If it works, it's invaluable protection for delicate electronic equipment.

Let's start with the short answer:

A surge suppressor is a shield. It protects your electrical circuits from damaging rushes of electricity through the power cord. Electrical devices - computers, TV's, stereos, appliances, telecommunications networks and on and on - have transformed our lives. They're wonderful. Unfortunately, they have to be plugged in. That leaves them vulnerable to power surges, the most spectacular of which are lightning strikes that couple into power lines and fry everything in their paths. These monsters can send up to 6,000 volts and 3,000 amps through your system for 50 microseconds or so - a short time, but more than enough to reduce any electronic network to a smoking wreck.

Lightning strikes are rare, of course, but power surges happen all the time. Most often, they're quiet upticks in voltage caused when equipment in your building cycles on and off. They're the mysterious "gremlins" that inexplicably crash perfectly good computer systems and wipe out valuable data.

Surges are small compared with lightning bolts, but they can easily reach 1,000 volts. Over time, they cause deterioration in electronic circuitry that wasn't built to withstand such attacks. Surge suppressers are supposed to intercept power-line surges - both small and cataclysmic - and protect your equipment.

(A word about Uninterruptible Power Supplies: they are not surge suppressors unless they are certified as such. A UPS is a battery-backed device that keeps electricity flowing in the event of a blackout. They're useful, often necessary devices, but they can be blasted by power surges as completely as anything else on a circuit.)

An Industry rife with horror stories
How do surge suppressors work? The vast majority use two techniques at once: First, they employ inexpensive, sacrificial components called metal oxide varistors (MOVs) designed to absorb surge damage before it reaches your equipment; Second, they divert excess surge energy to the "ground" wire and thus, theoretically, away from the main circuit. This approach makes for low price tags, but it has some serious drawbacks. Let's look at them:

• MOVs deteriorate with use. They wear out under the daily barrage of surges, and there is no way of knowing how much useful life they have left. That little red light on the power strip won't help; basically, it just tells you that the strip is plugged in.
• MOVs can be fire hazards. They've been known to explode and burn when hit by surges - most of which happen when no one is around to put out the fires.
• Shunting surges to the ground wire is dangerous. In any electrical network - home stereos, computers, communications, whatever - the individual devices are connected to each other through the ground circuit. Conventional surge "suppressors" using MOVs actually invite destructive voltage into the network through the back door when they divert surges to the ground wire.
• Not surprising, those drawbacks have led to problems. Most surge suppressors are notoriously unpredictable - and that unpredictability is unacceptable in a nation whose business is conducted primarily over data networks. The industry is rife with horror stories about repeated surge failures - even fires - in high risk areas. The problem became so bad that in 1996, the government issued detailed standards to classify surge suppressors by performance, endurance and mode of suppression. Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL), the safety experts, completely revamped their test procedures, effective July 1996, to weed out the worst offenders. (See our page on how to select a surge suppressor).

The one and only surge suppressor worthy of the name Zero Surge surge suppressors are the first products to meet the government's highest surge suppression standards. But then, Zero Surge is different. Thanks to our patented "series mode" technology, our units absorb even the most destructive strikes and dissipate them harmlessly over time. The best analogy is a bucket with a hole in it - water can gush in, but it can only dribble out. What's more, we don't contaminate the ground wire or use sacrificial components. Zero Surge units don't wear out. Each one comes with a 10-year limited warranty and a lifetime service contract.

How tough are they? In February 1996, three Zero Surge devices were taken off the shelf at random to undergo the stringent new government tests, certified by UL. To check performance, each of the three units were subjected to a powerline surge of 6,000 volts and 3,000 amps - a lab generated lightning bolt. They all passed. No failures. No smoldering parts, no circuit damage of any kind. To test endurance, one of the units was then subjected to 1,000 - yes, one thousand - surges of the same voltage and current. Again, no failure - and no decline in performance. (You could look it up: Ask to see UL Project No. 96ME10975, File No. E125380). That unit is still going strong.

Zero Surge products may cost more than the cheap units hanging on product hooks at the local home center, but the cost represents a tiny investment in the security of your costly hardware and invaluable data. Your company may have invested hundreds of thousands, not to say millions, of dollars in its computer networks or its communications net. Its corporate lifeblood runs over those wires 24 hours a day. As an individual consumer, you've invested thousands in your home PC and stereo systems. Protect them with the only surge suppressor worthy of the name - Zero Surge.

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