Home Theatre Application?

[Anonymous user]

Long story short:

I've got a home theater with a Monster power box feeding juice to the TV, dvr, etc etc. When the laundry drier kicks on, sometimes it causes a spike that trips out the Monster product, causing me to lose power to the theater system. It doesn't happen every time, rather seems to happen only in the evenings (obviously, opening the door to numerous other 'primtime' environmental possibilities that could compound/exacerbate the problem). I'm certain that the monster device trips at 134v, but there is no logging feature which would tell me exactly how large of a spike I'm actually dealing with.

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Pre-flame qualification: the theater and the drier on not on the same wiring. In fact, the theater is the only thing that drinks from that tap.
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I called apc regarding the APC 1200va wondering if that would properly regulate the voltage out, they couldn't give me a clear cut answer but suggested that a battery backup might be a better answer. Now my understanding was that a battery back up would provide service when the voltage became too low, so I'm not totally clear as to why the Line-R voltage reg wouldn't get the job done in this application.


It might just be the fact that I'm articulating the problem wrong. Am I asking the wrong question here?

[Anonymous user]

is it always, and only the drier that seems to cause this problem?

I'm going to come out and ask the obvious question:
Are the following appliances in your house generating heat via Natural Gas, LP, or electricity?
Clothes Drier?
Water heater?
Furnace?
Stove/Cooktop/Oven?

If the drier is electrically heated, it will be drawing power from both of the circuits that power your house. in that case the motor in the drier may also be drawing on both circuits. (I know this because my father had several power tools that ran on 220 household voltage, and he said that he goth them because the 220 motors were more reliable and efficient.

[Anonymous user]

Sorry it too me long to respond. I was sans internet for a few days.

Yes. Giving that their on a different circuit I was suspecting something else going on. I had an electrician come out and he--while not being able to credibly confirm this is the root cause of the problem---did observe that both the circuit powering the drier and the home theater shared a neutral.

He ran a separate neut for the home theater and assumes that this isolation would resolve it. I haven't had much of a chance to see if it's still happening, but I will most definitely get the UPC should it continue.

[Erasmus_apc · Accepted solution]

A Line-R would handle voltage "highs and lows" just fine but depending on the severity of the transient on the line and its time duration in ms, it may not be able to provide constant output to the load. Our higher end UPS systems and A/V products not only boost or trim input voltage to an appropriate level, but also actively filter noise. In the event that a line issue is too long or severe for "corrective" action, the UPS will simply output clean power from it's own battery/inverter to power the load. Since we have no estimation of the nature of your problem I would have to say a nice UPS would be the best solution.

Also, considering that the drier is not on the same circuit (you said not on the same "wiring", I assume this is correct) and this problem happens intermittently, I would wonder if this more of an issue that could be caused by electrical issues in the building such as a bad wire or hookup, etc. Have you seen any specific effects of this problem outside the monster box tripping, or talked to an electrician or checked other electrical resources?