Power protection is something most AV integration customers don’t think about until it’s too late, but surge protection products, along with power conditioning products, are the unsung heroes of the electronics industry.
Well-designed surge-protection and power conditioning products are capable of defending against harmful power spikes and surges for everything from networking components to amplifiers to video displays to security systems.
Power conditioning add benefits such as radio frequency (RF) and electromagnetic interference (EMI) filtering and even voltage regulation to help connected products maximize their respective designed performance parameters and life expectancies.
The problem with the surge protection product market is the plethora of marketing terms that make any sort of product research nearly impossible to execute without some sort of engineering background.
Helping to navigate these terms, CI asked a panel of power conditioning industry experts to decipher the jargon that proliferates their profession.
Metal Oxide Varistors (MOVs)
Realistically it’s impossible to fully grasp the technologies used within the power protection product market in one article.
It is possible,however, to build a basic understanding of some of the legitimate technologies the market employs to help sort through the myriad of so-called “magical” solutions that populate the market.
The most fundamental protection technologies used to safeguard electronic equipment are metal oxide varistors (MOVs) and avalanche diode circuits.
Christos Desalernos, power product manager, Nortek Security & Control (NSC), says MOV designs are the most prevalent technologies upon which protection circuits in the power protection industry are based for a number of reasons.
“The most commonly used surge suppressors are MOV technology. They are cost effective and work quite well,” notes Desalernos. “If only MOVs are used in the circuit they will sacrifice themselves to protect equipment.”
Read more: Everything AV Pros Really Need to Know About Power Conditioning
