Point-of-sale dealers and integrators are turning to power conditioning units that filter “dirty” line power into “clean” power, protecting registers and related retail systems devices from problems such as untraceable error codes caused by unstable line power and excessive voltages.

Innovations have lowered the price of power conditioning units to that of a simple surge protector or UPS. That means dealers and integrators can cost-effectively ensure POS reliability.

In response to the shortcomings of previous attempts — such as a heavy isolation transformer (IT) or surge protector — to combat dirty power, recent technological advances have now yielded transformer based filtering (TBF) devices that cost-effectively provide clean, filtered “computer-grade” power.

Developed by SmartPower Systems (www.smartpowersystems.com) of Houston, these TBF devices incorporate a “smart” digital, electronic circuit that allows more features at a cost considerably below that of an IT.

In the hospitality industry, a wide variety of equipment should be protected from high and low voltage surges and spikes using a UPS with TBF (transformer-based filter), including all the computers used at registration and check-out, as well as the telephone system. This equipment is also useful on the electronic cash registers in the hotel's restaurants and bars.

At the same time, TBF devices also protect against small surges. If line power goes too high for more than five cycles — and becomes powerful enough to blow out the power supply and motherboard of electronic registers, for example — the TBF unit cuts the power off to the protected device.

TBF circuitry also addresses a particularly perplexing problem in many point of sale installations - that of ground loop current, which can create havoc in sensitive microprocessors embedded within POS devices. The Smart Ground circuitry within the TBF units avoids this hazard by including an impedance matcher that eliminates ground loop current.