[PLUG] Line conditioners

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Thu Nov 13 05:45:07 UTC 2014


Due to the decreasing reliability of electric power from PGE in my
neighborhood I am going to set up a natural gas generator at my house.
The problem is that I am going to do it on the cheap. That means:

	* a 7200 watt portable tri-fuel generator (about $1000)
	* no transfer switch

Instead of the transfer switch (over $1000, plus permit), I plan to
install an outside plug near the generator that will pass through the
wall into the basement where I will connect it to three regular 120
volt outlets upstairs. These outlets will be dead unless the generator
is running, never connected to the regular house wiring. When the power
goes out I will just manually unplug selected appliances from their
normal outlets and plug them into the generator outlets. I called the
city and they admitted that I do not need a permit for this wiring. It
is essentially nothing more than permanent extension cords. 

The problem is that few generators advertise that they are safe for
electronic/computer equipment, and those that do are outrageously
expensive. The model that I am most seriously considering says:

	This generator is not intended to power sensitive electronic
	equipment such as TVs, DVD players, stereos, desktop computers
	or laptop computers without the use of an appropriate line
	conditioner and/or surge protector (both not included).
	Sensitive electronic equipment should be operated on approved
	inverter type generators or pure sine wave generators.

The only such electronic equipment that I want to run from the
generator are a laptop computer, desktop computer, a cable modem,
router and a couple of switches, and an older stereo. Both computers,
the modem, router and switches are powered from a UPS. The UPS, in
turn, has a cheap Free Geek surge protector between it and the wall
outlet. The surge protector is one of the devices that I will move to
its nearby generator outlet in the event of a power failure. As
for the stereo, it has been run in the past without issue from an
ancient spark-spitting Generac (now deceased).

Do I need to be concerned? If so, what kind of line conditioning
equipment shuld I use?




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