bose wave system

bose fan

I have a bose wave music player , Which is i recently bought in the USA. its 110v and i intended to buy a step down transformer here in ireland to play it . I rang Bose to check the wattage and they told me that it would not work with a transformer and it would cost £150 to have it converted. has anyone come accross this problem

mawk

unless bose have done something really weird.. then they lied to you.

theres no good reason why a 110v tranny wouldnt work

but if you are curious, wire it to a 2 pin shaver plug and try it in your bathroom

Michael Collins

mawk wrote: »

but if you are curious, wire it to a 2 pin shaver plug and try it in your bathroom

No do NOT do this! This will be 230 V too, like everything else in your house...

BoB_BoT

Michael Collins wrote: »

No do NOT do this! This will be 230 V too, like everything else in your house...

actually I was wondering that, so shavers are designed to just operates on lower voltage along with 230v?

10-10-20

There are sometimes 110v outlets on shaver sockets, but these are rated for 1A max.

Have a look at these two...
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=13358&&source=14&doy=27m11

Be aware that the US mains system uses 60Hz, but the UK/Ire is 50Hz - shouldn't be a problem, but sometimes is. Use at your own risk!

mawk

Michael Collins wrote: »

No do NOT do this! This will be 230 V too, like everything else in your house...

nearly all houses have two wall sockets in the bathroom, one will be 110v one will be 220v clearly i mean he should use the 110v.

though I guess if bose claim it wont work then its probably a frequency issue. which is kina weird, bose stuff is pretty high spec, id be surprised if they halfássed on the psu

Teg Veece

It normally says on the plug what inputs it accepts. One thing that you have to bear in mind though is that the US mains is at 60 Hz while we're at 50 Hz. A lot of electronics can accept either and so a simple transformer to change the voltage levels is all you need. However if your sound systems needs 60 Hz then you're going to have to splash out on a more expensive piece of equipment.

Redjeep!

OK here's exactly what Bose would do for your £150.

Step 1 ) Open the box

Time taken : 90 sec's (inc. about a minute to find the right screwdriver)

step 2) Move the tapping on the
mains tranformer from 240v to 110v.

Time taken : 10 minutes (9 minutes whilst he goes to get a cup of tea whilst waiting for his soldering iron to heat up)

step 3) Close the box

Time taken : 60 secs (maybe longer if they've lost a couple of the screws that rolled under his mug of tea).

step 4) Prepare the bill
time - 2 mins

step 5) Fill out his job form, timesheet, part request form. Walk around to accounts and have a quick chat to that new girl.
time 10 mins

Just about everything made today has a dual voltage transformer in it, which means that it can be configured for either 110 v (by connecting the 2 primary's in parallel), or 240v by connecting then in series.

To even suggest it would cost £150 is nothing short of criminal and show what a bunch of thieves they are.

Get a transformer from Maplins or get anybody with a knowledge of electronics (local repair shop perhaps) to fix it.

10-10-20

Very few manufacturers are using transformers these days!
I'd hazard a guess that it's a switch-mode powersupply and it will autorange.
Of course this will be printed on the chassis if it is.

Redjeep!

You're proabably right about the transformer. It's been 5 years since I last had to do it (moving back from USA).

Red Alert

Just because it's a switchmode isn't a 100% guarntee that it will autorange. Be careful! The 60Hz is less of a problem nowadays - it used to matter when some electronic devices locked their internal clock to the mains frequency.

seanobs

You could get a plug in transformer that will happily take 15 Amps for you.

mawk

Braaiins!
*shuffle shuffle*