International power

Hardware
1

@Zootalaws got me thinking on international power. I share this as Food for Thought

Thanks

2

I found this too

https://voltage-converter-transformers.com/pages/faq-html

  1.    How do I figure out how many watts voltage transformer do i need?

You need to check how many watts your appliance operates on (You can find this information on a label on the bottom or back of your equipment, or in the manual). If you can’t find this information, you can try to find information on amperage (AMPS) of your appliance and multiply it by input voltage (110V or 220V) to arrive at the total wattage.

Volts x Amps = Watts (i.e 110V x 0.5 AMPS = 55W). Please make sure not to run any appliance with higher wattage then voltage transformer’s wattage. This might damage both: your appliance and the transformer! Heavy duty transformers/converters can be used continuously at 17%-80% of their wattage capacity.

The math says Watts is Watts but I suspect there is a difference in heat between 110 & 220 inversion.

3

Volts times amps is volt-amperes, aka VA. Same as watts for DC, but AC is weird and has a thing called power factor (Google if you care) that makes VA often higher than watts. That’s why a 500VA UPS only handles something like 350W.

Use 50 to 80% of the bigger number for conservative rating.

If you think that’s weird check out RF currents with things like skin effects

4

I live by practical example so I get the weird factor. I’ve been DC since i was a kid making things since I was like 5. I’m MUCH older than that now. My dad was an electrician on the side, so I did my fair share of pulling wire.

Here is my heat example - I live in the US, if I use a electric kettle to boil water it will take a few minutes on 110. When I visit the UK same approximate process is done in less that 2 minutes.

Thank you

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