Surge protector fail..

During a thunderstorm we were discussing the use of surge protectors here... as there would be little use in talking about them further before seeing whats inside, i opened a cheap one, and found whats in the picture.

Sure, there is a MOV in there, but its connected after a flimsy fuse (cant read the number on it, looks like ~ 500 mA). In case of a voltage spike all it does is blow the fuse and make the little neon lamp go out.

Note how:

- the mains current is routed straight through, not -behind- the fuse
- there is no connection to earth whatsoever, so if both phases lift 10 kV above ground, thats YOUR problem

Entirely useless device, though i think it must have been really cheap.

Wow that thing is a piece of junk. Even from a quick glacé at the photo I can tell you are correct. The only thing a surge will do is cause the light to go out. :wtf:

I wonder what the designers were thingking.... when the light is off, everything connected is mucked up?

The saddest part of it all is that they could have made this device effective by placing the output socket after the MOV and fuse. It wouldn't have been a silver bullet, but at least it would have served some protective function if they did

There is a snubber cap connected to ground, but there isn't much protection in there. This device is the same ones used in S.Korea 2 prong 220-240Vac with a centre tap to Ground.

In this unit -nothing- connects to ground at all... the circuitry is between the two phases only, the grounding part is only connecting the wall plug to the socket.

In europe there is no distinct difference between phase and neutral - the plugs fit in both ways around (both the grounded and the ungrounded types). By convention the phase is connect to the left connector on wall plugs, but thats about it, and even that is not required.