European Appliances

bluep

After living in Germany, I've brought quite a few electrical appliances back to the UK with me - these have a german 2 pin plug on them.

The most important ones that I'd like to continue using are:
charging cable for my digital camera
electric underblanket for the bed
HP Deskjet printer

My question is: can I just use a german to UK plug adapter and plug them in and use as usual? Or is there something complicated to figure out regarding the voltage etc...? As you can probably tell, I'm not exactly electrically minded! I can probably buy new UK cables for the printer and camera if needs be as they are models sold over here as well, but the electric blanket is obviously a different matter and as it was an expensive one, I'd rather not replace it if I can SAFELY use it here somehow.

Thanks in advance for any help!

crossleydd42

Surely the voltage will be different to start with - 110v whereas the UK is 220/230 volts. I'm no expert, but I think you'd need a transformer to step the voltage down to 11ov The blanket may be a No No, because it might draw too many amps through the transformer.
speak to an electrical factor, I suggest.

Hunnymonster

You can indeed buy either adaptor plugs where the 2-pin plug is held solidly inside a UK 3-pin plug body for both small 6A plugs and the larger round plugs - they should be no more than about a pound(ish) each (I buy all mine from https://www.cpc.co.uk - code PL02034 is the 6A version, PL06740 is the round higher current version).

Personally my entire computer desk is cabled up using European-style connectors because they're so much more compact than the UK equivalents - and I have also found in the past that most of the antisurge things are cheaper to buy too.

Oddly I have a friend lives in Belgium and his entire computer desk is cabled up using UK sockets. Strange world eh ? lol

No voltage difference to worry about - Germany is in Europe, not Japan or the US.

innovate

crossleydd42 wrote:

Surely the voltage will be different to start with - 110v whereas the UK is 220/230 volts.

To the best of my knowledge, the only electrical devices you can buy in Germany that have an option to run on 110V are travel shavers/irons/hair dryers. The standard voltage in Germany has been 220V for at least 60 years, probably longer.

Apart from some older televisions and video recorders , I have never heard of any consumer electrical device that works in Germany but not in the UK (and the other way round), using a suitable adapter (such as a travel adapter, or a shaver adapter) that "translates" the different plug shapes for the respective sockets. The reason the older TVs/VCRs don't work has nothing to do with electricity.

redux

crossleydd42 wrote:

Surely the voltage will be different to start with - 110v whereas the UK is 220/230 volts. I'm no expert, but ...

This is totally erroneous; the USA has 110v, but most (or all?) of Europe is 220 to 240v, certainly including Germany.

Either get plug-in adapters or, preferably for long-term use, change the mains plugs on the leads.

bluep

Thanks everyone - that really helps! My boyfriend thought the same about the 110v thing, so its obviously a commonheld misconception. Thanks too for trying to help though Crossleydd42!

I thought there couldn't be "too" much of a problem as my UK laptop and other stuff ran fine through adapters in Germany and if the voltage was much lower, they surely wouldn't have had enough power. I suppose it was mostly the electric blanket that was worrying me due to the safety factor but I did't want to chuck it as it cost 60 euros.

desiman

Bluep,

Im doing the reverse as you are and am in the Netherlands using my UK appliances! I found the best way to do this, instead of getting an individual adaptor for each appliance, just get a 4 way or 6 way european extension cable and just attach the UK adapter at the end of it! I do this the other way around in NL and it works a treat, plus when I go back to the UK, I simply take off the Eur adapter at the end of the extension cable and use it in the UK.

All the best

Paul_the_Painter

Tesco has UK plugs for under 50p each IIRC, just cut the wire where it goes into the continental plug, and wire on the UK plug. If there is a Green or Green and Yellow wire this goes to the big Earth Pin on the UK plugs (not all appliances are earthed so will only have the following two wires), The Red or Brown wire goes to the the pin with the fuse connected to it, and the Blue or Black wire goes the only remaining pin. A bit more work but a lot more flexible if ou're staying in the UK