US electrical item - how to use here?

travel_freak

Hi there,

I hope someone can help with this query.

I've bought a tape player from the USA (from ebay). It arrived today. I knew it would have an American plug on it and I had gone out and bought an adaptor plug from Wilkinsons but now I look at the plug on the machine it has 3 pins whereas my adaptor plug only has holes for two pins. There are two flat, sort of rectangular pins and one round one. Below are the technical bits from the instructions:

Power requirement: AC: 120 V. 60 Hz
Power consumption: 12 W
frequency range: 150-7000 Hz

The plug on it is a sealed unit type, so I can't unscrew it to look at the wiring - this is probably very dim but I have no idea whether the wiring would be the same as ours and if I could just cut this plug off and put a UK one on. The cable seems strange as it is flat, rather than our round type.

Can anyone please advise where I can get a suitable adaptor or whether I can just rewire this? I don't like playing with electricity and don't really want to blow myself or the house up...!

I did post a query a while ago on another board,but now I have the product I can see what it looks like and the above info, hence this re-post.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Regards,

bestyman

Hi,
In a way its lucky that the plug will not fit . The voltage of the appliance is 110volts, the voltage in uk is 240 . If you did plug it in it would cause damage and be dangerous.

If you really do need to use it over here you need a transformer from 240 volts to 110volts . On ebay typing in 110V TRANSFORMER UK TO USA 100 WATT WITH SOCKET brings up a few suitable ones, cost around £14 . Going to Maplins would be better as you could show someone there exactly what you want and be sure you have the correct transformer and socket before plugging it in .

The 3rd missing pin on the adapter you have is the earth pin which is very important for safety, make sure any adapter plug is suitable for earthed appliances, again maplins or similar electrical shop may be able to advise you about this.

Take care

Bestyman

p4u1_2

looking at the power requirements the device requires 120V, therefore I would suggest buying an autotransformer. Have a look at:

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/SC5497.html?utm_source=froogle

For information, the US colour code are:

Live = Black
Neutral = White
Earth = Green

Heath_Robinson

The USA uses 110V and we use 240V, they're not interchangeable!

If you want to get it to work you need to buy a 110V stepdown converter, luckily you only need to find 12W for your tape player so it doesn't need to be massive. I'd get a 45W model maybe. Maplins will do you one, or look round the net/ebay.

benjus

Finding a plug adaptor with 3 pins is not hard (e.g. this one from Argos)

However, this will not help you. Your tape player requires a 120V 60Hz supply. The UK electrical supply is 240V 50Hz. You will certainly need some sort of transformer to convert from 240V to 120V, but the real question is: do you need something that can supply 60Hz, or can you make do with 50Hz? For some equipment, the difference between 50Hz and 60Hz is not important. However, some tape players use this to determine the speed of the tape.

Best advice is to try and find out if the specific model you have bought can be operated at 50Hz. If so, you can use a cheap transformer like this one which will supply 120V at 50Hz. If that doesn't work, you'll need to invest in a frequency converter (either a combined transformer/frequency converter, or a separate frequency converter to use with a transformer such as the one listed above). For example, here's one on ebay. Also have a look at this page.

travel_freak

Thank you so, so much everyone for your detailed replies. Very technical - don't understand it but am printing it all off and heading off to Maplins I think. Will also look at the specific places you have all kindly referred me to.

I'm very glad it didn't fit as I might be sitting amongst cinders by now...!

Thanks again

Regards,

bigchasbroon

bestyman wrote:

Hi,

The 3rd missing pin on the adapter you have is the earth pin which is very important for safety, make sure any adapter plug is suitable for earthed appliances, again maplins or similar electrical shop may be able to advise you about this.

Take care

Bestyman

dont worry about the earth, the item should be double insulated and wont need earthed, although there are 3 pin plugs on all domestic appliances in the UK most tape players hi-fis etc dont use an earth as they are low consumption items. Earth is only used on higher consumtion products like white goods irons etc.

and yes you need a tranny - be careful how you google that!!

bestyman

bigchasbroon wrote:

dont worry about the earth, the item should be double insulated and wont need earthed, although there are 3 pin plugs on all domestic appliances in the UK most tape players hi-fis etc dont use an earth as they are low consumption items. Earth is only used on higher consumtion products like white goods irons etc.

and yes you need a tranny - be careful how you google that!!

Earth is nothing to do with consumption but if the appliance is metal or not ....i.e made of plastic.
Perhaps this appliance does have exposed metal parts?

travel_freak

Hi there,

Huge thanks to everyone who replied - I now have a voltage converter and my machine is working perfectly!

Just another quick question - I have so few power points where I need to use this - would it be safe to plug the voltage converter into a multi-socket extension lead? Say the type that accept 4 plugs? I would only ever be likely to be using about 2 plugs off this at a time but one would be the voltage converter (stepping down to the 110 v) and the other would be a standard 240 UK supply.

I'm guessing it would be safer to plug my voltage converter directly into the socket on the wall but at the moment I'm having to move the bookcase each time to get to the socket behind it (as I can't leave the converter constantly on as it gets very hot and seems to be continuing to do its work even when my tape machine isn't plugged into it).

Thanks for any advice - I don't know how I survived before this site!

Regards,

mercurystar999

Extension leads are perfectly safe to use! It will be perfectly fine to plug the transformer in.