Power Converter - your thoughts

[cle-guy]

Just a warning....some bring an adapter from European to a us socket and they bring a power strip or three way plug from the us and plug those into the adapter. BE VERY CAREFUL...remember you have converted the physical characteristics of the plug but it is still 220V. It is very likely that the power strip or three way plug are not safe for 220 V.....possible shock or fire. Don't do this.

 

The adapter is fine as long as everything you plug into it is rated for 220 V....that means everything.

 

Thanks for the reminder :)

 

...in my past job for 10 years, I traveled international quite often setting up museum exhibits. On year we operated in 5 countries at the same time....lots of miles!

 

I learned a long time ago what works and doesn't and what blows up and what doesn't. Basically, if it's got a transformer involved (i.e. iPads computers etc) you're good. If the thing has any kind of heating element, you're asking for trouble (non-euro light bulbs, laminators, irons hair dryers...). I'm also mindful to properly use the grounding capabilities, I ensure my adapters all have the grounding option and the euro strip use does as well.

 

I was lucky to learn from stagehands and the lighting folks.

 

I actually bought some euro flood light bulbs one time to bring home cause my landscape lighting runs 220/230v in the neighborhood, and I hated the white light of their uplighting ( i kept putting normal bulbs in that blew in a day till i figured this out LOL)...i wanted more of the normal yellowish colored light like a normal light bulb not fluorescent white. And the bulbs lasted a LOOOONG time too... almost 3 years being on 8 hours every day. My normal US based flood lights elsewhere lasted a=only 4-5 months at best.

[gr82cu2]

Let me know how you like it.

 

Heather, we're still traveling but I wanted to come back and let you know how happy we are to have bought the Bestek device. It has been invaluable for us. It has worked flawlessly. It gave us extra power outlets on the ship but has been especially useful now that we are land traveling in Europe. I will say though that not enough power flows through it here to run my hair dryer. It works fine for my flat iron but not the hair dryer. It wouldn't run it on the ship either so I had to use the US outlet for that. Since being here in Europe I've just used the provided hair dryers. They are weak but do the job, eventually :) I tried using my own dual voltage hair dryer here with an adapter but it ran so hot and fast I knew it would burn up so abandoned that idea. I say, get one of these devices!