FAQ
My Surge Protector has a Clamping Voltage of 360 Volts. What is the Bantam's Clamping Voltage?
Clamp voltage is a measure of when a MOV based surge technology will react in the presence of elevated voltage. For example, in the standard 120 Volt circuit, a clamp voltage of 360 volts means the MOV will start reacting at 360 volts, so at least 240 additional volts have gone into the (supposedly) protected electronics before the MOV starts to react. In addition, MOVs react in milliseconds, however surges are 1,000 times faster microsecond events. Once activated at 360 volts, MOVs then oscillate very rapidly between clamped and unclamped (in milliseconds) until the voltage drops below 360 permanently. Microsecond surge energy is getting through before and during MOV oscillation. All the while, the MOVs are wearing out.
MOVs are sacrificial, so they degrade and stop working after an unpublished and uncertain number of surge events. It is likely half the MOV based surge protectors in use today have degraded to the point where they are essentially unprotected power strips.
The inductors in the patented Bantam circuit are always energized and operate bi-directionally along line, neutraland ground. The magnetic field impedance responds instantly to the surge, expanding the magnetic reservoir to reduce and absorb the surge energy. Bantam is a wave-shaping conditioning technology that reduces the amplitude and expands the duration of a surge event to dissipate the energy. There is virtually no delay in reaction or electronics protection because the technology doesn’t react afterthe surge arrives, it is altering the dynamics of the surge in microsecond real-time.
Surge and Transient Protection
The Bantam circuit was the subject of a UL Adjunct test, where a specific surge waveform that developed 6,000 volts and 3,000 amps was applied every 45 seconds to a Bantam product that was also powering a PC. Within 24 hours, the duration of the test, that amounted to over 1,800 surges applied. There was no damage to or interruption of the PC protected by the Bantam product.
Benefits of using a Bantam Clean Power solution
• Protection from Lightning, compliant to UL1449, 3rd Edition by MET Labs
• There is no delay in protection; Bantam is working at the inception of the surge.
• Unlimited Joules of energy will be mitigated.
• No power pollution is diverted to ground.
• The Bantam technology has been independently lab tested to prevent an Arc Flash event.
• Bantam tech does not use capacitors for surge diversion unlike typical Series Mode suppressors.
• Bantam products using the patented circuit have a strong warranty.
Large energy surges and spikes usually originate outside the wiring in a home or business. They are random and represent less than 20% of the power anomalies that equipment will experience. Lightning is one such example of an outside energy surge that is infrequent. Other more frequent examples are caused by the starting and stopping of heavy equipment, motors, elevators, air conditioners, and spa pumps originating in nearby facilities.
The technology in the Bantam will absorb these dangerous energy surges on Line, Neutral and Ground, then release the energy back into the circuit as safe usable energy. The circuit does not divert the energy pollution to ground. One electrical attempt at providing cleaner grounds is to have “isolated grounds” installed by an electrician at considerable expense – only to find that these clean grounds are perfect antennae for noise later on!
Bantam technology is a wave-shaping solution, which means that it reduces the amplitude and stretches the wavelength of all non-fundamental frequencies. The technology is responsive to amperage and can be scaled to any energy level. Bantam technology is never sleeping, working at surge inception so there is zerodelay in protection. Bantam does not adversely affect 50/60Hz frequencies. Short duration, high-energy pulses like lightning, spike, surges and conducted EMP are extreme energy events the Bantam circuit can delay and transform to protect the connected device.
Metal-oxide varistor (MOV)-based products advertise their effectiveness using Joules as a proxy for how much energy can be dumped to ground before MOV failure. Joules of energy tolerance before failure is not a very useful measure because it only tells the consumer how much energy a MOV suppressor can tolerate, not how much energy the MOV let through to the protected device. The point of suppression protection is to keep harmful energy away from devices.
A better measure of surge suppressor effectiveness is to have the lowest possible surge energy appear on the output side of a surge suppressor. First we start by calculating the Surge Destructive Energy presented to a surge suppressor at its input. Next, we measure any remainder of that surge energy on the output of the surge suppressor with a load present to calculate the Surge Residual Percentage. Together, showing the energy in and the percent of that energy out is a much more accurate and transparent way to advertise effectiveness to the customer.
If you calculate the total possible Surge Destructive Energy (SDE) of a 6,000 volt, 3,000 amp surge at 10 microseconds the result is 180,000,000 total Destructive Volt-Amp Units.
For a 10 microsecond surge, a typical MOV-based suppressor will have a Surge Residual of about 7% of the total SDE present on the Line-Neutral output. The other 93% was diverted and measured present on ground. When the MOV degrades and fails, the Surge Residual moves closer to 100% or no protection.
The Bantam will allow less than 0.5% of the total of the Surge Destructive Energy to reach the protected device. The remaining 99.8% of the damaging energy is being absorbed and re-distributed as clean power, and is not detected or measured on ground. The Bantam has been shown to mitigate over 1800 such events in 24 hours without damaging the protected device and with no loss of Bantam effectiveness. This is how you should measure surge protection.
Because Bantam does not divert with sacrificial components it has no Joules limitation and because its primary components are in series with the power lines, there is zero reaction time. The always-active Bantam circuit senses a surge, delays and extends the energy wave absorbing the damaging energy, (does not divert to ground), and returns safe energy to the power system.