rack power strip

[bantam]

hey all,

i need to put a rack power supply (like those furman strips) into my tabletop rack cause i have some gear without power switches (blue tube) but i am concerned about having wall warts close to the other gear (compressors, pres,etc) should i place the power rack on top,bottom, does it matter?

thanks

please more DIY. those condensors i made are great!!!!!!!

[Professor]

If you are not currently having trouble with the power supplies, then you should be worse off getting everything plugged into a single unit. I like them at the top as they are easier to deal with, and if you have lights on them, those will need to be at the top.

As for what type to get, keep in mind there is more to them then simply with and without pull out lights.

Cheap power distributors are really nothing more than rackmounted power strips. They may have a protection against large surges (over 400 volts) and maybe an RF choke, but not much else. Better distributors may add metering like a volt/amp meter which will show how many volts you're getting from the line (kinda handy to know) and how many amps you're drawing (very important if you are mobile and draw a lot of current). Still better ones will start to "condition" the power by running it through surge 'suppressors' rather than straight up 'protectors'. This variety will attempt to control the overs and unders at least a little bit, and will try to peel out as much RF and other interference as possible, and will have the 'protector' as well in case anything really big happens. These are also the best price/protection ratio you can get.
The last variety are the variable transformers and re-generators. One variety operates by monitoring and constantly changing the feed off of a transformer to maintain a consistent 120v with some other conditioning and protection. The other operates by converting the AC to DC, then regenerating the AC at a perfect 120v 60Hz - and these are the best since they will take any power input, often from 80-250 volts and output exactly what you want with no artifacts what-so-ever, a perfect AC sine wave, but they are also way pricey.
There are also the UPS supplies like you might have on a computer, but these will only last a few minutes in an outage, then drop the power anyway. They can also sometimes inject some ugly noise into audio systems and aren't too highly recommended, unless you get a very good one.

Hope that helps you out.

-Jeremy