Home Improvement

Rajaah

Honorable Member
<Gold Donor>
15,363
22,641
PXL_20260503_024951613.jpg

PXL_20260503_025026677.MACRO_FOCUS.jpg

Unearthed this surge protector in my box of old cords. When I turn it on, Grounded lights up but not Protected. What does that mean? Should I replace it?

Need a cord hub for my TV and systems, to put behind the entertainment center, and the main surge protector is otherwise occupied (and can't go behind furniture anyway, it needs to be accessible). Doing a big rearranging right now to make the TV room cleaner and more streamlined. It's been the exact same for six years.
 

Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness
<Gold Donor>
16,962
17,203
View attachment 627152
View attachment 627153
Unearthed this surge protector in my box of old cords. When I turn it on, Grounded lights up but not Protected. What does that mean? Should I replace it?

Need a cord hub for my TV and systems, to put behind the entertainment center, and the main surge protector is otherwise occupied (and can't go behind furniture anyway, it needs to be accessible). Doing a big rearranging right now to make the TV room cleaner and more streamlined. It's been the exact same for six years.
Pay the $6 and get one 5am overnight from Amazon.
 

Kobayashi

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
1,446
4,607
View attachment 627152
View attachment 627153
Unearthed this surge protector in my box of old cords. When I turn it on, Grounded lights up but not Protected. What does that mean? Should I replace it?

Need a cord hub for my TV and systems, to put behind the entertainment center, and the main surge protector is otherwise occupied (and can't go behind furniture anyway, it needs to be accessible). Doing a big rearranging right now to make the TV room cleaner and more streamlined. It's been the exact same for six years.
The metal oxide varistors in there degrade as they soak up overvoltage events. They typically have a thermal fuse in front to protect from bursting in a high energy event or overheating as their leakage current gets too high. If the light is off, my assumption is the fuse tripped and there is no power going to the the protection circuit. It would be likely safe to plug in (you can have it plugged in in an open area and check for any hot spots to be sure), but isn't going to protect any downstream components. If you've already got something upstream of it, maybe that doesn't matter - I'd also make the determination based on what you expect to plug into it - since you're planning on hooking up TVs and systems, I'd probably just buy a new one and save this for people to plug in cell phone chargers or something elsewhere.

By the way, it depends on the power quality you have, but the rough rule of thumb is to replace surge protectors every 5 years (or immediately if there's some evidence they clamped a big event). I'd again base this on what you're actually connecting to it. If you had really high dollar stuff, I'd also look at getting something for the service entrance - it's actually mandatory in the NEC as of 2020. That'll be way more effective than these power strips anyway.
 

Rajaah

Honorable Member
<Gold Donor>
15,363
22,641
Pay the $6 and get one 5am overnight from Amazon.

Using a different one right now. Turns out one of the two outlets in the wall behind the TV is dead. I'll need to get that fixed. Going to order a giant wall-based surge protector and plug everything TV-related into that.

I reorganized the TV setup for the first time in many years, and bundled all the cords through the TV stand so for the first time ever I don't have cords hanging anywhere.

PXL_20260503_040906367.MP.jpg
PXL_20260503_041040318.MP.jpg
PXL_20260503_022104920.jpg
PXL_20260503_052602495.jpg

Koushirou Koushirou should like this
 

Rajaah

Honorable Member
<Gold Donor>
15,363
22,641
The metal oxide varistors in there degrade as they soak up overvoltage events. They typically have a thermal fuse in front to protect from bursting in a high energy event or overheating as their leakage current gets too high. If the light is off, my assumption is the fuse tripped and there is no power going to the the protection circuit. It would be likely safe to plug in (you can have it plugged in in an open area and check for any hot spots to be sure), but isn't going to protect any downstream components. If you've already got something upstream of it, maybe that doesn't matter - I'd also make the determination based on what you expect to plug into it - since you're planning on hooking up TVs and systems, I'd probably just buy a new one and save this for people to plug in cell phone chargers or something elsewhere.

By the way, it depends on the power quality you have, but the rough rule of thumb is to replace surge protectors every 5 years (or immediately if there's some evidence they clamped a big event). I'd again base this on what you're actually connecting to it. If you had really high dollar stuff, I'd also look at getting something for the service entrance - it's actually mandatory in the NEC as of 2020. That'll be way more effective than these power strips anyway.

Service entrance?

Yeah, that's what I figured, the protection got tripped on it and it's usable but needs to be replaced. The other one I'm using still has protection on it, also mad old though. Getting something newer/better for that wall. It's only for the five TV-related cords. I can't get back there anyway. Using the actual good surge protector for everything else, need to relocate it since II'm no longer running all kinds of cords everywhere.

Next step is to fix up my entire place the way I fixed up the TV area. I moved in a couple years ago and it looks like I moved in last week, depression from a death will do that.