Am I right that an adapter is what I use when I don’t want to zap all of my battery power – and that in Europe I will need to add a converter (for DC) and the plug appropriate for a particular country?
Are AA batteries easily available in France or are their appliances generally designed to use another voltage?
Merci.
You’re right on both.
The adapter/charger for my camcorder doesn’t seem to care whether you plug it into a 110v or 220v outlet, it is rated to handle both. Check the tiny little printing on your adapter to see what the input voltage says.
Depending on what you want to power, you may need a converter to step 220v (Europe) down to 110v (US) (assuming you live in the US). It sounds like you are thinking of an AC to DC adapter to use instead of batteries, maybe for a computer.
In either case you will indeed need a plug adapter, which itself merely changes the configuration of the plug. Some gizmos are available which are the plug adapter and the transformer (what you call the converter) in one, but since many European countries have different plug configurations, any given one would only be useful in a very few places. I have a kit that is the converter and a bag of plug adapters. I think I paid around $20 for it.
You also have to watch the rated wattage for the converter. A hair drier would draw too much power for some of them.
Some appliances (clocks) would be sensitive to the change in AC rate from 60 Hz to 50, which the voltage converter doesn’t change.
What you are trying to use is a rather important thing in the equation as well. Many electronics nowadays don’t need a converter.
Thanks, CookingWithGas and GreyWanderer.
Also, welcome, GreyWanderer. Have fun at SDMB. One of my best days was spent travelling on a train beside the Oslo fjord. I hope to take the train to Bergen someday.
The appliance is a clock radio (I will check the manual), but I may take a hairdryer and will be sure to check the power.
A hair dryer will need a rather large and rather expensive transformer to step the voltage down from 220 to 110, you’ll probably be better off picking up a cheap hair dryer when you arrive in France. As mentioned above, your clock may end up running slow if it uses the current frequency to drive the clock. The radio part will be fine.
You can also get a cheap travel hairdryer in the US that will work at 220V, if you’d rather. You will still need a little adapter doohickey for the plug - France, like most of Europe, uses two round pins - however that should be quite cheap.
AA batteries are common all over Europe, and are exactly the same as the ones you buy in the States.
Have a good trip!