FACT: The advances of electronics technology in the past decade have created the requirement for unprecedented levels of electrical power quality. As much as half of the down time caused by failures in electronic systems is attributed to diminished power quality

FACT: A typical facility will experience 6,244 measurable power disturbances per year, but only 3% - 5% are brownouts or actual power outages. The rest are transients, spikes, lightning strikes, low voltage impulses and voltage frequency changes. These can be more damaging than a power loss, and can cause long-term degradation of electronic circuits in the equipment. Only a power conditioner or UPS with a Surge Diverter, Isolation Transformer, Power Line Filter, and Frequency Regulator can protect against all these problems. In order to assure trouble free operation of sensitive electronic systems a Low Impedance Power Conditioner is required.

Power Conditioning will prevent 90% of all incidences from occurring from within the facility.

The "Building Blocks" of Power Quality includes the following:

A. The Surge Diverter:

This most common "solution" protects your equipment from voltages over 250 volts, shorting out in the presence of these high intensity impulses. This component acts as a shield against the single destructive event - the ubiquitous lightning bolt - but does little to guard against the daily barrage of noise caused by switch mode power supplies, copy machines, maintenance wquipment, air conditioners, elevqators or the like. Surge diverters are unable to correct for ground line disturbances because they do not contain an isolation transformer.

B. Low Impedance Isolation Transormer:

Low Impedance Isolation Transormers protect against common mode voltages: the errant noise & spikes that occur in all office, industrial or commercial buildings. This device blocks disturbances by establishing the vital connection between neutral & ground required by the National Electrical Code. this ensures that no voltage can appear between neutral and ground at the output of the low inpedance isolation transformer.

C. Power Line Filter:

The Power Line Filter component attenuates low voltage impulses, thus providing a higher degree of normal noise protection than the surge diverter and the Isolation Transformer between Hot & Neutral. The Power Line Filter is the piece that's often missing from power treatment systems. And its absence can often be the source of mysterious glitches and trouble calls, the reasons for which are never discovered.

D. The Voltage Regulator:

This piece of the puzzle brings voltages to within the level required by the load for proper operation. Most computers, due to their switch mode power supplies, don't require voltage regulation. However, for equipment which uses a linear power supply, your IPS, Inc. representative may recommend a Voltage Regulator. In those cases, we'll probably suggest a tap switching type. This prevents the introduction of new transients, which can occur with the use of Ferro resonant voltage regulators.

E. The Battery Backup System:

This component provides continuing power in the event of a utility power outage. the most common backup system is a standby uninterruptible power system. These operate in a standby mode & turn on when a power outage is detected. The majority of battery backup systems provide limited, if any, ABCD power line noise protection.

F. The Frequency Regulator:

Frequency Regulation is accomplished through the use of an on-line uninterruptible power system. The on-line inverter provides constant power to the sensitive load by continually regenerating the AC waveform from a DC source. When a utility power failure occurs, power is continued to the load through the use of the UPS battery.

G. Ground Conditioning:

When Ground Guard is used on the system components terminating each end of a data cable connection, the signal ground path between them is guaranteed to be a higher impedance at noise frequencies than the path provided by safety ground. As a result, noise currents find the safety ground path to earth to be lower impedance. Noise is kept in the "outside world" by the control impedance assuring that little or no disturbance current finds it way into signal grounding conductors.

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