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A question about surge protectors
mcseforsale:
Unusual question. The rabbits should be fine. As long as they don't have access to anything that they can chew on. The romex has a very tough outer sheath used for pulling the wire through holes in 2x4s and such as a house is wired. Plus, I think by design romex is unpalatable to rodents by chemicals they put in the sheathing.
Just make sure that ANY wiring is away from any water or moisture. True fact...cordless drills and power tools were a response to plumbers and other contractors getting zapped while working in moist basements.
AJ
--- Quote from: ArcadeSeeker962 on April 27, 2012, 12:41:47 pm ---Wow, that looks really impressive! :) It looks like I still have more to learn about electrical equipment. This may sound like a silly question, but once the MAME cabinet is complete, me and my father are going to place the MAME cabinet in our basement. The problem is that it'll probably be placed near where we have our pet rabbits in a cage. Due to how our pet rabbit's cage is designed, hay, sawdust, and rabbit food tends to fall out of the cage. Also, our pet rabbits tend to be kind of aggressive(they're Mini Rex Rabbits, if anyone is familiar with that breed of rabbit) by knocking over their food bowl which can cause more of a mess. So, should I be careful about how me and my father wire the MAME cabinet due to that issue?
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ArcadeSeeker962:
Yeah, I know it sounds like a silly question. Our family lets our rabbits hop around in closed-in rooms, so the chewing part won't be a problem. However, I will make sure that moisture is as far away as possible from the MAME cabinet. During thunder storms, is it recommended to have the arcade cabinet turned off to prevent any damage to the setup?
drventure:
--- Quote from: ArcadeSeeker962 on April 27, 2012, 01:01:00 pm ---During thunder storms, is it recommended to have the arcade cabinet turned off to prevent any damage to the setup?
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Turned off AND unplugged is the only way to be completely safe. If you get a direct hit and your cab's plugged in, even if it's off, it can still get fried.
Found that out the hard way :)
Mysterioii:
Romex might seem like it has a tough coating to us but I guarantee rodents in general can chew through it like butter if they take a mind to. A lot of house fires are caused by squirrels getting into attics and deciding to chew on things. I had a friend who had a pet rabbit eat all the buttons off his TV remote... :lol
Mcseforsale, that's a cool setup, but I wouldn't rely solely on a fuse. Personally I'd use both (even if it's just a surge suppressor with an integrated fuse). Say you are hit by a lightning strike, with just a fuse, it will conduct a lot of electricity momentarily until the filament heats up and melts. Then, unless you have a UPS, your whole system suddenly gets shut down. With a surge supressor it should theoretically smooth out the spike but leave power applied.
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/surgeprotectors.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surge_suppressor
And personally I would shut the system down and at least switch it off during a thunderstorm if I was able to. I don't unplug them but my power strips/surge suppressors have a switch. As Drventure pointed out, Philips came through for him by writing him a check... after his suppressor failed. ;D They're better than nothing but they're not flawless.
Dervacumen:
Here's another install of the build-your-own smartstrip type setup, about half way down the page: using a Radio Shack $9.00 relay
I only turn my machine on when I want to play, and I probably wouldn't do that during a thunder storm, mostly 'cause I live in CA and a thunderstorm is an event that draws us to the windows. :P
If you leave your TV and computer on during a thunderstorm, do the same with this. It's the same risk (ie not much, but not zero).