This might be a dumb question, but I’d rather ask a dumb question than blow up my iPod. I’m going on a trip overseas (we’ll be in Italy, Greece, and then on a cruise ship, and then in Lisbon.) I’ve got several pieces of eqipment that need chargers - my iPod, my Nintendo DS, a battery recharger (my camera takes regular rechargeable batteries), etc. Is it safe to use them in foreign outlets with one of those little adapter things? Is there, I dunno, different current? I think the adapter things just change the shape, they don’t do anything with the electricity, right?
Most of Europe is on 230V AC. The USA is on 110V AC.
This may or may not be a problem. Many chargers for consumer electronics will work on both voltages, but some will not. Check the label on the charger - most will specify the range of input voltages as well as the output voltage.
You can buy transformers cheaply to convert 230V to 110V - e.g. see here (first page on Google - no recommendation implied) and scroll down to "UK TO USA VOLTAGE CONVERTER 45W STEP DOWN TRANSFORMER "
Note that you can’t plug just anything into a 45w stepdown transformer. Hair dryers, for example, pull hundreds of watts and would overload such a device almost instantly. All electric and electronic devices should state acceptable input voltages and power draw in either amps or watts somewhere on the body of the device. Understand how to read those labels and know what the implications are for the various numbers.
I should add that when I visited the USA I found that I needed a step-up transformer to make my standalone battery charger work, although the charger for my MP3 player and camera worked fine.
By the way, Walmart sell a universal iPod charger* which should work fine with an adaptor in Europe. [url=http://i.walmart.com/i/p/00/02/70/05/90/0002700590064_AV1_500X500.jpg]This picture shows the label you need to check - see where it says “Input voltage: 100 - 240V AC”.
Another difference that occurred to me is that the USA uses 60Hz AC while Europe uses 50Hz, but I don’t think that is important…
It depends! 
The adaptors themselves do, as you mentioned, change the shape of the plug. But don’t change the voltage. However, many modern chargers will happly accept input voltages between 100 to 230 or so. The charger/power supply for my Dell notebook PC says it will work with 100V to 240V inputs. So in that case all you need is the adaptor to change the physical plug layout.
You need to check the labels on all your units to see if they will work within the voltage range expected.
If all you are running are chargers, which don’t draw too much current anyway, there are voltage adaptors that are just resistors that will drop the 220V down to 110V. This would not be suitable for something like a hair dryer or iron, but would be OK for devices that only draw an amp or so.
BTW, I’ve not been overseas since 1994, but many hotels had 110V outlets in their bathrooms that were for use with an electric shaver. This would also work with your chargers if it’s available.
This site: http://kropla.com/electric2.htm has a chart listing the voltages and plug layout for most countries.
Oh crap. The one time I forget to preview. Let me fix those links.
Charger
Picture showing label.
Gorsnak is right with the warning re power draw, but an iPod charger is unlikely to draw huge amounts of power. Again, check the label on the device.
If the device draws an amp that is about 110W which is more than the 45W transformer will handle.
I blew up a battery charger in Australia once. Better make sure your equipment can handle a range of voltages.
Okay, so let me make sure I understand - if I check all the little boxes on my equipment and they all say they can handle the voltage, then I can just plug them into the adapter and use them?
Also, the cruise ship says it has normal American outlets, but once we were on one and noticed that the clock we brought was always fast and then found out that the power was different, even though the outlet was the same. Should I worry about that? I was thinking I was home free once we get on the ship.
No, unless it’s a motor (motor will turn slower) or something that uses the cycle rate as a clock, like an electric clock.
He said 110 V, not 110 W.
Also, one additional caveat which everyone forgot to mention. Some voltage converters for high-power, primarily resistive loads use a simple circuit to “chop” off the top of the 240 V waveform so that the RMS voltage becomes 120 V, instead of using a transformer. However, the shape is pretty close to a square wave, which primarily reactive loads don’t like. You definitely do NOT want to plug your iPod into one like that. Fortunately, the packages are usually prominently labeled as such, so just read the package when you buy it. You can also tell if the power rating is high (say, over 1000 W), but the converter is very light. This could also be of the type which uses a switching regulator, but these are usually much more expensive than other two types.
He said an AMP. Which is about 100W.
When traveling abroad (most recently on trips to Italy, France, and Brazil) I take both a power adapter (to use the different prong configurations) and a power converter (to convert the various voltages and wattages).
It has served me well and has successfully handled my iPod, a cell phone, rechargeable camera batteries, and laptop.
I also have a cheaper converter that I bought first, but it didn’t handle a blow dryer, so I bought a more expensive one (~$30 IIRC).
D’oh! :smack:
Missed that part. Thanks.
I’m not taking a hair dryer, so will I actually need a power converter if my cords are labeled to handle European voltage? I think the things I mentioned may be the only electronics I’d need to plug in.
If your cords say something like “Input: 100-280 VAC 50/60 Hz.” then you don’t need a voltage converter; you’ll only need a plug adaptor. These devices are using switching power supplies, which can work a wide range of input voltages and supply quite a bit of current for their size. They’re much smaller and lighter for a given power-handling capacity than a transformer.
Well, my battery charger won’t do the voltage, so I guess I’ll be looking for one of those transformer things. Anybody know what section in Best Buy I ought to be looking at? (Whenever I need help, there’s nobody around. Whenever I know what I want, here comes the blue shirt army.)
That was the frequency thing someone already mentioned. An electrical clock that counts minutes as “so many electrical cycles” will run faster on 60Hz than on 50Hz. For chargers this is not important. Most chargers (cellphones, computers) have a part that turns the AC in the plug into DC and which works just fine at both 60 and 50HZ, it’s only the voltage you need to worry about with them.
Adaptors and converters (make sure you explain that you actually need a converter and not only an adaptor) are usually near all the rest of the cables. In BestBuy’s webpage I find them mostly under “Computers”, they show also under Electronics.
What we do is scour the earth for kits that use rechargable batteries to power an iPod, phone, etc. (e.g., Belkan makes a 4-AA battery iPod charger), then use a plug-in battery recharger with a converter and wall-plug set. That way if anything blows, it’s the less-expensive battery recharger rather than the iPod. Though I hate to recommend disposables, some there are disposable battery boosters for many brands of cell phone.
What cruise line will you be on? Some offer “U.S.” current, and I’ve not had a problem with that on Princess or Norwegian. You can call them to confirm.
After much deliberation and reading about the potential spikiness of the power supply, I’ve decided not to take my laptop to Vietnam and Cambodia. I bought an extra camera battery and will charge it up before going, figuring that if I keep the screen off and don’t mess with in-camera editing, two charged batteries should get me through. Although I could take the iPod plus Belkin, I got a ScanDisk mp3 player on sale at CostCo; it runs on AAA batteries so I’ll just pack some spares.
The ease and luxury of portable electronics is somewhat offset for me by the edd-ons and tangle of wires. My biggest desire is for an excellent, not-too-cumbersome solar AA and AAA battery recharger. On a cruise, I’d just take it on deck with me for a few hours.
Check the package for the transformer very carefully. When my Mom and I went to Ireland, she bought a converter before she left for recharging her camcorder. It wasn’t until we were in Ireland that I noticed the dire warning on the transformer “NOT FOR USE WITH BATTERY CHARGERS. OHMIC LOADS ONLY”. Don’t ask me what ohmic-only devices anyone would ever bring on vacation with them. And it wasn’t until after we had left Cork (the only city on our route big enough to sell things like adapters) that we noticed that the camcorder charger could accept anywhere from 100-240 volts, any frequency. So we ended up with about three minutes of video from our trip.