Total Home Surge Protector

However, in many cases, and apparently yours, the water line is located far from the entrance panel. So a transient ("surge") may/will take a shorter path to ground -- like through your electronic devices. Which is Bad.

I would say that the water main comes in somewhere between 30-50 feet from the service entrance / fuse panel. The ground "wire" is in a 3/4" metal conduit run to the panel.

If I were then to add a new grounding rod outside the the service entrance I could just connect it to the first metal conduit electric pipe (closest to the ground pipe) coming out of the panel and it would serve its function I am guessing?

Thanks Marc for the info relating to grounding / surge protection. I noticed in FL there are grounding rods on both sides of the house and nothing is really grounded to the water pipes coming into the house.
 
I received the TVSS today. It was well shipped and new as described. I've attached pictures of it before removing it from the kitchen counter (BAD WAF)

I see four small nubs on the four sides but no real punchouts and I am wondering if these nubs(?) are the punchouts?

Steve, did yours have the same little nubs?

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No docs came with it.

How would you surface mount it? It looks pretty weather proof. I don't know though how you get the wires connected to the two electrical phases.
 
Pete,

Can you please compress the images a little, they are crashing computers right and left due to the massive size :) Thanks!
 
Pete,

Can you please compress the images a little, they are crashing computers right and left due to the massive size :) Thanks!

I opened one of the photo to see a fascinating blowup of a white styrofoam worm what that musta been a foot across. You could see into every translucent pore. Best white worm art I've seen this season!

The specs state "Mounting: Internally threaded conduit fitting & multi-point mounting feet" which would seem to be self-explanatory.

There should be four 10 AWG wires: two black, one white, one green with yellow stripe.

-- each black goes to a different 120VAC phase, preferably through a 30amp double-pole breaker
-- white to neutral, and
--green/yellow to earth ground.

In the main entrance panel -- AND ONLY THERE -- the neutral and earth ground are connected together.

HTH ... Marc
 
Marc,

There is no internally threaded mount inside or out. There are 4 mounting holes and small prepunched marks as described.

Found the installation manual.

If the SPD enclosure does not already have a hole for installing conduit, punch or drill a hole of
the appropriate size to accommodate the size of conduit being installed.
 
Marc,

There is no internally threaded mount inside or out. There are 4 mounting holes and small prepunched marks as described:

Location of prepunched mark for nipple placement on ³240V standard models

Not sure what these means? I found a drawing that shows the small prepunched marks.

Look for four circles in the paint, about the size of quarters and possibly quite faint. Is this what you meant by "mall prepunched marks"?

Did you buy from a distributor or surplus? . Especially if latter, you may have a special order or non-standard part . You can cut a whole for conduit with a dremel tool or hole saw. Greenlee punches are pretty expensive.

... Marc
 
Marc, I've installed a number of devices / new breakers inside of my fuse panel; so familiar with working inside of it but I am a newbee relating to the installation of a TVSS. I currently and most recently installed two adjacent to the fuse panel phase couplers in smaller double gang boxes. Historically I also have interiorly mounted phase couplers. I've also added more circuits / breakers to the inside of the panel as I prefer to add new breakers / circuits for new electic. The TVSS installation looks to be very simple and logical. I just want to make sure that I am doing this right.

Look for four circles in the paint, about the size of quarters and possibly quite faint. Is this what you meant by "mall prepunched marks"?

Did you buy from a distributor or surplus? . Especially if latter, you may have a special order or non-standard part . You can cut a whole for conduit with a dremel tool or hole saw. Greenlee punches are pretty expensive.

No circles in the paint; just small dimples as seen in the pictures above (1 on each side). I believe these are locations to be able to drill for conduit. I purchased this device surplus. Not really too worried about drilling the hole except for the metal shavings (which I can clean). I also have a couple of dremel tools and a "new" still in the box Bosch dremel trio my wife bought for me. Its going to be mounted adjacent to the fuse panel on plywood in a similiar fashion to how Steve mounted his TVSS. I have two double gang metal boxes coming out of the fuse panel right in the spot where I want to mount this device so will need to move one of the two over.

The plastic overlay to metal has a small area of cut out metal for the alarm NC/NO contacts. I currently use wireless for my Rainbird rain sensor and was thinking of doing the same with this device except use one of the two HAI wireless receivers I have.

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-- each black goes to a different 120VAC phase, preferably through a 30amp double-pole breaker
-- white to neutral, and
--green/yellow to earth ground.

In the panel I have easy access to neutral. Is is preferred to utilize two unconnected to anything else 30AMP breakers? I only currently have 15AMP, 20 AMP and 40AMP breakers all in use. I was going to make space for two new 30 AMP breakers. Is it preferred to put these new breakers on the top of the set of breakers being the first in line? Other than the neutral being already connected to the "earth ground" would it be safe to connect the green/yellow to the neutral bar, fuse panel cavity or a secondary "earth" wire via a new XX guage wire (from a new ground stake adjacent to the service entrance).

tvss1.jpg
 
That panel with phases down each side really sucks for doing stuff like this. I was told the following best practices:

1. Keep the wires as short as possible. IIRC the pigtails on the unit were like 8 inches or so and I was told to try to keep then 6" or less ideally. I wound up at around 5" on the longest one. In your panel to get on the second phase it almost seems as if you need to extend one phase all around the panel to the other side, short of crossing over the breakers which I wouldn't do. Maybe you should think about putting the tvss at the bottom of the panel and connect to breakers on the bottom row? At least you could hit both sides with a similar length wire? But then your neutral becomes longer. I guess I was lucky in that choosing that side location I was able to hit both phases, neutral and ground bars all in 5" lengths. The shorter the wires the better the effectiveness I was told.

2. I also asked and was told it did not matter where in the panel you put the breakers. I also assumed near the top would be best but they said it would not realistically matter that the tvss will be hit before other stuff. I think the theory was there is still less resistance through the bus bars to the tvss then there is over the copper to a device on the top circuit.

3. I was told you could piggy back on an existing breaker but it was not ideal. Most breakers are designed to have 1 wire on its contacts so connecting 2 wires either may not fit or you may not get the best connection. A dedicated breaker with a very tight connection would be best.

3. Is that box totally hollow with all the electronics bolted on the cover? Seems like not much too it. I was afraid of drilling into the box but I guess if its hollow and you clean out the shavings you'd be ok. On mine the whole inside was potted so no way to drill or anything. Just a very different design.
 
Thank you Steve.

Historically I've only added or replaced breakers in my panel. I never paid much else attention other than keeping the two side's draw about even. Today after looking up the details on my panel found it to be a Homeline Square-D 200 AMP service 2-phase panel. The breakers do alternate across each phase. To me because I never took more than one breaker off I never really looked; nor looked at the design of my panel as I did today.

The TVSS came with 18" pigtails. I will be able to put the box adjacent to the panel in a similiar fashion to your installation. Juggling around the breakers I'll be around maybe 5-8" from the neutral bar and two 30 AMP square D signal throw double circuit breaker.

While I have the panel cover off did a quick experiment with my old SA Phase coupler, no coupler and the new PCS Phase coupler.

Will write about my testing later.
 
Ok, that makes more sense. I didn't know of many (if any) recent panels that divided phases like that. Why don't you just use a single breaker like I linked earlier? Seems to make more sense than 2 separate breakers.
 
Ok, that makes more sense. I didn't know of many (if any) recent panels that divided phases like that. Why don't you just use a single breaker like I linked earlier? Seems to make more sense than 2 separate breakers.

You would also avoid having an inspector for the Authority Having Jurisdiction determining that your installation does not meet the National Electrical Code as required by local ordinance owing to your having connected a UL-listed 220v device to UL-listed 120v breakers.

That's a No-No. Tripping one phase needs to open the other phase which is accomplished by design by a 220v (dual) breaker but not by two individual breakers that are not tied together.

... Marc
 
Marc and Steve,

Yes planning that relative to the breaker.

Is this what it the breaker is called?

"two 30 AMP square D single throw tandem circuit breaker." (30 amps)

Much easier now knowing that I can do this. I removed a side connected double gang box tonight which housed the SA phase coupler and made some space in the vicinity. Need to also redo a conduit run in the vicinity.

Side test.

1 - checked UPB signal levels before removing SA Phase coupler and it was about the same as its been with the lowest numbers on the opposite of PIM phase.
2 - removed SA Phase coupler - signal levels dropped on opposite phase and one of three newly installed switches was not accessible.
3 - installed PCS Phase coupler - connected the two leads to same two breakers as the SA Phase coupler was installed on. Signal levels on opposite of PIM phase for the three UPB switches was about 10 higher (15-30) than with the SA coupler.

Using the all enclosed in plastic PCS phase coupler I can install it on the bottom of the inside of the panel saving the space utilized by the double gang box utilized for the SA phase coupler.
 
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