A few years ago, I decided I wanted to get a good power strip. At the end of a few hours research, I concluded that there wasn't any trustworthy third party actually doing verification of manufacturer claims, and do not believe that "1750 Joules Surge Protection" actually means anything useful given that I do not trust it.
I just bought a mid-price range one that looked like it wasn't by some fly-by-night company.
It would be really cool to find somebody actually testing these things.
Are you in the US? Because in Europe all electrical products are certified under strict EU directives, and (at least in my country) there are routine inspections to ensure that all products for sale comply. You can walk into just about any supermarket and get a pretty trustworthy power strip, electrical appliance, or what have you.
Most devices in the US are UL listed, but I believe this mostly means they meet UL's in-house guidelines of safety rather than certifying all of the manufacturer claims. (It's possible I'm misunderstanding though--I'd love to hear from an expert.)
Being more concerned about fire safety than surge suppression, I've always been bothered by the cheap construction of the outlets in most of these products. So, for a while I've only been buying the TrippLite isobar and industrial/hospital-grade products.
I use an old APC SurgeArrest PRO8 inside my guitar rack. I opened it up about a year ago; I didn't see any bad soldering. I soldered in a few extra X capacitors and closed it up.
These things are quite likely hand-assembled. Quality control could vary over time, depending on which shop is contracted. Maybe that particular unit was given to a n00b. Or maybe the person was exhausted near the end of a long shift.
They aren't going to open up every one of these to check; that would be expensive.
I took one part once when I wanted to rewire to fit the output of my UPS (potentially dangerous idea - I know). Was surprised to find cardboard used inside as insulation. Thankfully the houses here are all spec'd with sensitive ELs. Won't save gear from a surge but good enough to save a life reasonably reliably.
For the repair, I used a simple piece of solder wick to replace the blown trace, stiffened with solder to prevent it from flapping around and possibly shorting to the ground island in the middle
Never heard of someone using solder wick in this way before. Can't decide if brilliant or insane.
I just bought a mid-price range one that looked like it wasn't by some fly-by-night company.
It would be really cool to find somebody actually testing these things.