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Movies, music, multimedia in your home. Use our guides to repair home entertainment devices from surround sound A/V receivers or conventional stereo receivers to power amplifiers, preamplifier, speakers, and iPod/Bluetooth speaker systems.

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Types of surge protectors

My TV was fried last year during a "brownout" and almost none of the MANY surge protectors on the market say they protect against power "sags" or brownouts (the few I've seen are +$200!!) Won't a UPS protect against damage as long as you turn things (ie tv, stereo, computer) off before the battery dies?

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The most common types of UPS are standby UPS. It will run your device off of the normal utility power until it detects a problem. At that point, it very quickly turns on a power inverter and runs the device off the UPS battery. The power inverter simply turns the DC power delivered by the battery into 120-volt AC power. The more reliable and higher priced UPS is a continuous UPS. The plugged in device is always running off battery power and the battery is continuously being recharged. The battery charger continuously produces DC power, which the inverter continuously turns into 120-volt AC power. If the power fails, the battery provides power to the inverter. Since there is no switch over time it provides a very stable source of power. So this would be the one that would not be bothered by "brown-outs" etc. In theory any of your devices plugged into any of the UPS should be protected as long as it has a very quick switch time. Yes, you could turn your device off in case of power failure etc. and thus protect them from damage. However, even if you do not turn them off, there should be no damage since it will simply power down due to lack of AC power. Hope this helps and is not to confusing....:-) I appear to be long winded today. Good Luck

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2 Comments:

+ variations in current will also cause hard drive writing failures. Just don't use a laser printer on one. Here's a bunch, I like the big boys: http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=764...

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If one is really ambitious, the construction of a continuous UPS is actually within the DIY'er capabilities ;-) everybody should have one...

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