Surge protection - What do you use? PDU?

[velma]

With all the money that is invested in the hardware that makes up a mining rig, I never really see anyone talking about how to protect a rig from power surges.

I have two mining rigs plugged into two separate 15 amp, 125v outlets, and I'm using surge protection on those rigs.

I'm now building a couple other rigs , but I need to plug them into a 20 amp 240v receptacle, and I'm really not sure what to use to protect these rigs.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that a PDU has surge protection.

My outlet is far enough away from  my two mining rigs that I need some type of extension. I found a surge suppressor, but it's only rated at 15 amp 125v.

Any ideas on what to use? All of the PDUs that I see have L6-30P cords that are for 30 amp receptacles.

[NeuroticFish]

Any ideas on what to use? All of the PDUs that I see have L6-30P cords that are for 30 amp receptacles.

I am not a miner, but I do use surge protection at home, or at least I hope that the devices I've bought do this job good enough.
Most of my surge protectors at home are made by APC. I use mostly this one, but I also have some of this.

Looking for the numbers, I've seen that this looks more powerful = "Peak Current Common Mode 48kAmps", instead of 30kAmps for what I use. However, it's kAmp, not Amp. Do we talk about the same thing? However, take a look there, the technical specs tab looks pretty good, although you may understand more than I do from all those numbers.

[whoismoses]

I am in the US. I have a whole house surge protector but that doesn't protect you from surges on the same circuit. So I use a combination of a whole house surge protector, PDUs, and 240v capable surge protectors per mining rig. Having the ability to plug multiple devices into the single power strip / surge protector comes in handy. For example all of my rigs have multiple PSUs plus a fan. I can control all three devices by plugging them into the power strip / surge protector. Here is how I have it setup.


PSU 1----------|Surge       |
PSU 2----------|Protector   |------- 240v capable smart switch (Wemo) ------- PDU ------ Electrical Panel
FAN 1 ---------|                |

I automate my whole setup using SmartThings and webCoRE.

PDU: Tripp Lite Metered PDU, 30A, 30 Outlets (6-C19 & 24-C13), 208/240V, L6-30P, (PDUMV30HV)

Surge Protector: Nekteck Travel Power Strip/Surge Protector Flat Wall Plug with 3 AC Outlets, 15W 3-Port USB

[whoismoses]

However, it's kAmp, not Amp.

The kAmp is part of the surge protection rating. He is talking about the line amps. I'm not an expert of surge protectors but I believe what this means technically is... The surge protector can handle up to 10A / 2300W running through it on normal use (the mining rig can pull that much, need to follow the 80% rule though). The surge protector can survive a 13kAmps surge (that I am not sure about). There are a lot of really smart people here. I'm sure someone will clarify, but I do know we are talking about two different things.

Also - Surge protectors don't live forever. They might "function" but they can lose their ability to protect.

[lunobird]

Surge protector?! Lol. You guys are wimps. That's like wearing a helmet when riding a bycile.  All I got is breakers and a cheap $20  240 volt oulet pdu

[Xazax310]

I don't even have that, just use 2500w 240v Surge protector I bought off amazon. Haven't had any problems with it at all.

[Bananana]

I use belkin surge protection mutiple plug, so far so good.

[westom1]

I have a whole house surge protector but that doesn't protect you from surges on the same circuit.

Actually it does protect. 

Meanwhile, define this 'surge'.  Never cure (or worry about) some problem or threat that is not first defined.  What is this 'surge'? 

Also be concerned.  Those plug-in protectors can even compromise what is better protection already inside a miner.

[Iannn]

These have a good reputation and are reasonably priced. 

https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-Protector-INSURANCE-ULTRABLOK/dp/B00006B81D/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&qid=1534612142&sr=8-20&keywords=surge+protector+outlet

[westom1]

These have a good reputation and are reasonably priced. 

They have a good reputation only when naive consumers are educated by hearsay, wild speculation, subjective reasoning, and advertising.  When it comes to protection, that Tripplite is known to even make surge damage easier. To compromise what is already better and robust protection inside appliances.  That means learning from science and over 100 years of experience.

Where is this 'good reputation'?  Only from emotions.

Where is this good price?   It costs $25 to protect only one appliance? And does not even claim to protect from potentially destructive surges.  Effective protection from direct lightning strikes costs about $1 per protected appliance.  That Tripplite is tens of time more expensive.

Where does that citation list how many joules it will absorb?  Number not posted because it is near zero (ie thousand joules).  Effective protection always answers this question.  Where are hundreds of thousands of joules harmlessly absorbed?  What happened to that good reputation?

Recently we removed many plug-in protectors.  All (including one that was that Tripplite) had catastrophic damage.  A potential fire fortunately did not get out of the box.  Meanwhile other companies known by any guy for integrity do not have all those threats and problem.  And are actually rated to protect from surges including and not limited to lightning.

Strongly recommended.  Properly earth a 'whole house' protector from other companies known for integrity.  Since that is necessary even to protect an expensive and near zero joule Tripplite.

[Nexigen]

Frankly, I don’t believe in very good level of PDU protection but I’m using one for every rig. I think that most important to have good PSU with high level of protection.

[CryptoAllDay]

No PDU here, but just a standard power strip with surge protection from GE (GE Surge Pro model).  I don't know how it compares to other builds, but I only have 2 miners and only experienced one blackout without any damage to the hardware.  So far so good.

[westom1]

I don't know how it compares to other builds, but I only have 2 miners and only experienced one blackout without any damage to the hardware.  So far so good.

A blackout is 120 volts dropping to zero volts.  A surge is 120 volts approaching or exceeding 1000 volts.

A surge protector does nothing - remains inert - until its let-through voltage is exceeded - 330 volts.  How does a blackout (zero volts) exceed 330 volts?  Obviously a surge protector does nothing for outages.

Outages do not damage hardware.  That myth exists because some get emotional (fearful) when a blackout occurs.  To hardware, a blackout and a power off are electrically same.  Neither cause hardware damage.

An adjacent protector does nothing for that anomaly.  And still that near zero joule protector get promoted as if it will cure all anomalies.

Only protector that does effective protection is a 'whole house' one. If any one miner needs that protection, then every household appliance also needs that protection.

[smoolae]

When I was still in a whole mining game I really didn't use any surge protector or UPS batteries. When something happened with power the worst that happened was BSOD but nothing else really. Just restart the rig and you were off again mining.

Also, sometimes a sharp power cut off resulted in corrupted GPU drivers, but this was also easy to fix with DDU and driver reinstall.

Never had any problems

[Iannn]

These have a good reputation and are reasonably priced. 

They have a good reputation only when naive consumers are educated by hearsay, wild speculation, subjective reasoning, and advertising.  When it comes to protection, that Tripplite is known to even make surge damage easier. To compromise what is already better and robust protection inside appliances.  That means learning from science and over 100 years of experience.

Where is this 'good reputation'?  Only from emotions.

Where is this good price?   It costs $25 to protect only one appliance? And does not even claim to protect from potentially destructive surges.  Effective protection from direct lightning strikes costs about $1 per protected appliance.  That Tripplite is tens of time more expensive.

Where does that citation list how many joules it will absorb?  Number not posted because it is near zero (ie thousand joules).  Effective protection always answers this question.  Where are hundreds of thousands of joules harmlessly absorbed?  What happened to that good reputation?

Recently we removed many plug-in protectors.  All (including one that was that Tripplite) had catastrophic damage.  A potential fire fortunately did not get out of the box.  Meanwhile other companies known by any guy for integrity do not have all those threats and problem.  And are actually rated to protect from surges including and not limited to lightning.

Strongly recommended.  Properly earth a 'whole house' protector from other companies known for integrity.  Since that is necessary even to protect an expensive and near zero joule Tripplite.

Ummm.... Are you ok man?  Yeah how many of us have "whole house" protectors in the works?......  If I thought the guy was looking for a whole house surge protector of the highest quality and installed by the most professional professionals I would not suggest a goddam $25 surge protector.  But I use them and I know other smaller time miners do also.  No massive fires or blown up gpu's yet.  But you will be the first to know when it happens.

[fanatic26_]

The power supply is your surge protector. Go take a look at the input voltages...most are 100v-240v...they all output steady 12v power. The worst that will happen is you will pop a PSU or trip a breaker. You are wasting your money on anything else.

[Iannn]

Yeah I am no expert on this stuff.  So its either a whole house surge protector or just the PSU?  Then whats the use of a whole house surge protector?  So I wasted $50 on useless surge protection crap.