A "Duh" question about voltages.

Rather than do one of my long winded posts with back story, etc, I'll get right to the point.

I've got a PC Engine coming in the mail.

I know Japanese outlets are 100 volts, and US outlets are 110 volts.

Will the AC 100v AC Japanese adapter work here? That is, will it be fried by my 110v outlet?

I recall hearing that there's no problem, but I never really pay too much attention to power issues, because I don't live in Europe, and I've never bothered to get an imported version of a console before.

 

all my Japanese consoles run on a 220-110v stepdown converter, according to Yakumo some regions in Japan have 110v so that should be okay

 

Here in Brazil we have 110v and 220v. Everybody uses JP/US systems in 110v without any problem. BUT, I heard once that it is not very good for the machines because the "extra" 10v short its life...



PD

 

It won't shorten the console's life, it will shorten the power supplies life... I've had half a dozen wall-wart Famicom 100v adapters burning red hot for the past few years and so far, one has positively died on me. If you're concerned about the power supply, head on down to your local RadioShack, "you've got questions, we've got answers" (and a $20 power supply to sell you.) Alternatively, you could just go get a Sega Genesis (first model) power supply.

 

Ok, that's the kind of answer I'm looking for I guess. I definately don't want the AC adapter burning hot, so I'll either go buy one, or use a universal one, which I happen to have around. I'll just have to tear it away from my Lynx for a little while.

 

Its not burning hot because of the extra 10v It's most likely because I've left them in for the past three years. 100v things in all my experiences have tolerance for 110-120v outlets.

 

Alright, that's good to hear I guess, as long as nobody gives me any compelling reason not to use the adapter that comes with it, I guess I'll be fine.

 

It migth be worth noting that Kyuusaku is probably playing the balls off of his units (no pun intended). I've got loads of electronic products from one country and played in another... none have died yet.

 

I very much doubt 10V will make a difference. We kinda have the same issue in Europe - the UK & Ireland are 240V, whereas the rest of Europe is (I think) 220V. But there's not really any difference.

And look at PC power supplies - well, the ones with switches - there's always only two settings - 110 and 220. I've even seen some labelled 115V and 230V.

The only multi-voltage thing where I've seen more than two settings is our trusty old '91 Pioneer hi-fi - it's got 220, 110, 120-127*, and 240V. God knows why - maybe it's to more accurately minimise line voltage noise on the amp or something...?

*Saudi Arabia has to be different to EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD and uses 127V in some areas. And they also use 220V at the same time. Believe me - I lived there for a few years back when I was a punk kid. Our house was all 127V with US-style sockets, all except for the... DISHWASHER, which had its own special 220V UK-style socket. Don't ask!

It was a such a crazy place - over there you could buy a PAL NES or a Famicom with about 50 magical games built-in! I wonder if they were PAL-modded or what? Can't remember now - it was common practise over there to buy multi-standard TVs and VCRs over there due to all the channels you got from across borders and the millions of dodgy pirate videos you got there (it was actually physically impossible to buy a legit VHS tape, audio cassette or floppy disk-based software there)! Our crappy Daewoo TV (it even had one of those crappy panes of glass over the screen!) even had LEDs on the front to tell you if you were watching PAL, SECAM, NTSC 3.58 or NTSC 4.43. Such a weird country...

 

In America, our modern houses are built with 220v outlets for appliances such as dishwashers and stoves.

 

Ah, that might explain things. What kind of plugs do they use, though? The ones with circular pins (like most 220V countries)?

 

Oh, so that's what those are. I always wondered what the hell was up with those gianormous plugs...

 

The UK is actually 230V. Not been 240 for a good few years now.

(Sorry to nit-pick)

 

And conversely, the rest of Europe (or at least Holland and Belgium) seems to have gone up to 230v from 220v.

 

Why can't the world agree on similar TV/power standards?

 

The world can't agree on anything else, so why should those standards be any different?

 

I always thought of that too, but I'm just thankful that everyone agreed to have the same unit of time.

 

no probs, never ever!

 

Ah that makes even more sense. I heard it's supposedly 230V everywhere that was 220-240, but I never tested myself. And to make things weirder, if you ever look at any of those really old UK plugs (the big old circular pin ones - if you've been in any crappy 60's-tastic rented houses you'll know what I'm on about), they all say 250V.

I think they decided to be different with power because it was just plain cheaper to transmit 110V over the whole country than 220. But saying that, China and Russia use 220V... so in conclusion it's because you yanks are all cheap-asses.

And with the TV systems being different - well the fieldrate difference can be blamed on the voltage differences around the world. 220V is usually 50Hz and 110V is 60Hz*, which lead to PAL usually being 50Hz and NTSC being 60Hz (well, 59.98Hz or something weird like that). It was like this even before the PAL and NTSC colour systems though - it's because with early TV sets, if the picture frequency was different to that of the line voltage, there was too much interference. Not a problem with this newfangled "solid state" crap, but it would have been too much hassle to change.

But then the segragation continued. Colour TV was first broadcasted properly in the US in the mid-50's, hence the NTSC "color" system was born. But by the 60's, when teh Germans were starting to do colour TV, they had realised all of NTSCs flaws and made their own better system - PAL. Then, of course the French had to be different, and make SECAM which was different *again*.

There were talks of introducing "PAL-Plus" (or something along those lines) in the US in the 80's to replace NTSC after realising how crappily it transmitted over cable TV, but that plan didn't seem to go anywhere.

You'd think now with the introduction of DVB and HDTV and whatnot, the world can agree with a standard, but NO. Though PAL and NTSC are technically dead (well they're not used anywhere in the transmission of digital TV), the field/framerates and resolutions are still different.

 

Interesting... but maybe that's the fuse rating? I've seen that before in 230v land.

Hmm, isnt the "cheapness" of power transmission inversely proportional to the amount of amps? Over here, they convert the 230v to 15000-30000v for long-distance transmission, because it minimizes power loss.