american electricals

Lychee

I want to buy an electrical product from the States and wondered if there is anything I should know about first to ensure that this product is usable in the UK? plugs, voltage, fuse...??? obviously have zero knowledge about electricals except that I might have a problem using a foreign-made one!!

any help much appreciated

thanks in advance

Mr_Warren_2

US made and bought electrical items are all on 110volts (to the exception of laptops, difital cameras etc that are manufactured to accept a wider range of voltages and therefore be used ok in Europe).
It all depends what you are buying. If its a TV, you are out of luck as US use a different TV reception system (all to do with Hertz or Hz and banwidth).

If it is a smaller item such as electric carving knife of breadmaker, CD player etc, you need to get a voltage converter available from many electrical stores (even try Ebay) this will plug into a 230/220V UK supply and deliver 100V to your appliance.

Now ask yourself the question....is it realy worth the bother?
I hope this answers your question.

quoia

To a great extent is really depends on what it is you are looking to buy as to if it will work over here.

HOWEVER !

The mains supply in the USA is at 110 Volts AC with a frequency of 60 Hz.

Hz = Hertz = Cycles per second

In the UK it is 230 Volts AC 50 Hz

A mains plug in the States has 2 thin flat pins in a VERTICAL orientation for the live and neutral connections. Sometimes there is a 3rd round pin for Earth.
You obviously know what we have here.

I have worked on some US built computer products that also had other things that can lead to other issues.

Mains cables in the UK currently use BROWN (LIVE), BLUE (NEUTRAL) and GREEN/YELLOW (EARTH/GROUND) as the colour coding for identification.

This replaced the old system of RED (live), BLACK (neutral) & GREEN (earth)

In America (unless they've recently changed it) they have WHITE, BLACK & GREEN.
HOWEVER BLACK is LIVE and WHITE is NEUTRAL !

Also it is not unknown for some US built products to have BOTH the LIVE AND NEUTRAL FUSED. This can lead to a potentially dangerous situation should it develop a fault and blow the fuse in ONLY the neutral wire. Item is "dead" but still has 230 volts "running through it".
We always removed the fuse in the neutral side of the power line and replaced it with a short section of a 6 inch nail so that only the LIVE wire had a fuse in it.
I understand this dual fuse arrangement in the US came into being since the polarity of the mains was subject to change on occasion. The live pin on your US wall socket might one day become the neutral pin and the neutral becomes the live.

Hope this helps !

Lychee

Thank you, Mr Warren and quoia

It's a soya milk maker I'm interested in (soy milk to Americans). Not very common/popular in the UK, I've only found one online for £70 *ouch* So I've been looking on eBay.com because I can have it sent to a friend in America to save on postage and collect it when I go over in a couple of months. Including postage, it'll probably total maybe US$70 - that's less than £40? How much is a voltage converter in the shops?

Product specs
Voltage: AC 120V / 60Hz
Power: Motor 200 W; Heating 750W

This voltage coverter on eBay.co.uk says :
Input: AC 230-240V ~50Hz
Output: AC 110-120V 45W

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=14968&item=5765560574&rd=1

Do I need to worry about wattage?

Thanks again.

grumbler

Lychee wrote:

Do I need to worry about wattage?

Yes you do! This converter is just 45Watt. As far as I understand you need at least 750W (or maybe even 750+200=950Watt).

svmitche

This may help:

http://www.newmarket-transformers.co.uk/american.html

This company make transformers, so the page is biased, but it gives you the gist of what it means.

Try Maplins for transformers. They used to sell them. http://www.maplin.co.uk/

[Deleted User]

Be warned that a 1 kilowatt autotransformer will weigh about 20lb or more.