I was curious to open a protected outlet that I bought for my computer and only saw a fuse as protection. Is that the protection we have?
Unfortunately we see in the market many of these plugs that say protect the computer and as protection element have only one fuse. This is just a protection against overcharging and short circuits that does not solve the main problem of the computers and peripherals that are the outbreaks and transients. The true protected outlet has varistors or MOVs (Metal-Oxide Varistors) that are components that protect the circuit against surge and transients that can affect computers. These components must be connected in parallel with the sockets at the input of the circuit, usually a couple of them connected to the ground terminal which is very important to be connected for protection circuit efficiency. Many more elaborate shots still include EMI filters and other protection features.
