Quote:
Originally Posted by Malsua
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.
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I always recommend either the Eaton Ultra or the PSP Vortex Type-2 surge protectors installed at the circuit breaker panel. The PSP uses a gas discharge tube to protect the MOVs and the MOVs are also thermally protected which will make the protector last longer. On the other hand, the Eaton Ultra uses only "standard" MOVs but it has such a high surge current capacity, 108KA that it will also last a very long time since most induced surges, from studies, are significantly less than that max. The circuit breaker type surge protectors have a much lower surge current capacity which is why they are not as good and fail more often but they are better than nothing. The Type-1 surge protector from the power utility mounted at the electrical meter is designed mainly to block and or manage surges coming from the power utility. The internal circuitry is slightly different than what's in the Eaton or PSP protectors and subsequently their warranty does not cover any device with an electronic circuit chip in it.