POW100344 Surge Protector With Phone/Fax/Modem Line Protection, Black
Faster Response is more critical than amount of Joules
I have owned the Power Blocker II for a year and it is the best.  I just bought myself a Belkin for another electronics area in my home...when I could not find the PBII for sale.<br /><br />KEY ITEMS:<br /><br />*** Faster response time is more critical than number of joules.<br /><br />*** All you want is for your unit to be disconnected from the harmful surge.<br /><br />Just found the unit here at Amazon...and probably will buy another one.<br /><br />What follows is info I received from Power Sentry...which is owned by Fiskars:<br /><br />The amount of transient (lightning) joules the Power Blocker II can absorb is about 900 joules.  This number does not take into account the amount of joules that the Power Blocker II (PB2) switch is eliminating.  The response time of the MOV components (the 900 joules part) is &lt; 1 nanosecond.  The response time of the PB2 switch is about 2 milliseconds.  The way the Power Blocker II works is that the MOVs will clamp first and if the surge is of long duration, > 2 milliseconds, the PB2 switch will open and disconnect all possible electrical output paths.  The way other surge protectors work is that the MOVs will clamp, and if the surge is of long duration, the MOVs will heat up and burnout a thermal sensitive fuse placed beside the MOVs.  The heating and burnout time of the fuse is > 2 seconds, typically about 10-30 seconds.<br /><br />Other surge protectors attempt to absorb all of the surge energy entering the protector even though it may be excessive and cause MOV degradation.  The Power Blocker II detects when surge energy reaches a damaging level and disconnects all MOVs and equipment connections, thus interrupting the surge.  Therefore its MOVs are much less likely to suffer degradation or \\"wear out\\".  Because of this rapid disconnecting feature, which blocks any further surge energy, in effect the joules of energy attempting to enter the unit and equipment are unlimited because everything has been disconnected.<br /><br />The MOVs are not degraded when the unit trips as described.  Therefore the Power Blocker II should operate much longer than conventional surge protectors and will survive power company mistakes and wiring faults when others surge protectors will nearly always be destroyed.  So far we have not received any Power Blocker II returns with a MOV failure.> <br />The MOVs are not degraded when the unit trips as described.  Therefore the Power Blocker II should operate much longer than conventional surge protectors and will survive power company mistakes and wiring faults when others surge protectors will nearly always be destroyed.  So far we have not received any Power Blocker II returns with a MOV failure.  <br /> <br />