Power Conditioner for RP - DLP (1 Viewer)

[Jesper_B]

I'm new to the HT scene and new to the forum. It rocks BTW!

I just purchased a 56" rear projection DLP and naturally want to protect my investment in HT wonderland!

I live in an area with the occasional power outage. Far more common are "brown outs" - the power doesn't go out, but everything fades and comes back up. I want clean power, so I figured I'd get a power conditioner. So far, none of the ones I have looked at (monster and belkin) seem to have a battery backup built into them.
As a temporary solution I have a best buy APC UPS that the tv plugs in to, but I have a hunch that it isn't going to have enough juice to power the tv long enough for me to run over and turn off the tv so that the fan can cool the lamp down for a proper shutdown.

What does everybody else do? Suggestions/Opinions etc are most welcome!

 

[Chu Gai]

If you own your own home, Jesper, you would be well advised to first install what's known as a whole house surge protection system. That way, all incoming lines to your home (AC, phone, data, cable) would first pass through the device(s) before entering your home. This creates a perimeter defence that will not only offer protection for your HT investment, but also anything else in your home that's electronic.

At that point you use secondary means of protection or what I call point-of-use or plug-in devices where desired. In your particular case, you want to address two particular concerns.

1) Protection against electrical anomalies like surges, glitches, noise, etc.
2) Maintaining a constant voltage for a period of time when you experience a brown out.

Now, with respect to 2) above, you haven't said what the duration of the undervoltages are and just how low the voltages go. If you go for the UPS approach, the former will be important to know, as will the power consumption of the devices attached to it in order to size the unit properly. While many of the companies such as APC, TrippLite, or Best offer online calculators to help you with an appropriate selection, it's also good to use their toll-free numbers and speak to some applications person to run things past. With respect to the latter (how low the voltages go), you should have an understanding of this because different UPS's treat this in different ways. For example, if your drop is only something like 5 volts, many UPS's don't treat this as a problem. Others may look to correct by whatever means, including battery, anything out of a fairly tight tolerance.

Now APC for one, does offer an audiophile type device (I don't recall the model(s)), but like anything that's audiophile, the price isn't all that trivial. Monster also has products that use something like an internal motorized Variac that constantly adjusts your voltage to maintain a relatively constant one. My gut feeling on this is that you need to determine the power consumption of your TV. That information will be on the back of the unit as well as in your manual. You then need to find out what the cool down time is for the bulb. Let's say it's 5 minutes. I'd then look for a device, with whatever additional bells and whistles you want such as displaying the voltage, that'd run for maybe 3 or 4 times as long.

 

[Jesper_B]

Thanks for the advice Chu.

Unfortunately I don't own the house.

I'm not sure how I would test the voltage drops during brownouts, I'm assuming that there is some type of equipment I could purchase or rent for a while that would tell me this?

As you suggested, I took a look at Triplite, APC and Best Power.
According to my TV manual the power consumtion is 205W and the lamp consumption is listed at 110W.
I found the following comparable units:
APC SUA750
TrippLite SMART750SLT
Best Power Fortress

They all seem pretty comparable and can handle 375VA/250W for 20 mintues (half load). Does this appear to be an adequate battery backup system in your opinion?
The TV model is a JVC HD567BP7. That and a sony dvd player are the only pieces of equipment I have currently. After forum browsing I've settled on the Yamaha RXV-2600 for a receiver.
Assuming I purchase one of the afore mentioned battery backup units, would getting something like a Monster HTS 2500 MKII for the receiver and the dvd player be overkill?

 

[Chu Gai]

Well Jesper, you could always monitor the voltage during these brownouts with a multimeter. Basic ones are pretty inexpensive. Although, if you're noticing severe dimming of your lights, this might not be so necessary.

IMO, since you're a renter and are looking to be able to shut down your lamp in an orderly fashion, I think you ought to be looking at products that also provide some basic surge protection not only for you AC (not air conditioning but the wall outlets) as well as your cable. Also, it's not such a terrible idea for the device to have the ability to monitor voltages but other parameters such as battery life. This way you're not caught with your pants down. As an example, consider the line of products from Tripplite that have to do with people that have AV setups such as yourself: http://www.tripplite.com/products/au...nsumer_ups.cfm

If we look at the Smart1200LCD, $247 list (should be able to find it for less online, I found it for $140), it'll run for about 11 minutes with a half load of 350 watts. I'm not sure if I'm figuring out your power consumption the right way by adding 205 + 110 to give me a 315 watts potential draw, but better safe than sorry. So this device should give you plenty of time to turn off your system and also cool off your bulb. Also, it's got 8 outlets, 4 of which can be devoted to things that need battery back up and 4 that are strictly surge protected. So, you'll be able to hook up all your equipment to it. There's a display to monitor things and you can have the unit on your shelf or simply vertical. Either way, the display rotates to make life easier. It can correct for brownouts and overvoltages to a point without using the battery. Also, you can run your incoming cable, whether its CATV or satellite through it and this way you provide some protection against surges coming in.

That's only an idea Jesper. I'd recommend you look at comparable models that offer similar feature sets and capabilities from a couple of different companies then just comparison shop them on the web. Find out s/h, return policies, restocking fees, how they handle damages or defects, etc.

 

[Jesper_B]

Excellent information. Thank you much, I really appreciate it.