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Long story short: our electrical grid is very unstable, so we get frequent brownouts. One of these brownouts fried my microwave, so while it was heating something up, the inner light got stronger from the voltage drop and then it just turned off.

I was able to fix it, but I want to protect it. I found these single surge protectors at amazon.

Quick question: will these surge protector prevent the microwave from these voltage fluctuations? I ask because they're pretty inexpensive at 4 for $10.

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  • 4 for 10 dollars seems to be close to the stuff that say it get rid of rats/mice that does not work. Do they come with a guaranty? Do they seem to be from a trust worthy company/store? There are surge protectors that fit into your panel and protected the whole house.
    – crip659
    Commented Sep 6 at 23:05
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    A surge protector will not help with brown outs.
    – DoxyLover
    Commented Sep 6 at 23:27
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    @crip659: the panel surge protectors only promise to protect the wiring, not anything connected to the wiring. They may allow high voltage transients through as long as they aren't enough to damage the insulation, and that could be quite enough to cook electronics. A surge suppressor, at its heart, is just three metal oxide varistors, possibly plus a tiny bit of additional circuitry for the pilot light,, so they could be churned out for pennies... But if the goal is to protect a $100 appliance, saving a few dollars and giving up trust in the protection seems like a bad deal. Buy better.
    – keshlam
    Commented Sep 6 at 23:34
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    Is your entire neighborhood's electrical grid unstable, or is it just your house? If it's just your house, have you or an electrician checked your supply wiring for a lost or weak neutral connection?
    – brhans
    Commented Sep 8 at 4:23
  • @brhans: it's the whole city. We all use the same crappy electrical grid.
    – rbhat
    Commented Sep 8 at 18:22

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It sounds like what you need is a voltage protector, not a surge protector. Something like this claims to protect against voltages above 140 V, and below 90 V. It does this by turning off when an out-of-bounds voltage occurs, and stays off until the voltage is stable for three minutes. The basic idea is if your power is briefly unstable due to trees or animals shorting the power grid, it will stay off until it becomes stable again, rather than subjecting your appliance to large fluctuations while the grid is trying to turn back on.

It does not protect against very large voltages like from a lightning strike.

Disclaimer: I have one of these, and it does stay off for about three minutes after power is restored after a power outage, but I cannot say what range of voltages actually triggers it, or how quickly it turns off.

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