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General discussion

Power components of different voltage requirements

by charmingsarcasm Oct 29, 2005 6:59PM PDT

Hi all,
My desktop tower uses a 220V source (UK based) but I wish to return home to my country which uses a 110 V, 50 Hz supply. I am having a 220V source installed for the tower but I have perfectly good 110V peripherals at home.

Can I use my 110V peripherals (powered from their 110V source) with my 220V tower (powered from the newly installed 220 V source)?

The monitor is an IBM 2235-00NA, the printer is an HP Deskjet 3550, scanner Canon Canoscaan FB 330P.

The tower has been built specially with AMD Sempron 2400+, 256MB DDR400 Memory, ASUS Motherboard.

Thanx

Discussion is locked

4 Posts
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110V 50hz? you obviously checked
by jonah jones Oct 30, 2005 1:06AM PDT

but as far as i know maybe only 2-3 countries use 110/50, it's usually 110/120 60hz

just curious, but why have a new 220V power supply installed? why not a 110 and then be ready for home use...


jonah

.

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Probably too late now but one
by Ray Harinec Oct 30, 2005 6:00AM PST

can buy power supplies that will operate from around 80 VAC to 240 VAC from 50 to over 60 Hz, with no need to change anything, its all automatic. A heck of a lot cheaper than having a 2XX line installed.

I assume the USA is not involved. Although we call it 110 VAC, the industry standized on 120 VAC as the standard many years ago. But they still mark things as 110, or 115, or 117 [military manuals]. Also what we all call 220 is actually 240 in the US.

What about the tower is "specially built"??? The power supply??

The losses in any transformer will be different at 50 Hz than at 60 Hz, but not likely to be a problem. One loss increases with frequency and the other decreases with frequency, so not too big a deal.

However just a useless piece of info; Many years ago in Califirnia, USA, the power companies changed from 50 to 60 Hz. They saved enough money by the reduced losses in the customers power meters [wattmeters] to pay for the switchover in a few years.

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If you have both available
by Minor Tron God Oct 31, 2005 9:43AM PST

whats the problem. Use 110/120 for what runs on that and 220/240 for what runs on that. As long as the right power is applied to the right device it will work. You could also use a stepdown transformer from 220/240 to 110/120 ( wont affect Freq) if all you had was 220/240 or stepup XFMR 110/120 to 220/240 but that will lose a little but not much. Appearently everything with a motor is rated for 50Hz or does not have a "Linear" Power Supply, I ran into that problem overseas before. High Speed 9track Vacuum Column Tape Drives with a Linear PS Brought from the U.S. will not work at 50Hz.

MTG

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You might want to check
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Nov 1, 2005 9:33AM PST

to see if there is a switch on the back of the tower that allows switching between 240 and 110v.
If there isn't it should be reasonable easy to obtain a power supply for your tower that runs at 110V. The voltage coming out of it, into your drives and motherboard, is exactly the same no matter what input voltage you are using
This will be MUCH cheaper than installing a 240V line into the house


P

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