FAQ

Cable and data lines are relatively easy to run to video and network equipment. However, correctly surge protecting and grounding these lines require a systems integrator’s understanding of how to coordinate a Transient Protection Design (TPD) surge protection system. When multiple breaker panels or structures are involved these systems become more complex to surge protect and ground. An unprotected or incorrectly grounded cable or data wire in one system can allow ground potentials to migrate to other cable and data systems producing large scale damage system wide during a lightning strike. Tens of thousands of dollars in damage can happen with one lightning strike and 90% of the time it is due to an unprotected or incorrectly grounded data wire.

Tim Fazio

Power is just like the water coming into your home. If a water pipe leaks, it’s your responsibility to fix it. Once power gets into the home it’s your responsibility to deal with it. It is not the utilities responsibility.

Tim Fazio

The use of a plug in surge suppressor or rack mount Surge Protective Device (SPD) is a standard part of most AV installations today. Millions of plug in type surge protectors are sold each year to protect the power to computers, printers, stereos, TVs, and other consumer electronics. What is typically missed is the coordination of surge protection at the breaker panel protection. Also missed are protection and proper grounding for incoming and outgoing phone, data, cable and satellite lines, etc.

Nicole Bomberger

Phone, cable and satellite companies as well as systems integrators are all paying liability claims due to lightning damaging home electronics. Even one copper pathway allowing lightning to enter the structure can lead to tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. If you are concerned about liability use Transient Protection Design surge suppression products on all incoming and outgoing data and power wires going between buildings or to outside equipment in order to limit your potential liability. Between improperly or poorly grounded phone, cable and satellite installations your job as a systems integrator has become much more complex in recent years. To be able to diagnose, pin point and explain what or whom is responsible for electronic damage or malfunction in an enormous spiders web of interconnected equipment can be overwhelming. Chasing phantom errors or ghosts in any system is not uncommon.

Tim Fazio

Less service calls equals better client satisfaction which equals more referrals and more jobs! *See technical note from Lutron recommending Transient Protection Design* surge suppression as part of that solution.

Tim Fazio

Are you resetting customer equipment late at night? Are some homes worse than others for nuisance issues, and why is that? Systems Integration is a customer service driven marketplace. For a majority of your clients, glitches, lockups, and unexplained failures may not be an issue. For a few others it can be a nightmare. If you don’t answer your phone late at night, on the weekend or over the holiday you might not get another call. Most systems integrators want to answer that phone and be as service oriented as possible, but dealing with and explaining why electronics lockup, glitch and are damaged was costly and very time consuming until now. Read on to learn how to reduce systems integration service calls.

Tim Fazio

Are multiple components failing in your system and no one can figure out why? As the distance increases between your equipment, along with the communications wires connecting them, the chance of damage from differences in ground potential also increases. Add in multiple panels feeding the equipment, and the potential for damage can increase dramatically without lines ever leaving the building. This is more common in very large homes, large offices, and custom barns where panels can be on opposite sides of the building and on multiple floors feeding interconnected equipment. Add in multiple buildings, which means multiple grounds, and the problems will continue to increase. See info on our Ground loop surge filter.* *

Tim Fazio

If a slot machine or any other video/electronic based gaming equipment fails or glitches it’s a big problem. Security and network equipment are also critical to the operation of a casino, and reliance solely on plug in type surge suppressors is not the best way to assure maximum performance and uptime. Generators and UPS equipment give the casino backup power which is critical for many reasons, however, if something fails or glitches because of a transient surge that backup power will not help. Lighting and climate control are also a very intricate part of the casinos inner workings. A casino needs to maintain maximum uptime on all equipment. Without a properly coordinated Transient Protection Designed surge suppression system a Casino will not work to peak performance.* *

Tim Fazio

It’s a Holiday Day Weekend! The kickoff of the summer and your clients are going to start using their electronic devices indoors and outdoors. Vacation properties that often are not in use half the year are getting turned on and powered up once again for the summer season. Sometimes equipment will not turn on and electronics will not work, and the question that will be asked is, “What happened? Why do these things not work when we want them too?”

Tim Fazio

“Everyone out of the water” is the lifeguard call we hear at the first sign of an approaching storm. Everyone knows that lightning can kill, so everyone needs to get out of the pool for life safety. And, it’s not only a direct lighting strike we worry about. Electromagnetic energy from a nearby lighting strike as far as a quarter mile or more away can travel through the air and be induced into a pools structure and nearby copper wiring. We all know not to be in the pool when lighting hits, but let’s not forget this energy has the ability to damage pool controls and other equipment when electromagnetically coupled onto data and power lines. If lightning is in the area it is eventually going to find your pool controls and your home’s electronics unless quality surge suppression is installed on the exposed pathways.

Tim Fazio

Just because the signal is passing to your equipment does not always mean that an aging data line surge suppressor is still protecting your equipment. Quality commercial/industrial data line surge suppressors are designed to disrupt signal in some way when the suppressor is destroyed or severely damaged. When applying surge suppression on a job or application it is best to know how the data line surge suppressor is going to perform when it sees a surge. Is it just going to fail? If it does fail how do I know and what does that mean?* *

Tim Fazio

Now that the storm season has arrived, is your customer protected? It’s not the power company’s responsibility if your electronics lockup, glitch, or suffer a premature death due to a catastrophic event caused by Mother Nature. At TPD we understand how devastating extreme storms can be to the individuals involved and their investments. Power surges and lightning strikes can be instantly induced onto utility lines from miles away when tornadoes hit. Lightning can also ride in on phone and coax lines. Once the power grid is affected this damaging surge energy enters the home, office or industrial plant via the power lines. Brown outs and black outs also send damaging sags and surges into your home or facility. We hear story after story of how storms damage tens of thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands, of dollars’ worth of electronics. In the past many customers assumed that the electrical grid was safe and took for granted that nothing additional needed to be done to protect their electrical and electronic equipment. As losses mount, and insurance companies threaten to drop coverage unless protection is installed, customers are now inquiring more and more about surge suppression.

Tim Fazio

Whole home surge protection is best explained by our Transient Protection Design Selector Guide. The protection guide shows that each incoming and exiting copper wire (phone, data, coax, speaker, and power) should be surge protected, as well as each electrical breaker panel (service entrance and all sub panels). This shield or ring of protection around the home protects all equipment from the effects of damaging surge energy, no matter the origin of the surge or what wire or cable the surge energy is on.

Tim Fazio

Churches spend millions of dollars each year due to lightning and surge damage to their electronic systems. Failure or damage to church equipment isn’t automatically covered by a commercial property insurance policy. Nor will it cover losses due to lost income, spoiled inventory, replacement costs, rush repairs and more. Churches are jammed full of electronics that need surge protection. Downtime, failure, and glitches in the churches electronic system of any sort cause financial loss for the organization. Transient Protection Design offers surge protection products to protect and maintain peak performance of all church electronics including church lighting systems, organs, mixing consoles, amplifiers, video projectors, elevators, kitchen appliances, and computers. TPD will also protect the heating and air conditioning systems. See Transient Protection Design information sheet for protecting churches.

Tim Fazio

How often have you visited a home and found that several pieces of equipment were not working properly or were totally destroyed. The owner of the home is upset and needs some sort of an explanation. Sometimes there was a storm in the area and sometimes not. The effected equipment may or may not be items that you recommended and sold. Maybe your customer questions you about what caused the equipment failure and what can be done to prevent this from happening again. While the insurance company may pay for the claim this time, they are not going to tell you what happened and are not going to tell you what to do to prevent future equipment failures.* *

Tim Fazio