Code Recommends Phone, Cable & Satellite Type Surge Protection

NEC recommends incoming phone and cable surge protection. This protects and diverts unwanted transient surges from entering the home on incoming power wire, ground wire, phone lines, cable sheathing and center pin pathways. NEC requires that phone and cable company dMark locations to be located and grounded with a maximum five-foot ground wire to the service entrance of the building. This makes all grounds short for and limits the voltage developed in the grounding connections during lightning strikes. Its recommended that satellite antenna cables should also be routed past the service entrance and grounded there. This is at times may be difficult to achieve but that does not mean remote grounding points along with a surge suppression diversion can be put in place to achieve adequate protection to bring the home up to NEC standards and IEEE recommended practices for power of sensitive electronic equipment and electronics loads. Areas of the country with dirty and unreliable power from the utility company should also be considered high risk areas. A lightning protection system (which refers to adding ground rods, copper points and down conductors to a building) will greatly reduce the risk of fires caused by lighting however it is inadequate to prevent damage to electrical and electronic satellite equipment.

How It Works

Phone and coax lines should be brought into the home as close as possible to the incoming service entrance panel. Once they enter the building, they are to be grounded so that all three grounds (power, phone, cable) reference the same ground potential at or near the service entrance. Since the Transient Protection Design phone and coax suppression units are designed to dump the bulk of the energy to ground, the suppressors need to be grounded, and it is advisable to provide a ground bond as short and straight as possible, using a 14 AWG wire or larger. This concept provides a common reference point for incoming data and the AC power; therefore, the voltage potential between them is kept at a safe level. This is an extremely important step. If it is ignored, even the best protection equipment may not be effective. See an example design diagram here.

Benefits

Protect all network equipment, all smart TVS's and all home business and school equipment that is networked to the system.