Power cable voltage

ShaneU

Bought a pc from Hardwarevesand, on the outside of the psu there is a sticker that says 230v only, the German plug supplied says 16a 250v on it. Is it safe to buy a 250v plug here and use that?

marco_polo

ShaneU wrote: »

Bought a pc from Hardwarevesand, on the outside of the psu there is a sticker that says 230v only, the German plug supplied says 16a 250v on it. Is it safe to buy a 250v plug here and use that?

That would just be a Max rating for the plug so it would be fine. But any old there pin kettle lead will do the job either.

Solair

Ireland and Germany use exactly the same voltage and frequency - 230V 50Hz

All of Europe runs on the same type of power, the only difference is the physical shape of the plugs in a few countries, notably the UK and Ireland but also Denmark, Italy and Switzerland have slightly different versions of the 2-pin European plug.

Those standard CEE 7/7 plugs, German/French earthed 2-pin plugs are all rated 16amps.
All that means is that the plug is safe to use with appliances that draw up to a maximum of 16amps.
To convert this to Watts just multply by the voltage 16 X 230 = 3680 Watts
So, you can use a European plug and socket for a load of roughly that much.

Irish plugs contain a fuse, so the maximum rating is determined by whatever that fuse is rated at. Its a maximum of 13amps

So, in Ireland a normal plug/socket will deliver up to 13 amps X 230 V = 2990W

A PC, or any small IT equipment doesn't even remotely get near those kinds of power draws. It's more of an issue if you're talking about a kettle or a tumble dryer or something like that with a heater in it.

Just change the cable for an Irish one, or cut the German plug off and fit an Irish one instead.

There's basically no practical difference between the two systems.

Solair

Just one other minor point, plugs, sockets, and all fittings sold in Europe (and other places using 220-240V systems) are normally tested for use with up to 250Volts.

That's why they're labelled 250V. However the supply voltage is normally 230V.

Also, the UK, Australia and NZ used to use 240V systems while the rest of Europe (including Ireland) and many other places used 220V.

To iron this out, we all changed to 230V from the 1990s onwards. So any references to 220V vs 240V are pretty much totally irrelevant nowadays.

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If you're buying stuff from abroad anything sold in the EU has to comply with CE standards and will work perfectly well in Ireland. So, other than changing the plug / using an adaptor there shouldn't be any issue whatsoever. Our only difference is that we use UK-style weird plugs.


If you're buying from outside the EU, most countries use 230V systems other than the USA/Canada (120V 60Hz), Japan (100V 50Hz or 60Hz depending on where you are!) etc..

So, if you're buying from US suppliers, you need to be sure that the device can work with 230V 50Hz.

The majority of computer equipment tends to have switch-mode power supplies that are quite happy to accept anything from 100V to 240V 50Hz or 60Hz, so basically you can plug them in anywhere and they'll just work.

Always check this though on the label !


Wiki has maps that show you where uses what:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country

Most of the world uses 230V 50Hz (North America and Japan being the major exceptions) and the most commonly encounters plugs are probably the Euro types or the US-types in 100-120V land.