World Travel power adapter

Fol20

Hi guys,

Can someone advise me on which power adapter to get, im not too sure what the difference between 2 pole and 3 pole is.

We will be going to OZ,NZ,Vietnam,China, Japan and America.

This one seems like the best value:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Travel-Adapter-1-102102-2/dp/B003BV43YO/ref=sr_1_21?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1384629440&sr=1-21&keywords=world+adapter#productDescription

However this one is 3 pole:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/SKROSS-PRO-PLUS-World-Adapter/dp/B002UDA3IY/ref=sr_1_11?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1384629440&sr=1-11&keywords=world+adapter

Another one as well..
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Skross-Charger-Designed-Blackberrys-Countries/dp/B003NW1ZME/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1384629440&sr=1-1&keywords=world+adapter

Which one is the best for my trip?

Sheldons Brain

Two and three pole refer to the whether the socket has two or three pins/earth. For electronics this is not important, for travel kettles/irons etc it is.

Dunnes stores had a pretty world decent adapter.

Remember the US/Japan are not 230V, once again most electronic chargers etc cope with this, but check.

Fol20

I will be using my macbook mainly for this adapter. Is the cheaper 2 pin enough for this then?

Am i correct in saying that we use 3 pole.

If so, how does the 2 pole work in UK/Ireland?

coylemj

Fol20 wrote: »

I will be using my macbook mainly for this adapter. Is the cheaper 2 pin enough for this then?

Am i correct in saying that we use 3 pole.

If so, how does the 2 pole work in UK/Ireland?

We use three pin plugs but the Earth (the big pin at the top) isn't always connected as the first responder said above, it is not needed for most consumer gadgets and phone chargers, just high power devices and especially appliances with metallic surfaces like toasters and heaters.

In a standard power socket, the live and neutral terminals (the two horizontal slots) are protected by gates which are only opened when the longer Earth pin is pushed in, this means that you have to have an earth pin on your plugs, whether the appliance has an earth connection or not. Without those safety shutters, phone chargers and the like wouldn't need an earth pin and that's why the plug on most phone chargers only has a hard plastic 'earth' pin which has no electrical function whatsoever.

A Macbook like all laptops has an AC adapter which feeds DC (direct current) to the laptop, this has positive and negative but no Earth so you can use an adapter with two pins in any country and you'll be fine. All Apple adapters and chargers are multivoltage so can handle 100 to 240V AC no problem.