USA electrical appliances

SandLake

I have a friend coming to stay who wants to use her hair dryer and other electrical appliances while she is here. She has found a transformer for $55 which will provide 110V from a 240v socket but only rated at 100w and her dryer is about 2000W!

Am I missing something?

Is there a simple way to run American electrical items in the UK?

Thanks

Farway

I would suggest she uses your appliances

The 55 dollar,100w transformer will of course burn out or catch fire once Ohms law is applied, as it will once switched on

Figment

SandLake wrote: »

I have a friend coming to stay who wants to use her hair dryer and other electrical appliances while she is here. She has found a transformer for $55 which will provide 110V from a 240v socket but only rated at 100w and her dryer is about 2000W!

Am I missing something?

Is there a simple way to run American electrical items in the UK?

Thanks

At least 1900 watts!

If her items are not dual/multiple voltage I would recommend she leaves them at home.

retepetsir

Leave them at home and either use yours or buy a cheap one once over here.

penrhyn

As above, but if you friend is adamant then you could hire a step down transformer of the required rating in the UK for them to use.


http://www.hirestation.co.uk/tool-hire/Lighting,%20Power%20and%20Welding/Electrical%20Distribution/290005/

Need some plug adapters as well, or as others have said use yours or buy something cheap.

ChiefGrasscutter

and ensure that the applicances are dual frequency rated as well
USA is 60Hz, the Uk is 50Hz.
(isn;t it Japan where the North island is 60Hz and the south island 50Hz)

SandLake

I have always known I am missing something and in this case I may be better to inform you what that is - hair, if you get my drift. She won't be borrowing mine!
I have advised her to buy a reasonably priced one from Argos and to leave hers at home but I just thought I would ask.

Apart from the 60/50Hz issue it seems strange that an appliance that requires 2000W will work fine on 110v but not on 240v.

Thanks for the replies

penrhyn

An appliance that is designed to produce 2000 wats of heat with a voltage of 110, will draw around 18 amps from the mains.
If you plug it into a 230 volt supply it will try to draw 38 amps which of course it cannot so will blow your fuse or go bang!

I doubt your friends appliance is 2000 watts, rather 1875 watts which is as much power as a north American socket can supply.

paddyrg

The 'power' of an electrical item is inversely related to the 'resistance' (how much opposition the item offers to the flow of electricity where the force of that flow is the 'voltage'). When the rated voltage is low, the appliance offers a lower opposition to allow a faster flow of electricity to heat up. If the voltage (force) is higher, the appliance needs to resist more to get the same power going through it (if you get my drift).

This means anything designed for 110V plugged into a 240V supply will go 'pop', and anything designed for 240v plugged into 110v will resist too much and not get the power it needs to operate.

Frankly, 240v is the better system in many ways as it means kettles heat in half the time at a lower current (and current is kinda related to efficiency).

Gosh I have probably confused everyone by trying to simplify things. Here's another analogy, may be easier, it uses water...

Voltage is like water pressure
Resistance is like the width of the pipe
Current is the rate the water is flowing in the pipe, pushed along by the voltage/pressure
Power is how much water you get through the system every second.

If you have low water pressure but need a lot of water, you use a wider pipe to get it to flow at the right rate eg a litre a second. If you attached that pipe to high water pressure you'd have more water than you needed, causing a problem. With high water pressure, you use a narrower pipe to get the right rate, but if the pressure dropped, so would the amount of water every second.

ChiefGrasscutter

Before the days of RCD devices in fuseboxes which now make electric supplies safer, 110V was always regarded as much safer than 240V.

The reason (to put it bluntly) is that for the average human a voltage of 'only' 110V cannot supply/force enough current though the human body to kill you if you touch a live wire.
Hence the use on construction sites even in the UK of special 110V equipment (drills sanders...whatever etc)

Linbox

paddyrg wrote: »

Gosh I have probably confused everyone by trying to simplify things..

You Think?

Tesco/Asda hair dryer?