So I’m down here in the Big Easy watching the game and I spilled some stuff on my clothes. I’m in the mens room and there’s a couple of outlets here, 110V I think. Would something go wrong if I plug a 220V hairdryer in one of these outlets?
Nope. The hair dryer either won’t work or will run very slowly.
So you caused that blackout?
A 220V hand held air dryer? American made?
115V outlets, and 220V outlets are different outlets. How is it that you have a 220V dryer that can plug into a 115V outlet?
My wife has a hair dryer with instructions that you can plug it into a 220 supply (with an adapter) but use it only on low. I imagine your dryer will give you low heat at 110, but ought to work. I had a radio I bought in Europe and with an adapter it worked fine at 110.
Shouldn’t it actually get hotter? As in, half the voltage, twice the current?
No.
I = V/R, where R is a constant.
Power = I^2 * R, so power will be 1/4
The heating elements in a hair dryer are mostly resistive. If the voltage drops, the current does as well (V=IR, and R is constant).
With motors though, that’s different, and it depends a bit on what type of motor they put in hair dryers these days. If it’s a synchronous AC motor it will try to spin at a constant speed (a multiple of the line frequency with the exact multiple depending on how many poles the motor has). If the mechanical load on the motor is fairly constant then the current will indeed double to generate enough power to maintain the motor speed.
I haven’t taken apart any hair dryers lately, but I think they use a different type of motor than that.
FYI most of the power used by a hair dryer is in the heating elements.
a niner’s fan.
Oh, I see. Thanks.