Surge Suppressors: Ever had one blow?

If surge Suppressors are supposed to protect equipment from damaging electrical spikes, then they should trip off if a spike occurs.

I don't think this has ever happened to me. What about you? Have you ever had one of these things trip to protect your equipment, or blow from a surge?

In a word, No. I've heard about lightning striking a house and blowing up a surge suppressor though.

"blow up" literally, no.... but I had a nice APC unit that gave up the ghost after a hurricane a couple years ago.

I've only seen them go from direct lightning strikes to radio equipment on the roof cabled into a device inside powered through one of these. Rather the opposite way most people expect them to work. I guess they save the rest of the building's electrical in those situations.

Ive never seen one blow with regular equipment plugged in.

I have had a direct lightning strike fry a UPS, the power supply and motherboard. Nothing is gonna stop a direct hit if its plugged in. I get surges/brown outs all the time and my UPS kicks in. Who knows what its protecting. I just don't lose anything I am working on.

Quote from repitall : I have had a direct lightning strike fry a UPS, the power supply and motherboard. Nothing is gonna stop a direct hit if its plugged in. I get surges/brown outs all the time and my UPS kicks in. Who knows what its protecting. I just don't lose anything I am working on.

Do you live in an area with very unreliable electric service?

Quote from Rebound : Do you live in an area with very unreliable electric service?

Not really, but I do live in the Lightning Capitol of the World...Tampa Florida.

I guess the question is...Are you questioning the use of a Surge protector?

Quote from repitall : I have had a direct lightning strike fry a UPS, the power supply and motherboard. Nothing is gonna stop a direct hit if its plugged in. I get surges/brown outs all the time and my UPS kicks in. Who knows what its protecting. I just don't lose anything I am working on.

Actually something similar happened to me last fall - had an electrical storm over night and thought - no matter, I have a UPS on my PC. Well I woke up to the PC making an odd noise. After LOTS of troubleshooting, the PSU was toast and the UPS as well. Thankfully the mobo and all other components survived.

Quote from repitall : Not really, but I do live in the Lightning Capitol of the World...Tampa Florida. I guess the question is...Are you questioning the use of a Surge protector?

I don't use surge protectors - I use UPS's.

Anecdotal story - I've had Dish Network for about 10 years and have had a DVR since I first had service installed. For a few years the unit was just plugged into the wall as usual and I had an inordinate number of failures (their boxes are just a specialized linux box, e.g. a PC). I eventually installed a UPS (not one of the "power pack" ones but a prosumer one) and VOILA no more failures. We don't live anywhere with an abnormal risk of surges or brownouts.... but the difference with and without UPSs is night & day.

Yep, when I connected a vacuum cleaner to it.

I had surge protectors with built in low voltage shut down, and they would often trip off because of low voltage (it would shut down at 95 volts).
I have received computers for repair that were blown from a lightning strike and the UPS, power supply and mobo, were all blown.
To get real lightning protection in your home, you're going to spend over $1,000, and even then, it's never 100%.
The power of lightning is enough to turn an object to vapor and ashes, if struck the right way, and no surge protection on Earth can give you guaranteed protection.
Some companies even offer X amount of dollars of protection for blown equipment, but they overprice the devices and the extra profit is like an insurance policy.
A small $25 surge protector is a good thing to have, to deal with voltage fluctuations, but spending a fortune trying to protect against lightning, seems like a waste of money.