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LordeOurMother

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 10, 2014
397
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Moving to the UK next year for University. I was simply wondering to any Brits on this forum, should a U.S. G5, assuming I have the right cords, work fine over there without any alterations to the PSU or whatnot?
 
there awesome till you step on one... I once sent a Light fitting to a fellow collector in the US we where video chatting when he stepped on the plug Lets say TIMBER!!! goes very well here. Regarding the voltage difference not all computers have a multi voltage PSU some older PSUs have a switch to change it and the MDD I have says 100-120V or 200-240V but I cant find the switch LOL (if the PSU is Multi voltage it Just says 100-240V most of the time)
 
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there awesome till you step on one... I once sent a Light fitting to a fellow collector in the US we where video chatting when he stepped on the plug Lets say TIMBER!!! goes very well here. Regarding the voltage difference not all computers have a multi voltage PSU some older PSUs have a switch to change it and the MDD I have says 100-120V or 200-240V but I cant find the switch LOL (if the PSU is Multi voltage it Just says 100-240V most of the time)

I have an MDD PSU in bubble wrap(courtesy of Altemose) sitting on my workbench. I'll unwrap it this afternoon and report on if I can find the switch or not :)
 
I have an MDD PSU in bubble wrap(courtesy of Altemose) sitting on my workbench. I'll unwrap it this afternoon and report on if I can find the switch or not :)

when I got a replacement PSU for my MDD I don't remember seeing a switch anywhere... I still have the Deads ones PCB here been meaning to look up how to fix it heh (I got the MDD for £20 ($31) with free shipping because it had a dead PSU)
 
"UK plugs are awesome. None of this flimsy crap you get in foreign countries outside the Commonwealth! ;)
We have flimsy crap (read: not ridiculously huge!) plugs in the colonies as well...best steer clear of Australia and Canada! :eek:
 
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when I got a replacement PSU for my MDD I don't remember seeing a switch anywhere... I still have the Deads ones PCB here been meaning to look up how to fix it heh (I got the MDD for £20 ($31) with free shipping because it had a dead PSU)

I just unpacked the one I have sitting here, and there's no visible switch. I have a dead one I need to crack open and see if I can fix it...all I can guess is that they are auto-switching.

Without checking, I'm pretty sure that the B&W/Yikes and Sawtooth PSU had to be manually changed.
 
I have a Sawtooth PSU sitting next to me and indeed it has voltage switch... the reason the MDD PSU confuses me is most auto ranging PSUs are rated for 100V-240V where as manually switched PSUs are rated 100V-120V and 200-240V and the MDD psu is rated 100V-120V 200V-240V like it has some sort of voltage switch... I might hook up my MDD to my Variac and see what happens as I vary the Voltage going to it (with back problems moving the MDD is Hell tho)
 
I have a Sawtooth PSU sitting next to me and indeed it has voltage switch... the reason the MDD PSU confuses me is most auto ranging PSUs are rated for 100V-240V where as manually switched PSUs are rated 100V-120V and 200-240V and the MDD psu is rated 100V-120V 200V-240V like it has some sort of voltage switch... I might hook up my MDD to my Variac and see what happens as I vary the Voltage going to it (with back problems moving the MDD is Hell tho)

My Variacs(or should I say Variable Autotransformer, since most of mine are not a General Radio products) max out at about 130V or so-I suppose that's one advantage of having 240V in your house.
 
My Variac is a 10A I saved up a lot to get it (and I have used it well) there are US variacs that take 120V in and spit out up to 240V. My variac can be configured to do 120V in and 240V out at 5A max unofficially (it has a centre tap) officially my variac is 240V with 270V out rated to 10A max. its cool to see some one else who knows what variac stands for :)
 
Genericized trademarks are a pet peeve of mine :)

I have to say that the one Variac I have is a much more stylish piece of equipment that my Variable Autotransformers.

I've saved many of them from work-they used to get tossed out for a bad cord or other minor issues, and I've rebuilt more than one. At first, they didn't want to hear that they could be fixed, but now that I've proven myself I get to rebuild them at work and leave them there rather than taking them home.

Of course, it's hard for me to make an argument for having more than a couple anyway. They certainly are handy, though. I have a dwindling stash of 20V C6 Christmas lights. I've rewired my strings to have seven sockets instead of 6, and then run them all 100V so the bulbs last nearly forever.

I'm think about hooking up a few lamps to run at 100V also so that my dwindling stash of incandescents will last longer.
 
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Genericized trademarks are a pet peeve of mine :)

I have to say that the one Variac I have is a much more stylish piece of equipment that my Variable Autotransformers.

I've saved many of them from work-they used to get tossed out for a bad cord or other minor issues, and I've rebuilt more than one. At first, they didn't want to hear that they could be fixed, but now that I've proven myself I get to rebuild them at work and leave them there rather than taking them home.

Of course, it's hard for me to make an argument for having more than a couple anyway. They certainly are handy, though. I have a dwindling stash of 20V C6 Christmas lights. I've rewired my strings to have seven sockets instead of 6, and then run them all 100V so the bulbs last nearly forever.

I'm think about hooking up a few lamps to run at 100V also so that my dwindling stash of incandescents will last longer.

I did something like that when I imported 2 C7 sets from the US for last christmas I set the variac to about 110 Volts instead of 120V to make the chance of lamp failure less likely as I only had a Limited lot of spares (I only have one spare C7 now so I will have some more sent over next christmas) My Variac even tho I bought it new from the manufacture came to me Defective and long story short I had to fix it (they couldn't spot the carbon on the winding causing arcing at the 90V mark) if You need more C6 Lamps I Know a fellow collector in Texas who has a Boat load so I can talk to him if you need more C6 lamps
 
I did something like that when I imported 2 C7 sets from the US for last christmas I set the variac to about 110 Volts instead of 120V to make the chance of lamp failure less likely as I only had a Limited lot of spares (I only have one spare C7 now so I will have some more sent over next christmas) My Variac even tho I bought it new from the manufacture came to me Defective and long story short I had to fix it (they couldn't spot the carbon on the winding causing arcing at the 90V mark) if You need more C6 Lamps I Know a fellow collector in Texas who has a Boat load so I can talk to him if you need more C6 lamps

I appreciate the potential lead on the C6s-like I said, as far as I know they aren't made anymore. I actually have a pretty decent stash of them-including about 20 or 30 good ones that I just need to take the time to repaint. Between the 7 in a string and 100V operation, I tend to only lose one or two a year. If my math is right I'm only running them at 14V when they're rated(I think) for 18V. I have a statistic in the back of my head somewhere that decreasing the voltage by 10% doubles the life of the lamp-perhaps you could confirm that.

C7s(along with C9s) are still made and pretty readily available here. The newer ones, though, are 5W unlike the 7W ones. The 7W ones honestly almost run too hot for my taste...I prefer them at the 90-100V range.
 
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a 5% voltage decrease will roughly double lamp life and a 5% increase in voltage will roughly half it. I am aware of the Status of US christmas lights its getting them in the UK thats the tricky part
 
Let me know if you need/want some C7s or C9s and I can grab you some around Christmas this year. It's even better if you can wait until after Christmas as they get really cheap :)
 
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