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How to protect AV equipment from poor power quality
Having AV equipment at your home or for your business can be really beneficial, but at the same time, you will have to be conscious of its protection and security. It is important to understand that these devices are susceptible to overheating, power surges, meltdowns, short-outs, and many more. You must protect all your equipment to the best of your ability, which will ensure that your receivers, speakers and projectors will last longer.
AV equipment: How to protect it from poor power quality
Replace your surge protectors
A surge protector is basically a multi-power distribution device which can protect the connected devices from hitting the equipment. It is even responsible for protecting the devices from any kind of surge or voltage spike. In case lightning hits your house, the energy from lightning might end up flowing through your electric wires. Indeed, this is a very sensitive issue and may damage your projectors, receivers, television or other gadgets.
Remember that all the equipment and devices are connected through HDMI cables or power cables; thus, the sudden spike in the voltage may damage your devices, causing you to lose hundreds of dollars. However, placing a surge protector will help in detecting the sudden spike and, thus, reroute the surge automatically to the grounding line. It will eventually restrict access to the equipment in use and, thus, stop the spike immediately.
Power conditioners
Remember that the AC power flowing through your home will obviously come with spikes and dips that may impact the equipment connected to your home. This may not happen immediately, but the impact is more likely to be evident over a certain span of time. By placing a power conditioner, you can expect these small dips and spikes in your voltage to get filtered out. Thereby assisting in protecting your equipment. Also, proper power conditioning will restrict blowing out the speakers and subwoofers.
UPS
An Uninterrupted power supply (UPS) serves as a backup battery to a device. If the power goes out from the source, the UPS will help it continue its functionality. These devices are usually bulky and comprise one or two batteries. Certainly, it serves as an all-in-one power distribution source. This is quite essential for you as it will allow you to shut down your connected device appropriately.
Dust your device quite often.
Removing dust from your device will help in protecting it from any damage. It is important to understand that dust will obviously build up on top of your equipment. Even inside it over a prolonged usage span. More particularly, if your equipment comes with a cooling system (be it an active one or a passive one), dust will cause the internal temperature to rise. In case you aren’t taking proper care of your gadget and allowing the air to build up in your device, you will end up causing damage to the sensitive components within it.
Add fans
Fans work really amazing when it comes to getting rid of the hot air. Stagnant air tends to build up quite often when equipment is kept within an enclosed space. Devices often tend to get damaged and have a reduced life span, particularly when they attend a high temperature and, unfortunately, have no escape to remove that hot air. However, you can avoid facing such a scenario only if you correctly utilize the space and position the devices correctly.
Refrain from stacking one piece of equipment over another
Always restrict yourself from stacking one AV equipment over another, as it will prevent airflow. Thus, it will heat up the system for no reason. It will not allow the hot air to circulate within the given small space, which in turn, causes it to overheat. Thus, it will damage the sensitive parts within it.
In case you are short of space and have no choice other than to use vertical space, you may opt for a rack mounting system to ensure adequate space between two pieces of equipment for proper circulation or air. You can even choose to add spacers in between. It will prevent the heat from transferring from one device to another!
