Yes, you'll travel the world with your Godlyke Power Adapter Set...the makers of which may be a bit hazy on the distinctions between temporal, spiritual and electrical power.
(I've never had one of these in my hands. They look like a compact way to cope with world mains-socket standards -- we're down to what, less than a dozen versions? My preference is for dedicated adapters or even, given the casualness with which some of the cheaper versions treat the distinction between "line" and "neutral," building up my own in the form of short cables. More and more things automatically adjust themselves to available mains voltage and don't care about the difference between 50 and 60 Hz, but you still want the switch and fuse in the hot side of the line!)
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
10 comments:
One teeny little typo on the product description...
"The UTA-1 is used in conjunction with the PA-9 Power-All system to power your effects and accessories anywhere in the world. The UTA-1 does convert voltage, only plug type."
"Does" should read "doesn't"
Yeah... Plugging something that can't handle 110-220 voltage into this is guaranteed to have all the magic smoke leak out...
Or, like one of my technicians in China learned when not looking at the power supply for his network meter, LEDs become SEDs (Smoke Emitting Diodes).
The Big Guy: If you really goof, SED ends up meaning Sound Emitting Diodes.
Now you know where the term "oh, snap!" comes from.
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamps/0942lrg.jpg
fuse 'em all, that's what I say.
-SM
Anon: there's a seriously serious reason for doing that in vehicular DC -- and for not so doing in mains AC.
Big Guy: there's no end of hokieness in power adapters -- my fave are the "swiss army" universals, with a lot of mechanical jiggery-pokery to reconfigure the plug side.
--I think the Schuko plug is as close to "universal" as you can get. Downside: bulky.
For the London Olympics, my employer took the easy way out: we bought proper 13A fused plugs, to be installed on our step-down transformers in place of the Schukos. Why? 'Cos the nice, quick, clamshell adapter is non-compliant in terms of the direction of cord exit -- and word has it the Brits, having heard of the small-fires-area that is any Olympic Media Center, have decided to be hard-core about mains power: comply or do without. But will it still be the same experience without the whiff of burning phenolic and ozone?
Rx:
I have been in every IBC since Salt Lake... The only smoke I have ever encountered was in Greece, when they evac'ed the entire IBC because of a smoke alarm.
The alarms went off and all hell broke loose... The sent in the dogs, the black helicopters and the commandos... because of an unattended bag of popcorn in a microwave.
(Granted, my experience is strictly in the NBC section of the IBC... But you never know what's going on over in Al Jazerra studios, or heaven forbid, Channel 9 Australia.)
Oops, I forgot - there was the time I poured an entire large very hot coffee down the front of some idjit Asian reporter/technician as he slammed into me on an elevator in Athens...
But he was emitting more steam than smoke...
TBG
Big Guy: The big areas where the local stations and tinier national news orgs are dumped are reportedly a little more...chaotic. Nothing big but a lotta nuisance trips and the occasional puff of smoke.
(You goin' to London? We won't have Engineering onsite during but my pal Jay C. will set our junk up the week before.)
I got a reputation for being very annoying on a music tour, the completely anal one who wouldn't let you plug your hair dryer into the perfectly adequate 85W transformer adapter. I had one scary moment when I heard double-speed playback coming from an adjacent room, and discovered that someone had borrowed my Marantz portable and plugged it into 240V with an adapter (not a transformer). Fortunately they unplugged it right away when they noticed the problem, and it didn't release any smoke.
OTOH, I ended up in a german youth hostel with no compatible plugs for my laptop computer, and my British roommate was aghast at coming in to find that I had hard-wired the mains cord of the universal power supply to the pendant lamp over the desk. (Why yes, I did have voltage tester, screwdrivers, wire strippers... And the pendant lamp had hot swiched at the wall as it should have).
Doug2: I've seen (and made one or 2 myself) those widowmakers myself...
You gotta do what you gotta do.
Laptop batteries just aren't what they used to be, and that Intarwebz porn ain't gonna surf itself.
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