Foreign power supplies

[Kimo]

Just a quick question, has anyone had any experience using electrical equipment when abroad? What I mean is I am planning doing a lot of travel abroad this year and will need to access electricity supplies for various stuff (mobile, laptop etc) and was wondering how easy this is. I know you can buy the adapter things that allow you to plug UK cables / chargers into whatever power supply for the country you are in, but are there any devices for which these are not suitable? Would be rather pissed off if I ended up buggering up my phone etc due to it getting too much power (or even not enough if that could do any damage). Anyone who's had similar experiences (and I'm sure there must be someone!) help would be appreciated.

[Elmo]

i think i(dont quote me on this) that the UK has the higher of the 2 voltages when it comes to electricity, definitely in europe, altho it could have changed so everywhere in europe has the same, really not sure, BUT what i do know is, ive charged my mobile in spain france, italy and switzerland just using one of the adapter thingies and it didnt do it any harm, so i dont think it would really matter.... could be wrong tho...

[Rave]

Basically there are two things that change as you move around the world: frequency and voltage.

Voltage: U.K. uses 240V, Europe uses 220. In fact, for the sake of E.U. harmony we all technically use 230V, with a 5% tolerance. Anyway, that's not really enough difference to muck anything up, so you'd be unlucky to damage anything that way.

Some other parts of the world use 240V, notably Australia, but beyond that I don't know for sure.

The US and Japan (and probably a bunch of other countries) use 110 or 120V. That is a big enough difference to damage stuff, although you're less likely to kill 240V equiptment by plugging it into 120V than vice-versa; it can still cause damage though I think.

Frequency: AFAIK all 240V supplies work at 50Hz frequency; 110-120V regions can be either 50 or 60Hz.

Anyway, a lot of modern stuff can actually run quite happily from any voltage from 110-240V and at 50 or 60 Hz, because they use power electronics rather than transformers. Basically, you should have a look at the label on the equiptment (or the equiptment's power supply) that you want to take with you. If it says something like "110-240V, 50/60Hz" you're fine, you can use it anywhwere. If it says "240V, 50Hz" you'll need a step up transformer to use it with a 110-120V supply.

If it's something like a mobile phone power pack, you'll find that the smaller, lighter ones are the ones that are most likely to be multi-voltage, because they are the ones that use power electronics rather than coil transformers.

Rich :¬)

[KBeee]

I remember an old Guvnor of mine complaining about 1960's B&W TV's - He reckoned it put a voltmeter in everyone house, cos if the picture rolled they knew they were getting low volts

[Kimo]

Cheers for the info all