Disklavier

Hi to all the helpful members on this list!
 
I only recently got my disklavier, and am wondering about a need to plug  
piano into "surge suppressors". As the electrical components seem to me that  
they are likely to be damaged by a lightening strike, it occurred to me this  
would be necessary as a protection.
 
Any comments? Does anyone  know for sure?
 
ALSO when they delivered my piano, they plugged the box part in, moved the  
piano too close to the wall to get that plug out OR to plug in a speaker 
system.  I am thinking of either adding an outlet next to the piano and abandoning 
the  one behind it (which will involve getting strong helpers to move the 
piano) or  moving out one end (helpers still needed!) and putting a power strip 
back  there.
 
I'd love any advice. I do not want to lose this investment with a power  
surge!
 
ALSO - are there any other forums discussing this instrument? Or any sites  
where owners trade files?  

Blessings,
Wanda

<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers free 
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at 
http://www.aol.com.

Wanda
There are no products on the market that will protect your piano from a  
direct lighting strike. Or at least anything that you can afford to put on the  
piano. I advise good insurance and unplugging the piano when not in use. A power 
 strip with an on off switch and surge suppression is your best bet. The 
switch  only disconnects one side of the line so it is best to pull the plug if 
not in  use for a long time period.
Surges on the power line can be suppressed with a good power line  
conditioner. I stress good. There are a lot of cheep devices  out there that claim to 
protect your electronic devices from power surges and  lighting. Surges are 
caused but fluctuations from the main power line and items  in your house that 
draw a lot of current when turned on and off. (IE: furnace  motors, fans, food 
mixers, refrigerator, microwave, lights) I guess everything  you plug in to an 
electrical outlet. If you come home and all the clocks in  your house are often 
flashing then the power company is not doing a good job and  you need good 
surge protection. 
 If you want a little more protection get a UPS (uninterruptible power  
supply) If your computer is close by use it for your piano and computer. Again  
there are good ones and there are cheep ones. A 750VA unit would be fine for  
both. The higher the VA number the better, as the battery will last longer with  
more devices plugged in. Some manufactures claim they protect your devices 
from  lighting and give insurance with the UPS. They simply will not protect your 
 equipment from a direct lightning strike.
That said I am an Electronics Engineer and I do not have my piano protected  
by either. If it gets hit by lightning I will let the insurance company buy a  
new one. Most electronic devices today have there own internal surge  
protection. I should put a line conditioner on it to give a lit more surge  
protection though.
I do have my computer on a 1500 VA UPS and it will power the computer  for 
about 45 minutes if there is a power loss. Plenty of time to shut down  the 
computer or save my work. Most UPS's can be setup to have Windows shut down  the 
computer if there is an extended power loss.
 
Good Luck
Alan 
 
<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers free 
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at 
http://www.aol.com.

Wanda,

If you dont have a surge protector protecting your piano, >RUN<, 
dont walk, to your nearest best buy, comp usa, or whatever youve got 
and buy a good one.

You have a $10,000+ piano. Its worth the 50-100 bucks to protect it 
from dirty electricity.

go to:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/surge-protector.htm

and read the whole article.

-Colin

--- In disklavier@yahoogroups.com, wandamusic@... wrote:
>
> Hi to all the helpful members on this list!
>  
> I only recently got my disklavier, and am wondering about a need 
to plug  
> piano into "surge suppressors". As the electrical components seem 
to me that  
> they are likely to be damaged by a lightening strike, it occurred 
to me this  
> would be necessary as a protection.
>  
> Any comments? Does anyone  know for sure?
>  
> ALSO when they delivered my piano, they plugged the box part in, 
moved the  
> piano too close to the wall to get that plug out OR to plug in a 
speaker 
> system.  I am thinking of either adding an outlet next to the 
piano and abandoning 
> the  one behind it (which will involve getting strong helpers to 
move the 
> piano) or  moving out one end (helpers still needed!) and putting 
a power strip 
> back  there.
>  
> I'd love any advice. I do not want to lose this investment with a 
power  
> surge!
>  
> ALSO - are there any other forums discussing this instrument? Or 
any sites  
> where owners trade files?  
> 
> Blessings,
> Wanda
> 
> <BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now 
offers free 

> email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at 
> http://www.aol.com.
>

I will add to what Colin said. I use a full back-up power supply. Most 
surge protectors do not come close to protecting your equipment like a 
UPS. Plus, you can find a 350 va UPS for $50 to $75 that will easily 
have a $25,000 equipment protection guarantee. I prefer the APC brand.

Mark in Idaho

Colin wrote:

>
> Wanda,
>
> If you dont have a surge protector protecting your piano, >RUN<,
> dont walk, to your nearest best buy, comp usa, or whatever youve got
> and buy a good one.
>
> You have a $10,000+ piano. Its worth the 50-100 bucks to protect it
> from dirty electricity.
>
> go to:
>
> http://www.howstuffworks.com/surge-protector.htm 
> <http://www.howstuffworks.com/surge-protector.htm>
>
> and read the whole article.
>
> -Colin
>
> --- In disklavier@yahoogroups.com 
> <mailto:disklavier%40yahoogroups.com>, wandamusic@... wrote:
> >
> > Hi to all the helpful members on this list!
> >
> > I only recently got my disklavier, and am wondering about a need
> to plug
> > piano into "surge suppressors". As the electrical components seem
> to me that
> > they are likely to be damaged by a lightening strike, it occurred
> to me this
> > would be necessary as a protection.
> >
> > Any comments? Does anyone know for sure?
> >
> > ALSO when they delivered my piano, they plugged the box part in,
> moved the
> > piano too close to the wall to get that plug out OR to plug in a
> speaker
> > system. I am thinking of either adding an outlet next to the
> piano and abandoning
> > the one behind it (which will involve getting strong helpers to
> move the
> > piano) or moving out one end (helpers still needed!) and putting
> a power strip
> > back there.
> >
> > I'd love any advice. I do not want to lose this investment with a
> power
> > surge!
> >
> > ALSO - are there any other forums discussing this instrument? Or
> any sites
> > where owners trade files?
> >
> > Blessings,
> > Wanda
> >
> > <BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now
> offers free
> > email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at
> > http://www.aol.com. <http://www.aol.com.>
> >
>
>

Greetings Colin,


I live in an area where the power is very nasty. The surges are so
severe that they are called faults, not surges. I did a lot of
research and spoke to engineers at most of the manufacturers of surge
suppressors. Most admitted that their devices would not protect my
equipment. I have had catastrophic failures and major equipment damage
year after year. I finally found a device that I feel offers the
highest degree of protection possible. I was going to try to design a
device myself because it seemed that no one had what I needed.
Fortunately I found something ready made.

If you read the manufacturer's specifications and those of the
manufacturers of MOVs, which are the main device used to provide TVS
(transient (short term) voltage suppression) you will see that these
alone really do very little. MOVs can fail both in a manner that will
render them useless but they can also fail in a manner that renders
them hazardous. I had a fire that was caused by a fused MOV.

Gas discharge devices are not used in line voltage protection devices,
or they were not when I last checked. They are used for protection of
sensitive devices against high voltage spikes in other applications.
The most common is on the signal line of STBs (set top boxes, such as
cable TV boxes). Good luck finding them for line voltage protection.

The device I found differs from the rest in that it disconnects the
load when the line voltage is outside of the safe range. If it is too
high or too low, it disconnects the load including the MOV protection
and inductive clamp device which is also in the protector. This not
only protects the load but the MOV TVS device also.

I bought about $1000 worth of these protective power strips and have
had no damage since then. Usually I average $800 a year in damage but
not since I installed them. I have them on my computers, pianos,
dishwasher, washer and dryer, basically everything with a
microprocessor or microcontroller in it.

I have industrial quality UPSs installed to protect all the computers
and have had damage in spite of them, including damage to the UPSs
themselves. I now have one of these devices protecting my industrial
quality pure sine wave UPS. It survived some serious surges (faults)
last year as did the rest of the protected equipment.

The reason for these faults is the fact that I live in a remote rural
location where the power is provided by a 12 KV distribution located
too close to a 60 KV transmission line. In the winter, the snow
unloads from the 12 KV line and cause it to hit the 60KV line. The
resulting 5 to 1 voltage increase does a lot of damage especially
since there is little distributed load to share the surge and the
surge lasts long enough that few suppressor manufacturers will even
pretend to be able to deal with it. My nearest neighbor is 1/2 mile
away.

Before finding the surge suppressor that disconnects with high (or
low) voltage I regularly had destroyed computers, phone systems, UPSs
etc on the average of once every two years. I was using all the
regular surge suppressors including ones that were quite expensive.
The hardware store variety are total garbage and the stuff from
Monster and the likes are hardly any better. The insurance policies
might make you feel better until you submit a claim. I doubt that the
protected equipment policy would have covered my house that would have
burned down if I hadn't been there when the surge suppressor burst
into flames and set my desk on fire.

I highly recommend the Panamax series of suppressors that offer the
"protect or disconnect" option. This is only available in certain
series of their protectors. Read the specs and choose the right one.

Thursday, March 15, 2007, 6:39:02 PM, you wrote:
>        
>    
>   
>    
>   
> Wanda,
>  
>  If you dont have a surge protector protecting your piano, >RUN<, 
>  dont walk, to your nearest best buy, comp usa, or whatever youve got 
>  and buy a good one.
>  
>  You have a $10,000+ piano. Its worth the 50-100 bucks to protect it 
>  from dirty electricity.
>  
>  go to:
>  
>  http://www.howstuffworks.com/surge-protector.htm
>  

>       
-- 
Best regards,
Spencer_Lists Chase        mailto:lists@...
67550 Bell Springs Rd.
Garberville,  CA 95542    Postal service only.
Laytonville, CA 95454    UPS only.
Spencer@...
http://www.spencerserolls.com
http://www.spencerserolls.com/MidiValve.htm
(707) 984-8356