Voltage conversion question?
Asked by
2davidc8 (
10189
)
April 3rd, 2011
I have some electrical devices (for example, battery chargers) which list acceptable input as
100V-240V AC 50/60Hz, or sometimes as
both 110/120VAC 60Hz and 220/240VAC 50–60Hz.
Does this mean that I can plug these into electrical outlets in, say, Europe where the electricity is 220 volts without the use of a voltage converter? (Maybe just need an adapter.)
Has anyone tried this, and how did it work?
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6 Answers
I haven’t tried it, but adapters are designed to adapt, and that includes the current.
Yes. You plug the device into the socket and turn it on and the device sorts it out. No user input is required.
You will need a physical adapter to match the pin layout of the country you are in, but would not need to worry about the voltage, as the devices will sort that all out for you.
I means exactly that. You can supply both inputs and the device will function properly.
Sometimes there is also switch on the device when your input change from 120v/60hz to 220/50hz. Make sure you ensure there is no switch that need to be modified.
Battery chargers and other types of transformers, such as laptop power adapters and other such devices, are more commonly built to be able to handle a wider range of power inputs. (That doesn’t mean that they automatically do handle that, so you still need to look to make sure.)
However, motor-driven devices will be less apt to be designed and built in a way to handle the wide disparity in household current between the USA and Asia / Europe. Motors are a lot more finicky in their power input requirements. Transformers are built to “transform” one power input to another, so it’s not such a big trick to enable it to handle one more input.
Thank you, everybody, for your answers. Now I can travel lighter!
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