Originally Posted by Mattee
Do I understand now?
That information is routine when professionals (not hearsay) makes recommendation. What you have asked is stated bluntly by the NIST (US government research agency):
> A very important point to keep in mind is that your surge protector
> will work by diverting the surges to ground. The best surge protection
> in the world can be useless if grounding is not done properly.
If called those plug-in protectors ineffective. The NIST is blunter. The APC, Tripplite and other 'magic box' protectors are "useless". Or, as I said so often, a protector is only as effective as its earth ground.
Effective protection means a surge can only be "diverted" to earth. To where hundreds of thousands of joules are absorbed - harmlessly.
And that is how it was done even 100 years ago so that telephone operators could work through every thunderstorm. So that even lightning strikes were not to headsets and operator brains. The technology is that old and that well proven. And not found in any magic box adjacent to a sewing machine.
As the NIST says, those APC and Tripplite protectors are "useless". Their word; not mine.