110 volt waxing iron in 220 volt country

[James]

I have a 220-120 transformer. Heavy as a brick. (Well half a brick probably) And it only does 200 watts. I took it once then didn’t bother. It’s not a fancy digital switching/clipping/reassembling waveforms or whatever. Straight old school windings. Copper is heavy and you can’t encase it in balsa wood.

An iron will be 5-800 watts at least. (Not sure a 500w iron is worth much unless desperate)
It would be absurd to get a transformer to cover 800 watts. The thing would weigh 15 pounds. Just get a 220 specific, 120/220dual or use pastewax or liquids.

$30 on sale, 220V, good to go. 850 watts. If the gorillas manage to break it, no big deal. Just make sure you get the right plug adapter for the country you’re going to. France different than Switzerland in how it fits in the socket.

https://www.tognar.com/tognar-chugger-wax-iron-230v/

 

[Rich McP]

I'm thinking a cheap iron with an analog thermostat might be just fine. The pre-heating indicator light might fail. Maybe I'll take apart my old dead iron and see if there is anything in there that should care.

A fancy digital iron, don't do that.

OK, now I feel the need to clarify that that was tongue in cheek. Plugging a 110v device into 220v will make any of them hot...like bursting into flames hot. DON'T plug 110 devices into 220 unless you WANT to see flames.

 

[karlo]

OK, now I feel the need to clarify that that was tongue in cheek. Plugging a 110v device into 220v will make any of them hot...like bursting into flames hot. DON'T plug 110 devices into 220 unless you WANT to see flames.

He must be an American

 

[mdf]

OK, now I feel the need to clarify that that was tongue in cheek. Plugging a 110v device into 220v will make any of them hot...like bursting into flames hot. DON'T plug 110 devices into 220 unless you WANT to see flames.

True for fancy electronics , but an iron is just a big resistor. Why wouldn't it just heat up twice as fast till the mechanical thermostat turns it off? The indicator light is the only questionable part.

 

[James]

True for fancy electronics , but an iron is just a big resistor. Why wouldn't it just heat up twice as fast till the mechanical thermostat turns it off? The indicator light is the only questionable part.

Wouldn’t the heat go up as the square of the current? So current would be 2x, heat would be 4x. So it would heat up 4x as fast. Probably can’t respond that quickly, over shoots, and fries. However, somone should test this.

I’m willing to contribute to that cheap $30 iron to test.
Canada uses 110 or 220?

 

[Rich McP]

True for fancy electronics , but an iron is just a big resistor. Why wouldn't it just heat up twice as fast till the mechanical thermostat turns it off? The indicator light is the only questionable part.

It's a big resistor that was designed to NEVER see 220v. The thermostat is designed/placed to monitor that large thermal mass that is the iron's base. The heating element will have long ago fried before the iron gets hot enough to cycle the stat...probably.

As an interesting note, 50hz and 60hz matter also. If you have a device that was designed to work on 60hz and not on 50hz, you might well end up with a useless pile of metal and stuff if you use it in the wrong country/region. And yes, I know this for a fact.

 

[Lauren]

As an interesting note, 50hz and 60hz matter also. If you have a device that was designed to work on 60hz and not on 50hz, you might well end up with a useless pile of metal and stuff if you use it in the wrong country/region. And yes, I know this for a fact.

I wouldn't think this would matter on an iron (assuming all of the heat from an iron is a resistive load...which, I think it is...but really not 100% sure I've never taken one apart to see). The heat is your power dissipation, which only depends on voltage and current, not frequency.

But definitely an important note about 50Hz to 60Hz since not all countries operate on the same standard.

 

[Henry]

The U.S. and Canada use 120 volt 60 Hertz (cycles per second) power (and 240v for high power home use). Japan uses 100 volts; part of the country is 50 Hz, part is 60 Hz. Most of the rest of the world is 230 or 220 volts and 50 Hz. That chart in the link above has valuable info.

Most of the so-called converters are junk. They may work for very light duty items. An adapter is just a straight-through plug changer. A suitable transformer, as noted above, is a heavy as iron--which it is. And not cheap if it's any good.

The frequency is the most flexible thing. Most items don't care if they're running with 50Hz or 60Hz, although a few do. Power supplies for most of our electronics say in the tiny print that they're good for 100 to 230 volts, 50 or 60 Hz. Read that tiny print before plugging them in! For anything else, buy the correct voltage. My boot drier has a switch for 120 or 230 volts. I'm not sure it'll work on 100 volts in Japan; I'm not taking it. For anything with a moderate to heavy power draw--hair drier, iron, etc., don't even think about an adapter--get a switchable one or one that is single voltage suitable for your destination.

Foreign travel is a great way to prove the Smoke Theory of electricity. That theory says that electricity is actually smoke traveling through the wires and gizmos. Everything works fine until the smoke escapes, then they don't work any more.

 

[James]

Then there’s the reliability of power supply and two phase and three phase power...

I remember talking to a compressor manufacturer about the voltage requirements of their 3 phase 5hp motor. They listed it with choices much less than 220V. Like 208, etc. (It’s beyond me the differences in wiring) He asked me where the motor would be used. When I said Nyc he laughed and said we defintely couldn’t use the 220 motor unless we used a boosting transformer to stabilize the voltage. We’d rarely see 220 without it because of massive fluctuations.

To take it back to skiing... One reason you don’t see sudden largescale snowmaking late season is the charge from the electric company. There’s a fee for ramping up all that electrical power. So just turning things on willy nilly when the diesel compressor rentals are gone gets expensive.

 

[crgildart]

Like many things in life, Top Secret has the answer to this question..

 

[Seldomski]

If you dump 4x the power into the resistor, you can cause all sorts of things to break, even if there is a thermostat. It depends on what temperature is used to control the iron and how idiot proof the iron is (hint, not very).

The resistor is conducting into the metal plate on the iron. There is a conductivity "k" between the resistor and metal - basically for every watt of power you apply, the temperature difference between the resistor and the metal surface will hold a constant ratio. It looks like:

P = k x (T1 - T2)

P = power you are dumping into the resistor
k = constant, depends on the how the resistor is attached to the metal, how much metal you are heating up, etc
T1 = the resistor temperature
T2 = the temperature at the surface of the iron

So if you are controlling the temperature of T2 (the surface of the iron's metal block), and dump 4x the power into the resistor, you can easily break something... The resistor temperature will be significantly higher than what the designer expected, high enough to melt solder, plastic, wire insulation, etc, and all sorts of bad things to happen. This can all occur while the thermostat registers T2 as below whatever it was set to.

 

[Rich McP]

I wouldn't think this would matter on an iron

True that. But it does matter on most anything else...like a transformer that you might hope would allow you to go from 220 to 110. If the thing was designed to work on any power, great. If it wasn't, beware.

 

[James]

If you dump 4x the power into the resistor, you can cause all sorts of things to break, even if there is a thermostat. It depends on what temperature is used to control the iron and how idiot proof the iron is (hint, not very).

The resistor is conducting into the metal plate on the iron. There is a conductivity "k" between the resistor and metal - basically for every watt of power you apply, the temperature difference between the resistor and the metal surface will hold a constant ratio. It looks like:

P = k x (T1 - T2)

P = power you are dumping into the resistor
k = constant, depends on the how the resistor is attached to the metal, how much metal you are heating up, etc
T1 = the resistor temperature
T2 = the temperature at the surface of the iron

So if you are controlling the temperature of T2 (the surface of the iron's metal block), and dump 4x the power into the resistor, you can easily break something... The resistor temperature will be significantly higher than what the designer expected, high enough to melt solder, plastic, wire insulation, etc, and all sorts of bad things to happen. This can all occur while the thermostat registers T2 as below whatever it was set to.

Thanks for the info.

Question 2:
How about you used the 110v/60hz iron in a 110v/400hz aircraft system? It might heat up too quickly also?

I’m stilling willing to do the $30 110V iron in a 220v socket test.

 

[Seldomski]

Question 2:
How about you used the 110v/60hz iron in a 110v/400hz aircraft system? It might heat up too quickly also?

I'm no expert on AC power... but... I don't think there would be a significant difference in the heating rate of a simple resistive load if you change the AC power frequency. If there's a long cord on the iron, you would get more loss in that cord at 400 Hz vs. 60 Hz. So if anything, the heating rate of the iron would decrease and all of the wiring/cords would be warmer, or perhaps fail. If there are capacitors/inductors in the iron, those will probably have problems functioning.

Changing AC frequency does affect performance of inductive loads, like motors. Juicing the frequency upward would be a good way to blow up an electric motor designed for a lower frequency.

Wikipedia

Make sure you film your iron experiments... and have the right class of fire extinguisher (or big bucket of sand) on standby.

 

[pchewn]

If you have:

A) A device that uses an AC motor -- then 50Hz will run 5/6 as fast as 60 Hz (e.g. An electric can opener)
B) A resistive device like heater -- then Power = V^2/R so your device designed for 110V will dissipate 4X more power on 220V (e.g. An iron)
C) A modern multi-range switching power supply (e.g. Most laptop chargers, most TV's and electronics): The switching power supply will create an internal AC input to the transformer at around 20KHz and the duty cycle will adapt based on the load. The result is that it will work with 50-60Hz and 90-240V. Some even work with DC 48V input (e.g. For use with battery backup systems).

The product label (UL, CSA, TUV, IEC, etc) will typically have the input (and output) ratings printed on it.

-- An engineer who has designed some of this equipment.

 

[Lauren]

Question 2:
How about you used the 110v/60hz iron in a 110v/400hz aircraft system? It might heat up too quickly also?

It shouldn't matter. Resistive loads (e.g. an iron) are not dependent on frequency.

 

[Wilhelmson]

B) A resistive device like heater -- then Power = V^2/R so your device designed for 110V will dissipate 4X more power on 220V (e.g. An iron)

If the typical euro outlet runs 220 at 2.5 amps, would it still be double the power? I can see how higher voltage even at lower amps would fry electronics, but did assume that they're not running 220 at 15 or 20 amps which would be some seriously dangerous stuff.

 

[James]

If the typical euro outlet runs 220 at 2.5 amps, would it still be double the power? I can see how higher voltage even at lower amps would fry electronics, but did assume that they're not running 220 at 15 or 20 amps which would be some seriously dangerous stuff.

The resistance is the same in the iron. Now you go and plug it into a 220v outlet. The current now doubles. Ohm's law, V = I x R
So current, I = V/R
Power defined as P (watts) = I x V
substituting V= I x R, we get P = I^2 x R
or, substitute for current, I = V/R, P = V^2/R
And that's close to the limit of my knowledge...

 

[James]

Well season before last Okemo had some Zai skis on sale!
End of year. Green felt logo, slate colored ski. I believe it had granite dust in it.
Only $2,600! Came ground and ready to go. @cantunamunch saw them. Very disappointed he didn't purchase.

 

[Wilhelmson]

The resistance is the same in the iron. Now you go and plug it into a 220v outlet. The current now doubles. Ohm's law, V = I x R
So current, I = V/R
Power defined as P (watts) = I x V
substituting V= I x R, we get P = I^2 x R
or, substitute for current, I = V/R, P = V^2/R
And that's close to the limit of my knowledge...

Lol, well if the resistance in your body stays the same, if I were you I"d try the 110 v iron test on a euro outlet and not on your 220v hot water outlet in the US. Just to be on the safe side.