Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsLightning struck nearby: saved everything behind a Tupavco protector, lost everything NOT behind a Tupavco protector
Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2017
Update 02 August 2018:
Works as described!
TL:DR - I've had this unit for 1 and 1/2 years now. A few weeks ago we had 5 days of continuous bad thunderstorms. I'm not talking about just rain showers, I mean bad lightning for 5 days every afternoon. It was miserable. Many fires in our county because of these storms.So how did these hold up?
I have four in-line Tupavco protectors starting at the outside of my house to protect all downstream network connections before they enter my main house and ultimately into my core networking cabinet.
The first and second Tupavco is on my guest cottage about 5 yards away from the first protector. It sits in-line for the ethernet entering into the guest cottage and a second protector for the main "backbone" ethernet extending down to my workshop, barn, and gym before feeding back into the core networking cabinet. The third and fourth Tupavco is at the base of my grain silo protecting my network from a weather IP camera mounted 33 feet up on my grain silo and the protecting an aerial (overhead) ethernet cable extending to my gym also protecting my network from the switch that is at the gym.
Remember that lightning? At some point lightning struck my fields near my silo (and maybe the silo itself) enough that the UNPROTECTED ends of my network at the gym switch and the actual camera itself were fried. Like deep fried. The networking switch smelled like burnt silicone and the camera did as well. These two devices were UNPROTECTED and I didn't have any Tupavco protection on those ends. The Tupavcos at the base of the grain silo grounded whatever electrical current hit my switch and camera and protected the core network from any transient voltages. WORKED AS ADVERTISED! I lost about $100 in electronics (switch and IP camera) but over $2,000 in core networking gear (switches, servers, routers, access points, etc.) was protected.
I replaced my IP camera and gym network switch and bought two more of these Tupavco protectors to protect my new gym switch and new IP camera.
Original review:
Well it's hard to review this because I won't know how well made it is until struck by lightning or some other surge.
Beyond reviewing the actual functionality:
The unit is gray in color as opposed to beige in the picture. I think it looks better being gray.
The unit is built with a sturdy plastic housing (not thin, cheap plastic).
The bottom includes a moisture-resistant cable pass through (which should keep the bugs out too).
I have another communications project I am working on and will be purchasing two more in the near future.
