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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => LAB Lounge => Topic started by: Brian Marshall on April 17, 2014, 01:22:48 AM

Title: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: Brian Marshall on April 17, 2014, 01:22:48 AM
My question stems from a statement made in another thread. Reply #14

You should not (ever) be running power amps through a Furman (or any other) rack-mount "power conditioner"...

http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,148863.10.html

I am extremely interested in knowing why? Please elaborate.
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: TJ (Tom) Cornish on April 17, 2014, 07:14:29 AM
My question stems from a statement made in another thread. Reply #14

You should not (ever) be running power amps through a Furman (or any other) rack-mount "power conditioner"...

http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,148863.10.html

I am extremely interested in knowing why? Please elaborate.
For anything that is not a UPS or voltage regulator, "power conditioner" is a little generous. There is very little "conditioning" going on - primarily they are a power strip that takes up rack space.

It is not generally advised to plug amps into these, because the amps don't need "conditioned" power, and additional wiring between the source and the amp is a source for voltage drop and power loss. If you aren't running your amps full-out, it isn't a big deal, but if you are trying to get the most out of your system or if the voltage is soggy due to long cords, eliminating whatever you can will make a difference.
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: Robert Weston on April 17, 2014, 07:21:45 AM
Power conditioners are made (and better suited) for low voltage - continuous load - devices (i.e. effects, mixing consoles) basically anything that consumes a steady current.  They are not made for non-continuous (heavy load) devices like amplifiers.  Amplifier loads can widely swing from needing something as little as 1 amp of current up to 20amp (and higher depending on your amp) in a few milliseconds of time. 

We don't run any power conditioners on our rack of amplifiers; though, we do use a power conditioner/voltage stabilizer on our racks of outboard gear and mixing consoles.

Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: Bob Leonard on April 17, 2014, 08:24:53 AM
My question stems from a statement made in another thread. Reply #14

You should not (ever) be running power amps through a Furman (or any other) rack-mount "power conditioner"...

http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,148863.10.html (http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,148863.10.html)

I am extremely interested in knowing why? Please elaborate.

Power conditioning equipment of any type is sized for the load to be handled. Mixers and effects units draw very little current and the use of a UPS is practical based on their needs. Keeping in mind that a UPS is designed and intended to be used to protect your equipment from brown outs, spikes, dirty power, and loss of power. In the event power is lost the UPS is designed to provide enough reserve power to the equipment to allow you to gracefully shut the equipment down, preventing loss of cached data and possibly corrupting the OS and firmware.
 
Power amps draw large amounts of current and in most cases a UPS capable of handling those type of loads will be large enough to make the use of the UPS impractical. A typical 3000 watt rack mount UPS will weigh close to 100 pounds and if the UPS is being used to it's full potential will usually provide power for 5-10 minutes max. There are UPS capable of providing 1000s of watts of reserve power, but as I had stated, the cost and size makes using them in the field for backup not practical. For data centers a specially designed UPS and generators provide long term uninterrupted power without any outage for days or even weeks if needed.
 
For power amps a good quality rack mounted surge protector will do the job of protecting the equipment from spikes, however, a voltage conditioner will be a better choice and one or two per rack will usually do the job. for digital mixers and outboard effects or DSP a 300 to 500 watt UPS per rack will usually do the trick just fine. And finally always size the device to fit your needs properly. If you have questions the manufactures web sites will point you in the right direction, and in the end your choices will be limited to how much you want to spend, and how much you can lift.
 
 
 
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: TJ (Tom) Cornish on April 17, 2014, 08:59:18 AM

Power conditioning equipment of any type is sized for the load to be handled. Mixers and effects units draw very little current and the use of a UPS is practical based on their needs. Keeping in mind that a UPS is designed and intended to be used to protect your equipment from brown outs, spikes, dirty power, and loss of power. In the event power is lost the UPS is designed to provide enough reserve power to the equipment to allow you to gracefully shut the equipment down, preventing loss of cached data and possibly corrupting the OS and firmware.
 
Power amps draw large amounts of current and in most cases a UPS capable of handling those type of loads will be large enough to make the use of the UPS impractical. A typical 3000 watt rack mount UPS will weigh close to 100 pounds and if the UPS is being used to it's full potential will usually provide power for 5-10 minutes max. There are UPS capable of providing 1000s of watts of reserve power, but as I had stated, the cost and size makes using them in the field for backup not practical. For data centers a specially designed UPS and generators provide long term uninterrupted power without any outage for days or even weeks if needed.
Furthermore, UPS devices are designed for continuous loads like computers.  A "3000 watt" amp may draw much more power instantaneously than a 3000 watt UPS can supply, making UPS damage likely, or at the very least defeating the purpose of the UPS by causing the UPS to drop its load.

For power amps a good quality rack mounted surge protector will do the job of protecting the equipment from spikes,
Power amps are some of the best-protected, least picky devices out there, and other than extreme hits (where so-called "conditioners" are minimally effective anyway), don't benefit from any "filtering".  You can make an argument that if it's a good-quality 20A unit, electrical losses will be minimal and there may be some marginal additional protection, however unless you are using one conditioner per amp, you are combining devices on fewer circuits than you perhaps would be if you plugged each amp into a dedicated circuit.
however, a voltage conditioner will be a better choice and one or two per rack will usually do the job. for digital mixers and outboard effects or DSP a 300 to 500 watt UPS per rack will usually do the trick just fine. And finally always size the device to fit your needs properly. If you have questions the manufactures web sites will point you in the right direction, and in the end your choices will be limited to how much you want to spend, and how much you can lift.
I'm presuming you mean a voltage regulator, and yes, that has some value.
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: Bob Leonard on April 17, 2014, 09:16:11 AM
Correct on all counts Tom.
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: g'bye, Dick Rees on April 17, 2014, 09:16:50 AM
My question stems from a statement made in another thread. Reply #14

You should not (ever) be running power amps through a Furman (or any other) rack-mount "power conditioner"...

http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,148863.10.html

I am extremely interested in knowing why? Please elaborate.

Brian...

TJ and Bob give good info.  But here's the question:

What do you mean by "power conditioner"?

This term is so generic as to require a link or reference to a particular device for your answer.  What is generally needed for power regulation in typical sound system usage is voltage regulation....because as has often been said, power conditioners don't (do anything).

If you study the thread from which you took your link, you'll get a better understanding of the different devices, tyeir applications and capabilities and why they are or are not appropriate.
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: Thomas Le on April 17, 2014, 09:24:57 AM
By power conditioner, do you mean those Furman units with the pull out lamps and the voltmeter? Those are nothing but glorified power strips I can find at Walmart.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"
Post by: jasonfinnigan on April 17, 2014, 09:52:41 AM
Indeed. Most of the Furmans units use MOVs the same thing that's an any home grade $20 power strip. You are getting shafted if you are buying these. They don't protect anything very well.

If you really want something to protect SurgeX makes a few well I think only two models the 20AMP and 15AMP version. We use them on our Digital Consoles but they are more expensive than the furmans at around $800 but they provide way more protection than something like a furman using MOVs would. Not to mention a lot of those furmans just move a normal mode surge to a common mode surge which is just as bad if not worse.
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: Tim McCulloch on April 17, 2014, 10:18:07 AM
My question stems from a statement made in another thread. Reply #14

You should not (ever) be running power amps through a Furman (or any other) rack-mount "power conditioner"...

http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,148863.10.html

I am extremely interested in knowing why? Please elaborate.

The condensed reply - power amps draw far more (however briefly) than their continuous rating and such current draw will be too much for the "power conditioner; "power conditioners"  don't really condition anything (AVR units not included) as all they offer is some voltage surge protection by using sacrificial components (Metal Oxide Varistors) that will introduce their own problems later on; power amps DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' "conditioners."  Period.  Read John Robert's comments on this subject...

Spend your money on stuff that makes noise, I think microphones are good as you'll keep all but the cheapest for longer than you'll own a particular speaker, amp or EFX unit.
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: Geoff Doane on April 17, 2014, 10:28:53 AM
Indeed. Most of the Furmans units use MOVs the same thing that's an any home grade $20 power strip. You are getting shafted if you are buying these. They don't protect anything very well.


I think you and Thomas are being a little bit harsh about the Furmans here.

It's true that their ability to "clean up" dirty power (whatever that is) may be suspect, but they do give you some indication of what the line voltage is.  Even if the absolute accuracy is not that great, it will tell you if the voltage is sagging on the kick drum hits, or if it goes high when the club's air conditioner kicks in on one of the other phases (yes, I've seen both).  It's a whole lot better than a regular power bar because it's mounted in the rack, and it's always there, not something you have to remember to plug in.

And even if MOVs are not the best protection technology, they do work when those gross overvoltage situations happen.  Just last month, on a gig I was supplying gear for, the bass player arrived first, and plugged his powerbar (not a Furman) into the quad box the event company had put out on the stage.  There was a brief BANG, and the powerbar sacrificed itself.  My tech on site pulled out his voltmeter, and measured 213V on one duplex and 112 on the other.  Classic case of somebody mixing up a neutral and hot when they replaced an L14-20 plug.  (The event company was quite unapologetic. "It's not like we were charging you for the powerdrop.")

Even when the power has been metered first, things can go south in a hurry.  A number of years ago with another rig, the neutral fell off at the tie-in point (connected by the house electrician, but obviously not torqued down tight enough.  I suspect it was cross-threaded.).  The feed to FOH went high, but everything in the rack was plugged into a PL-Plus, and it clamped the voltage to something tolerable, resulting in no damage to the rack equipment.  The console, which was not on the load side of the Furman, suffered a failed bridge rectifier in the PSU (possibly an under spec'd part to start with), and had to be replaced before showtime.  I don't recall if the breaker in the Furman tripped or not, but the bottom line is, most of the equipment was undamaged, and the failed gear was fairly easy to fix.

The only downside I can see is that the MOVs can become leaky, and actually inject noise into the ground of your system.  Many people clip them out for this reason, but replacement would make more sense, since they are giving you some measure of protection from unpredictable power.

Of course they can't do anything about brownouts or any noise that is on the line.  For that, a double-conversion UPS is really the only solution, but as has already been mentioned, it's just not practical to power your amplifiers from that.

GTD
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: TJ (Tom) Cornish on April 17, 2014, 10:34:46 AM
; "power conditioners" unless built by SurgEx, don't really condition anything
To be completely correct, SurgEx devices don't "condition" anything either - they are a higher-quality surge suppressor that clamps at a lower voltage than MOVs, and do so in a non-sacrificial manner.  They are the best surge protectors on the market, however they don't fix bad power.

As Geoff mentioned, truly conditioning the power - changing whatever garbage arrives into a clean sine wave - requires a double conversion UPS - one that uses line power to charge the battery, and the load is always run from the inverter.
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: Tim McCulloch on April 17, 2014, 10:35:20 AM
I think you and Thomas are being a little bit harsh about the Furmans here.

It's true that their ability to "clean up" dirty power (whatever that is) may be suspect, but they do give you some indication of what the line voltage is.  Even if the absolute accuracy is not that great, it will tell you if the voltage is sagging on the kick drum hits, or if it goes high when the club's air conditioner kicks in on one of the other phases (yes, I've seen both).  It's a whole lot better than a regular power bar because it's mounted in the rack, and it's always there, not something you have to remember to plug in.

And even if MOVs are not the best protection technology, they do work when those gross overvoltage situations happen.  Just last month, on a gig I was supplying gear for, the bass player arrived first, and plugged his powerbar (not a Furman) into the quad box the event company had put out on the stage.  There was a brief BANG, and the powerbar sacrificed itself.  My tech on site pulled out his voltmeter, and measured 213V on one duplex and 112 on the other.  Classic case of somebody mixing up a neutral and hot when they replaced an L14-20 plug.  (The event company was quite unapologetic. "It's not like we were charging you for the powerdrop.")

Even when the power has been metered first, things can go south in a hurry.  A number of years ago with another rig, the neutral fell off at the tie-in point (connected by the house electrician, but obviously not torqued down tight enough.  I suspect it was cross-threaded.).  The feed to FOH went high, but everything in the rack was plugged into a PL-Plus, and it clamped the voltage to something tolerable, resulting in no damage to the rack equipment.  The console, which was not on the load side of the Furman, suffered a failed bridge rectifier in the PSU (possibly an under spec'd part to start with), and had to be replaced before showtime.  I don't recall if the breaker in the Furman tripped or not, but the bottom line is, most of the equipment was undamaged, and the failed gear was fairly easy to fix.

The only downside I can see is that the MOVs can become leaky, and actually inject noise into the ground of your system.  Many people clip them out for this reason, but replacement would make more sense, since they are giving you some measure of protection from unpredictable power.

Of course they can't do anything about brownouts or any noise that is on the line.  For that, a double-conversion UPS is really the only solution, but as has already been mentioned, it's just not practical to power your amplifiers from that.

GTD

And the Furman and similar units will fail sooner or later when used to power up an amp rack of any significant capacity.

I have no problem with using them or their ilk on lower current draw items that need or benefit from such protection, but PA system power amps do not need them.
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: Tim McCulloch on April 17, 2014, 10:36:14 AM
To be completely correct, SurgEx devices don't "condition" anything either - they are a higher-quality surge suppressor that clamps at a lower voltage than MOVs, and do so in a non-sacrificial manner.  They are the best surge protectors on the market, however they don't fix bad power.

As Geoff mentioned, truly conditioning the power - changing whatever garbage arrives into a clean sine wave - requires a double conversion UPS - one that uses line power to charge the battery, and the load is always run from the inverter.

fixed it
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: TJ (Tom) Cornish on April 17, 2014, 10:39:53 AM
I think you and Thomas are being a little bit harsh about the Furmans here.

It's true that their ability to "clean up" dirty power (whatever that is) may be suspect, but they do give you some indication of what the line voltage is.  Even if the absolute accuracy is not that great, it will tell you if the voltage is sagging on the kick drum hits, or if it goes high when the club's air conditioner kicks in on one of the other phases (yes, I've seen both).  It's a whole lot better than a regular power bar because it's mounted in the rack, and it's always there, not something you have to remember to plug in.

And even if MOVs are not the best protection technology, they do work when those gross overvoltage situations happen.  Just last month, on a gig I was supplying gear for, the bass player arrived first, and plugged his powerbar (not a Furman) into the quad box the event company had put out on the stage.  There was a brief BANG, and the powerbar sacrificed itself.  My tech on site pulled out his voltmeter, and measured 213V on one duplex and 112 on the other.  Classic case of somebody mixing up a neutral and hot when they replaced an L14-20 plug.  (The event company was quite unapologetic. "It's not like we were charging you for the powerdrop.")

Even when the power has been metered first, things can go south in a hurry.  A number of years ago with another rig, the neutral fell off at the tie-in point (connected by the house electrician, but obviously not torqued down tight enough.  I suspect it was cross-threaded.).  The feed to FOH went high, but everything in the rack was plugged into a PL-Plus, and it clamped the voltage to something tolerable, resulting in no damage to the rack equipment.  The console, which was not on the load side of the Furman, suffered a failed bridge rectifier in the PSU (possibly an under spec'd part to start with), and had to be replaced before showtime.  I don't recall if the breaker in the Furman tripped or not, but the bottom line is, most of the equipment was undamaged, and the failed gear was fairly easy to fix.

The only downside I can see is that the MOVs can become leaky, and actually inject noise into the ground of your system.  Many people clip them out for this reason, but replacement would make more sense, since they are giving you some measure of protection from unpredictable power.

Of course they can't do anything about brownouts or any noise that is on the line.  For that, a double-conversion UPS is really the only solution, but as has already been mentioned, it's just not practical to power your amplifiers from that.

GTD
Some Furmans have over-voltage shutdown, and that is indeed valuable.

Expanding on what you are saying about lost neutrals, the neutral wire will always be "pulled" towards the leg with the most load - amps or lighting.  This will result in an under-voltage configuration, something that a "power conditioner" will not be able to help - another reason why they are of limited value on high-current devices.  In FOH racks, a device with over-voltage shutdown is a good thing.
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"
Post by: jasonfinnigan on April 17, 2014, 10:57:00 AM
True that none of these really offer conditioning but they do offer protection which can always be valuable, espcially if you are running on a generator. Though some of them anymore do a pretty good job on there own on the nice once that we have rented. they've come a long way.

To get true conditioning you would need a UPS but it's very impracticable my other job is a Network Administrator and  I can tell you would not want to lug these around. for one the space it takes up, your looking at multiple racks full of UPS power. Not to mention these can be very dangerous they can explode easily it usually take a cord somehow getting losing in the UPS or the battery units and shorting out - but that just siting in racks in a data center think of touring on the road with something like that, they would get beat around all the time. Not a good idea.

I also don't think you usually need a conditioner on power amps. Class D amps yeah they probably would, but a rack of amps are a lot more tolerable to power fluctuation than a class D amp or a digital console (granted your output power might suffer some on the amps).


Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"
Post by: TJ (Tom) Cornish on April 17, 2014, 11:03:53 AM
Class D amps yeah they probably would?
Why do you think so?  Many class D amps have universal power supplies and can accept 100-240 volts.  The better ones have power factor correction, meaning they can function on much weaker supplies than conventional amps.
Title: Power Conditioners on Amps
Post by: Russ Davis on April 17, 2014, 02:07:07 PM
I have no problem with using them or their ilk on lower current draw items that need or benefit from such protection, but PA system power amps do not need them.

I've always adhered to that philosophy, but... how does one protect the DSP on amps so equipped?
Title: Re: Power Conditioners on Amps
Post by: TJ (Tom) Cornish on April 17, 2014, 02:13:22 PM
I've always adhered to that philosophy, but... how does one protect the DSP on amps so equipped?
Why do you assume the DSP needs protection?  Amp designers know what they are making - a DSP engine that has to survive strapped to a rocket ship that sucks the mains voltage down to 100 volts on heavy peaks, etc. 
Title: Re: Power Conditioners on Amps
Post by: jasonfinnigan on April 17, 2014, 02:15:45 PM
I've always adhered to that philosophy, but... how does one protect the DSP on amps so equipped?

Most power supply's do their own filtering of some sort using Capacitors and etc. While I'm sure it *Could* be damaged the likely hood of that being damaged without the whole thing going down is low. I would assume most of the engineers know more than us when building a power circuit.
Title: Re: Power Conditioners on Amps
Post by: g'bye, Dick Rees on April 17, 2014, 02:18:40 PM
I've always adhered to that philosophy, but... how does one protect the DSP on amps so equipped?

Meter your power.

Have "enough rig for the gig".

Know what you're doing.

Carry spares.
Title: Re: Power Conditioners on Amps
Post by: Russ Davis on April 17, 2014, 03:28:55 PM
Why do you assume the DSP needs protection?  Amp designers know what they are making - a DSP engine that has to survive strapped to a rocket ship that sucks the mains voltage down to 100 volts on heavy peaks, etc.

Since we routinely protect power to our DSP, mixers, etc., at FOH, we are now expected to presume designers would make the amp-mounted DSPs sufficiently robust (especially when integrated into active speakers), but that's a bit of a leap of faith.  Otherwise, why not make ALL signal processors, FOH or otherwise, resistant to power anomalies?
Title: Re: Power Conditioners on Amps
Post by: TJ (Tom) Cornish on April 17, 2014, 03:33:48 PM
Since we routinely protect power to our DSP, mixers, etc., at FOH, we are now expected to presume designers would make the amp-mounted DSPs sufficiently robust (especially when integrated into active speakers), but that's a bit of a leap of faith.  Otherwise, why not make ALL signal processors, FOH or otherwise, resistant to power anomalies?
I would argue that generally they are.  There are a few devices that are overly power-sensitive - older Presonus StudioLives and a couple other things, but generally equipment is fine unless you're really abusing cord length and have voltage drop problems.  In that case, a power conditioner won't help you either.

I have a digital mixer, DSP amps, wireless mic receivers, IEM transmitters, keyboards, computers, video equipment.  I don't put "power conditioners" on any of it, unless I want a nice rack mount power strip with a switch on the front.

In my regular rig, there's only one power conditioner device in it, and it's an old Furman with the MOVs clipped.  Everything else is direct distribution.
Title: Re: Power Conditioners on Amps
Post by: jasonfinnigan on April 17, 2014, 03:40:58 PM
but generally equipment is fine unless you're really abusing cord length and have voltage drop problems.  In that case, a power conditioner won't help you either.

Or using too low of gauge for the power draw. I've seen people trying to  draw 20AMPs on 16 gauge to 100ft. I personally use 10 gauge for most things.

I can attest that most power supply's are resilient to under-voltage. We rented some Powered Monitors (don't remember if they were RCF or DBtech) and our stage stringer had to much power drop at the other side of the stage where one was being used. The speakers would not even attempt to cut on (protecting itself). fixed the power drop and it worked fine.

Title: Re: Power Conditioners on Amps
Post by: Tim McCulloch on April 17, 2014, 04:01:47 PM
Since we routinely protect power to our DSP, mixers, etc., at FOH, we are now expected to presume designers would make the amp-mounted DSPs sufficiently robust (especially when integrated into active speakers), but that's a bit of a leap of faith.  Otherwise, why not make ALL signal processors, FOH or otherwise, resistant to power anomalies?
Processing internal to the amp shares the same PSU as the amp itself and should share the same voltage regulation and protection afforded the CPU and ad/da converters that are part of the amp design itself.

It's a non problem for internal DSP.  For an external DSP unit do whatever makes you comfortable.

I've NEVER had a Furman "power conditioner" save anything....

Title: Re: Power Conditioners on Amps
Post by: g'bye, Dick Rees on April 17, 2014, 04:33:21 PM
Processing internal to the amp shares the same PSU as the amp itself and should share the same voltage regulation and protection afforded the CPU and ad/da converters that are part of the amp design itself.

It's a non problem for internal DSP.  For an external DSP unit do whatever makes you comfortable.

I've NEVER had a Furman save anything....

AR1215's have saved my a** and the show a couple of times...more than enough to pay for themselves.  Of course, they are not "power conditioners", but pretty fair line voltage regulators.
Title: Re: Power Conditioners on Amps
Post by: Tim McCulloch on April 17, 2014, 04:36:04 PM
AR1215's have saved my a** and the show a couple of times...more than enough to pay for themselves.  Of course, they are not "power conditioners", but pretty fair line voltage regulators.

I've never used their AVR products, only the kind marketed as "conditioners".  That is my experience base for the comment (now more specific in my post).
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: Brian Marshall on April 18, 2014, 10:02:49 AM
Brian...

TJ and Bob give good info.  But here's the question:

What do you mean by "power conditioner"?

This term is so generic as to require a link or reference to a particular device for your answer.  What is generally needed for power regulation in typical sound system usage is voltage regulation....because as has often been said, power conditioners don't (do anything).

If you study the thread from which you took your link, you'll get a better understanding of the different devices, their applications and capabilities and why they are or are not appropriate.

I was asking specifically about what was mentioned in the thread in question. The Furman "power conditioners", also known as "rack mounted power strips". I am not interested in the use of UPS's or the multi-thousand dollar protection devices meant to save multi-thousand dollar corporate computer systems.

My curiosity exists because I employ the use of a Monster Power Pro 2500 in the FOH rack, and another one in the amp rack (Crown XTI series) If I were doing something that would endanger my amps, or prevent them from providing their rated output power, I would stop using it immediately. I will state for the record that in the case of my used Monster Pro 2500, it absolutely does something for the $100 I paid for it.

I was lighting a wedding gig with a ten foot steel truss with halogen 38's. I had plugged the dimmer pack directly into the wall and hung it on the truss. I proceeded to climb a ladder to start hanging cans. When I grabbed the dimmer box and the truss (both steel) I was presented with an unfriendly tingle up my arms! So back down the ladder I go, plugged the MP 2500 into the wall, then the dimmer pack into it, and guess what...no more shocks while hanging the cans! So I figure, if it's good enough for my body, it must be good enough for the Crowns. I've read all of the responses to this thread already, and realize these points have been covered. It took me a little longer to catch up and reply. Thanks everyone for your input/responses!
Title: Re: Power Conditioners on Amps
Post by: Robert Weston on April 18, 2014, 10:09:50 AM
AR1215's have saved my a** and the show a couple of times...more than enough to pay for themselves.  Of course, they are not "power conditioners", but pretty fair line voltage regulators.

+1
Title: Re: Proper use of a "power conditioner"?
Post by: Tim Perry on April 18, 2014, 11:20:32 AM
I was asking specifically about what was mentioned in the thread in question. The Furman "power conditioners", also known as "rack mounted power strips". I am not interested in the use of UPS's or the multi-thousand dollar protection devices meant to save multi-thousand dollar corporate computer systems.

My curiosity exists because I employ the use of a Monster Power Pro 2500 in the FOH rack, and another one in the amp rack (Crown XTI series) If I were doing something that would endanger my amps, or prevent them from providing their rated output power, I would stop using it immediately. I will state for the record that in the case of my used Monster Pro 2500, it absolutely does something for the $100 I paid for it.

I was lighting a wedding gig with a ten foot steel truss with halogen 38's. I had plugged the dimmer pack directly into the wall and hung it on the truss. I proceeded to climb a ladder to start hanging cans. When I grabbed the dimmer box and the truss (both steel) I was presented with an unfriendly tingle up my arms! So back down the ladder I go, plugged the MP 2500 into the wall, then the dimmer pack into it, and guess what...no more shocks while hanging the cans! So I figure, if it's good enough for my body, it must be good enough for the Crowns. I've read all of the responses to this thread already, and realize these points have been covered. It took me a little longer to catch up and reply. Thanks everyone for your input/responses!

The MP 2500 has a handy built in line fault checker. That and a circuit breaker is its only safety function. Some of the outlets have some type of RF filtering which may reduce some types of line induced buzz.

To consider this thing shock preventing device is dangerous and foolhardy.

Your experience with the dim packs likely had some other factor involved.
Title: Re: Power Conditioners on Amps
Post by: frank kayser on April 18, 2014, 01:01:36 PM
AR1215's have saved my a** and the show a couple of times...more than enough to pay for themselves.  Of course, they are not "power conditioners", but pretty fair line voltage regulators.


I don't know if it saved my posterior, but it is a bit of piece of mind.  Nice when the genny line hits 100v at FOH.  As far as smoothing out the crap power from an construction genny, that's an entirely different kettle of fish.   At least the voltage is there - for better or worse...  Running that through the double conversion UPS after the 1215 would be a bit sweeter.


Low voltage - another thing power conditioners won't help at all with.  And by the way, the Crown XTI amps DO NOT LIKE low voltage (<=100 volts)  They tend to clip prematurely and sound dreadful when they do.[size=78%] [/size]


frank