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 We are a Panamax Authorized Internet Dealer and have extensive knowledge of the Panamax surge suppressor product line. We sell virtually any Panamax product, and stock them locally as well. It is important to note that Panamax does not warrant internet purchases from unauthorized dealers, or auction purchases, and there are a lot of them! If you buy from one of those and the unit breaks, they will *not* replace or repair it.
If you need help picking out a product, please go to the Surge Protection category and look for links for selection help with satellite, computers, etc. You can also contact us with your Panamax configuration questions.
A quick summary of the Panamax surge protector product lines; Surgeprotector 8 series units are the least expensive strip style protectors. Powermax 8 series units add protect or disconnect circuitry for longer life, have a higher energy dissipation rating, and a higher warranty. Max 8 series units add an even higher warranty, Surgegate circuitry for even longer life, and the highest strip energy dissipation rating. The Max 2 series is for portable or space sensitive applications. Primax Service entrance protectors are whole house surge protectors for residential and small business. Signal line modules are add-on protection. Panamax Imagepro are units designed for heavy duty office applications, such as copy machines. In-Line series are for 220V office applications.
Panamax products WILL protect your system, they are guaranteed to do so by Panamax. They have been the protection business for over 30 YEARS! They are very good at it. Reasons to go with Panamax:
EXPERIENCE. Panamax is an engineering company, they have more engineers than sales people! Panamax has been producing nothing but surge protection products for over 30 years! They are the *only* surge protection equipment endorsed by Time Warner, EchoStar, Shar Video, Fujitsu Video, Yamaha, and Bang and Olufsen. Dr. Richard Cohen, VP of New Technology for Panamax, participates in the UL advisory group that sets standards for surge protectors. He is also leading an IEEE surge protection group that is writing a guide for residential electronics on how to protect against lightning damage. New standards went into place November 2003 for surge protectors, Panamax products met that standard long before it existed! Panamax also has a high power test lab certified by CSA to perform agency testing. In this lab us a 24,000 AMP lightning generator! So, in summary, Panamax is very involved with leading agencies and clearly is very knowledgeable about surge protection.
WARRANTY. Panamax has the best warranty! But it only applies when purchased from an authorized dealer. It's really pretty simple if you read it. Panamax actually pays if damage ever does occur. Yes, we know of people who have been paid. Can you say that for other brands? Obviously, the idea is to never use the warranty. The only point is if it ever should happen, you really can collect. We've seen one web site that said that if a product was good, it shouldn't have a warranty. Huh? We would say if a product was good, why not have a warranty! Thinking of using your homeowners insurance instead? Good luck! Be sure and check with your insurance company as to the claims procedure for lightning damage, and, almost always, if not lighning, they will not cover it. You will NOT believe how hard it will be and how much time it will take. I spent over 40 hours once trying to collect on lightning damage from homeowners insurance, and gave up, I was nowhere near done and it had cost me a good bit of money. Also, homeowners does not insure against regular surges.
SURGEGATE and AVM. Many Panamax surge protectors use Surgegate technology as part of the hybrid design. The newer EX compoment series use a new technology called AVM, automatic voltage monitoring (patent pending). Competing brands claim to disconnect power if their surge rating is exceeded. Well, this is sort of true. What usually happens is their own circuitry is disconnected, but dangerous over-voltages still get through. Not with Panamax. The Joule rating is unimportant with the Surgegate circuit. Also, Surgegate technology means the surge protector has a very long life, thus the lifetime warranty on most Panamax products. The surge protector is not set up to "sacrifice itself" as most of them are. AVM adds predictive surge detection, meaning, that unlike the older series, it will only vut off power under true problem conditions. If you are thinking series mode protector, think again, they use a coil, and coils pass voltage through during prolonged surges (Won't happen? Ever hear of an ice storm?). Finally, most any UPS will also die during a prolonged surge as they have no protection against it. Surgegate and AVM technology keeps a Panamax surge protector working even during a prolonged surge. If you need power backup as well as surge protection, your best bet for your equipment is BOTH. Attach the UPS to the Panamax surge protector.
PHONE PROTECTION. Panamax uses SIDACtor devices along with Positive Temperature Coefficient Resistors. What does this really mean? SIDACtors are great for phone line protection, but can be overloaded. The PTCR acts as a automatic circuit breaker, it shuts down when a fault is detected, and reconnects when safe. Some other brands use SIDACtors, but use a fuse instead. This means when the fuse blows, you have to repair your surge protector and meanwhile you are not protected. Other brands use MOVs to protect the phone circuit, which do not work very well for phone lines. Also, do not be fooled into thinking that little phone company device hooked near your box outside the house (called a network interface device) will protect you against all surges. We've heard numerous reports of damage through the phone lines, and you probably know someone who has taken damage.
COAX PROTECTION. Competing brands usually use gas tubes to protect coax lines. Gas tubes have a high limiting voltage, around 90 volts DC, which lets too large a surge through to your equipment. In a typical surge, the slow response time causes a typical let through voltage of around 200-300 volts AC, way too high. Also, there is a huge difference between voltage requirements for satellite vs non-satellite coax. Satellite devices need around 27 volts, coax antenna, cable, etc. only need around 1volt. Other brands do not distinguish between the two! So, if you see the competition with ONE circuit for both satellite and cable, think about it carefully! Panamax has a better way.
SIGNAL LINE MODULES. Panamax has modular surge protection in the form of add-on signal line modules for various product lines such as the Max8 series. What does this really mean to you? Say you buy a surge protector that protects a computer with a modem. A year later, you hook up a LAN at home. Now you have a LAN cable coming into your computer. With competing brands, you are out of luck. With Panamax, you add on a LAN signal line module and you are protected!
SURGEGATE PLUS and AVM. Some Panamax products also employ a Surgegate PLUS circuit, such as the M8C-EX. This means that you are protected against under-voltages as well as over-voltages. Does your competing brand offer this? Under-voltages are very dangerous, just like over voltages. The new AVM technology described above under SURGEGATE also predicts lower voltage situations and protects as well.
RESPONSE TIME. Panamax surge protectors have a response time of less than 1 nanosecond. This is critical in protecting from surges! If you have a UPS or are considering one, please note that most of them provide a 5NS response time, this is NOT good. Also, a question to ask if you are considering a UPS is does it protect all the signal paths? Also, please be aware that UPSs add LOTS of noise to an audio/video system, you will greatly reduce the quality of your system with a UPS. See the Surgegate section for further considerations.
PROTECTION and "Series Mode". What about series mode protection? Series mode protection by itself is good, but has some weaknesses. One major weakness is that common mode impulses generated by in house surges or other types of surges are unprotected by a series mode surge protector, bet they didn't tell you that. Or, maybe they said they do not occur or are not large enough to cause any damage? The UL1449 spec they like to quote *requires* a common mode surge test, why would they have the test if it was not important? Also, see below as to why they still claim they pass UL1449 despite having no common mode protection. Panamax surge protectors protect against common mode surges. Also, series mode proponents claim that other protectors have short lifetimes, while theirs does not. The manufacturer of the components used for AC protection rates their product as having a lifetime of 500 years if you had a direct hit by lightning on your power feed once per year (IEEE 500 amp test pulse). Or, you could easily handle 100,000 100 amp surges. Another claim is that Panamax surge protectors shunt all surges to ground. Not so! Surges are diverted to neutral and ground, making all 3 phases have the same potential, meaning no downstream damage, unlike the claims. Also, they claim that mode 2 protectors inflate by massive factors the ground reference, we can direct you to sources in the power industry that says this can happen without *any* mode 2 protector, the case is vastly overstated, and since they do not protect against those types of surges... Series mode protectors really do NOT pass the UL1449 rating as that requires passing the mode 2 protection test, it is part of the UL1449 spec. They get out of it by not having ANY protection except for hot-neutral, and therefore there is nothing to test, all semantics. Which means other types of surges are *completely* unprotected. Ask them what happens during a prolonged surge, as in 10 seconds, or minutes say during an ice storm. Also, if the surge exceeds their rated capacity, any coil design gets overloaded, and overloaded coils pass through the voltage. If they tell you you cannot possibly get a surge in excess of 6,000 volts, wrong again. Finally, most of the ones we've seen do NOT guarantee they will protect your system, Panamax does! Now why would that be?
You can also get additional information from the Panamax web site. |
