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musclegeek t1_ixy4yln wrote

Reply to comment by Xyspade in Not as old as a lot of the stuff on here, but a 6 plug wall adapter from RadioShack. Made November 20th, 1994. by 2XGSWsurvivor

MOVs resistance changes inversely to the applied voltage. If the voltage across it increases the resistance decreases and vice versa. They are connected to gnd but have a very high resistance for the normal operating voltage. When the voltage spikes their resistance goes extremely low allowing current to pass effectively creating a short circuit to gnd.

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Xyspade t1_ixzbaia wrote

Thank you! What about when there's only one MOV between hot and neutral instead of a group of three, how does it pass that spike to ground? Or does it just pass it to neutral?

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musclegeek t1_ixzcolo wrote

Neutral is there specifically to handle small surges. Especially in wye configurations and neutral eventually goes to ground. Having it connected to both neutral and ground is a fail safe. No neutral goes to ground, surge too high for neutral goes to both or some large f-up voltage spike from neutral goes to local ground.

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