Power line disturbances are real, and they are inevitable. According to Consumer Reports (November, 1994), "One significant surge a day is the norm. High-exposure areas may experience perhaps a hundred smallish spikes a day." Proper protection is essential for costly equipment, even more so if it is frequently moved from location to location.
The PL-8 Power Conditioner/Light Module is the perfect accessory to any equipment rack, providing the basic power protection essential to every audio or video system. Install a PL-8 in the top slot of your rack, and the eight switched AC outlets on the rear panel will power up all your equipment while its two slide-out light fixtures provide discreet, illumination of their controls on stages, in studios, or in any dark place. A dimmer control lets you adjust the lamp brightness to just the right level.
The PL-8 protects your delicate electronic equipment by combining a high voltage surge and transient suppressor with an RFI/EMI interference filter. The fast-acting suppression circuit responds in nanoseconds, clamping spikes and surges to safe levels. The filter works to prevent noise from fluorescent lights, electric motors, radio transmitters, and similar sources of "electronic pollution" from leaking from the AC line into sensitive analog or digital circuits.
The PL-8's lamps come supplied with 7 watt night-light bulbs. Replacements are readily available in 4 watt or 7 watt sizes at most supermarkets and hardware stores. Colored Christmas tree bulbs may also be used. Bulbs are easily replaced without removing the unit from the rack by unscrewing the cap on the end of each light tube.
The PL-8 has a master switch for the rear outlets that glows red when the power is on. There is also a separate switch for the lamps, allowing you to check your equipment settings before applying power to it. The front-panel circuit breaker can be easily and quickly reset should the PL-8 be overloaded.
Model PL-PLUS is
an enhanced version of the PL-8, offering improved noise filtering
and an AC voltmeter. The 20 LED bar-graph voltmeter reads from
90 to 128 volts in 2-volt steps. The normal range voltages are
indicated in green, with moderately and extremely high or low
voltages in yellow and red respectively. The voltmeter's accuracy
is ±2 volts. It can easily be recalibrated if necessary.
The PL-PLUS also features a longer, 10 foot heavy-duty 14 gauge
power cable. In addition, it offers a sophisticated RFI filter
network with a greatly improved capacity for stopping line noise.
This filter incorporates two toroidal inductors and three high-voltage
capacitors to achieve a common-mode noise attenuation of over
50 dB at 10 MHz.
Rear Views: Top, 120V units; bottom, 220/240V ("E" suffix) units. The 120V outlets are spaced sufficiently far apart to accommodate three or four "wall wart" cord-mounted power supplies without blocking the adjacent outlets.
Current rating: 15 amps
Input Voltage: 85 to 135 VAC
Meter Accuracy: PL-PLUS Voltmeter: + or -3 VAC; calibrated with internal trimpot adjustments
Spike Protection Modes: Line to neutral, neutral to ground, line to ground
Spike Clamping Voltage: Initial turn-on at 200 volts; TVSS rating of 400 volts peak at 500 amps, L-N, N-G, L-G (tested to UL-1449)
Response time: 1 nanosecond
Maximum surge current: 6,500 amps
Maximum spike energy: 80 joules per mode, 240 joules total protection
Noise attenuation: PL-PLUS: Transverse and common modes: 20 dB at 200 kHz, rising to >40 dB, 1 to 100 MHz
Mechanical: Dimensions: 1.75" H x 19" W x 8" D. Weight: 6 lbs (2.7 kg). Construction: Steel chassis, zinc chromate plating; .125" brushed and black anodized aluminum front panel; glass epoxy printed circuit boards.
Power Consumption: 20 watts
