Quote:
Originally Posted by villagetinker
I am GUESSING you have some form of surge arrestor, with the green lights indicating the protection is working. The reason I am guessing is most of the surge protection systems I have seen actually have a circuit breaker supplying the device, so i am not sure exactly what this device is.
You could try contacting the manufacturer of the circuit breaker panel and asking them what this device is.
|
No need to contact the manufacturer. It is indeed a surge protector. It is simply a breaker style panel surge. It is a type II panel surge protection device as opposed to a type 1 that Seco or Duke would put in the meter pan.
That said it is an Eaton CQH style surge protector and it is listed to be in a Square D panel(despite being built by Eaton) but it's the old style. Type II SPDs, of which that is one do have a finite life. The green lights indicate when it thinks it's no longer functioning, but I can tell you that it's old enough that it should probably be replaced. The new panel based surges clamp faster. Modern SPDs, particularly those with with thyristors or MOSFETs, can achieve faster clamping times than traditional MOV-based SPDs.
If one really wants to be protected properly, a breaker based Eaton Ultra sitting on a 50amp breaker would be the best. The breaker plug-in style surges are often quite limited in the amount of protection they offer. I think that particular one is 18ka. Here in central Florida, lightning capital of the USA, that's like a butterfly trying to stop a hurricane. Sure, it's doing something, but in the end it's nothing. The Eaton Ultra will have six times more surge current capacity.
Also, whenever I'm in a panel, I can always tell when a non-pro installed it, because they didn't shorten the leads. The leads to the SPD from the breaker should be as short as possible.