Well, I'll kick off the debate on SPDs. Once again, the emphasis seems to be on domestic (we all, or virtually all of us live in a home of one sort or another) so are the proposals an improvement or not?
Obviously my dictionary is older than the English language. However, I am not going to argue further, in a PC world it is probably safe to say that my hitting someone is simply a "stroke of the hand" in court or that swimming strokes are GBH. I will however stand up for exact and clear communication, which these examples are not!
Moving on, it is not clear what the SPDs are supposed to prevent, if it is not large electrical discharges (which is what the test waveform is meant to represent) just what is it? It seems to be being suggested that all mains connected electronic power supply failures are caused by "mains transients" of some description, with the general form of lightning, which is simply not the case. I have always had and operated large quantities of Electronics, and none of it has ever been damaged by any kind of mains transient, whether from a generator or "mains" supplies. Obviously there has been the odd failure, but I could not say that transients had been the problem, usually heat, age, or normal component failure. Much of the equipment has various transient suppression features, VDRs, snubber networks etc. but these are part of robust designs. This seems to me to be a solution looking for a problem again, a problem that I don't and never have had. The only damage I can think of was telephone line related, in that this was a couple of miles long and lightning tended to damage my modem, and in one case the phone too. Also, the line filters were remarkably unreliable, but the components in there were probably rated for 50V when the ringing voltage was greater than this, and the DC was pretty much 50V. Bad design to the fore. Again I see problems elsewhere being cured at the consumers' expense.
Obviously my dictionary is older than the English language. However, I am not going to argue further, in a PC world it is probably safe to say that my hitting someone is simply a "stroke of the hand" in court or that swimming strokes are GBH. I will however stand up for exact and clear communication, which these examples are not!
Moving on, it is not clear what the SPDs are supposed to prevent, if it is not large electrical discharges (which is what the test waveform is meant to represent) just what is it? It seems to be being suggested that all mains connected electronic power supply failures are caused by "mains transients" of some description, with the general form of lightning, which is simply not the case. I have always had and operated large quantities of Electronics, and none of it has ever been damaged by any kind of mains transient, whether from a generator or "mains" supplies. Obviously there has been the odd failure, but I could not say that transients had been the problem, usually heat, age, or normal component failure. Much of the equipment has various transient suppression features, VDRs, snubber networks etc. but these are part of robust designs. This seems to me to be a solution looking for a problem again, a problem that I don't and never have had. The only damage I can think of was telephone line related, in that this was a couple of miles long and lightning tended to damage my modem, and in one case the phone too. Also, the line filters were remarkably unreliable, but the components in there were probably rated for 50V when the ringing voltage was greater than this, and the DC was pretty much 50V. Bad design to the fore. Again I see problems elsewhere being cured at the consumers' expense.