I was wondering, do extension cords rated at 220 or 250 volts exist in Taiwan? I bought a 220 volt laminate trimmer (had to special order it, since I am moving to Europe and have no use for 110v laminate trimmers) and I can plug it into the A/C outlet with a plug adapter, however in the place I am at it’s in the laundry room and the host would be angry if I started routing stuff in the laundry room, so I need an extension cord to take it outside…
I’ve looked at extension cords but they are all rated at around 125 volts… and since they all have lights and stuff they could burn out if connected to a 220 volt line…
By the way the laminate trimmer is rated at 220 volt 50/60 Hz
if the watts used by the trimmer is quite low, can use 125V quite safely, just dont take too thin wires. BnQ have all kinds. For EU sockets, you can take travel adapters.
This would be true if it can deal with the huge current that will pass though it at half its rated voltage and has an electronic voltage sensor to adjust any voltage-sensitive circuits, such as motors. Need to check on that.
If the extension lead uses decent cable to begin with, it should really matter whether the voltage per se is 110 or 220. Decent cable is usually marked to 600V but your main concern will be current. Given that UK extension leads are designed to carry 220V x 13A = 2860W and Taiwan leads only need to worry about 110V x 10A = 1100W*, you’d need to check what sort of current your equipment is likely to draw. Your problem will likely be finding sockets for your plugs when it comes to making up your own extension lead. B&Q likely have Euro style sockets, but the hardware stores here carry them, and the geek shops behind the computer shops on Ba De between Jin Shan and Xin Sheng.
*This is design spec. Normally all the socket outlets in the entire house are connected using Hello Kitty bellwire to a single 80A breaker so the design spec of 10A per circuit is meaningless. Current overload shutoff in practice is provided by the plastic cable sheathing melting under massive overload allowing Live and Neutral to short inside the extension lead causing the Big Black Breaker Under The Stairs to eventually open the circuit after several billion amps have passed through your entire family. These breakers can be very slow. I’ve tested a 15A breaker by shorting it to Earth. [Don’t try this at home it is extremely dangerous - the breaker might explode: there were three electricians present at this test. One was qualified in five states in the US, and only one was drunk.] It allowed 93A to pass for eight seconds before tripping. As did the second one we tested. As the “electrician” explained it to me: they are there to protect the cables, not you. A properly installed RCD is essential in Taiwan, IMHO, if you wish to avoid electrocution. In fairness to Tai Power’s voltage regulators, the voltage didn’t drop below 100V for the duration nearly 10kW were allowed to pass through a 10mm wire! That’s well within tolerances of +/- 1000%!
Full Taiwanese electrical safety information can be found at:-
On a similar topic, do they have converters so I can plug two 220-v plugs in one socket? I want to plug my AC into it, but also a wire to ground my computer equipment, which someone rigged for me with a 220v head on one end, basically to utilize the 220v outlet’s ground. Where would you suggest looking for such a converter? Any idea of the proper name in English and/or Chinese?
I was curious if I could use 220V on the 110V extension cords … nope … just burned out the trip or fuse, electric component they used inside the plug. Smokin’
Strange … the plug has no earth and is not Taiwan 220V… and has no socket to put the Taiwan style 220V … I wouldn’t buy it … it’s one of these half arsed Taiwanese concoctions … mama huhu
The problem is you will need an adapter. Maybe that’s not a big deal, but I see plenty of “international plug adapters” sold in Taiwan where the ground prong is either missing or made of plastic (thus, it’s fake).
this one from ruten seems to be a chinese multiplug. But also you need to check if yout 220V plug is well grounded (no one knows how it have been done)
That’s true, and it leads to another issue, polarity. Simply being grounded is not good enough if you have reversed polarity, which seems to be the norm here in Taiwan. What you need is a ground tester. I have one that I picked up in the USA, but it’s for 110 volts. I suspect that it would be difficult to impossible to get a 220V tester in Taiwan. It could be ordered online from the UK:
You’d want to make sure your AC socket is in fact (1)+220V (2) 0V (3 )Earth, and not (1)+110V (2)-110V (3) er, unconnected. Whilst the potential difference is still 220V, the pins may be wired in a special Taiwanese way where instead of Live Neutral Earth as it is in The World, it’s wired Live 1, Live 2, Neutral. Like three-phase, same-same-but-different. Generally speaking only very old socket outlets, but I came across one in 2003 (ah, the memories…) and my current AC unit in the lounge (which is of 1985 vintage) is so wired. It’s fine as long as you identify the wires.
AC reverses polarity 50 or 60 times a second but I think what you’re getting at is the potential for a Live-Neutral fault. I suppose we could call it “polarity” for the sake of familiarity.
Taiwanese electrical things are almost never installed with a care about the potential for a L-N fault but in a way it’s not that important unless you have polarity-sensitive equipment, which you probably don’t, and Earth does not appear to be bonded to Neutral here anyway, and the socket outlets are unswitched. They have started using sockets that accept long blades for Neutral and short blades for Live but I’ve yet to meet a Taiwanese plumber-cum-electrician who knows the difference. In the UK, as I’m sure you know, socket outlets are fused and the fuse is supposed to be on the Live side. If “polarity” is reversed the fuse is protecting nothing, in an overload situation the consumer equipment side is still live all the way round to the blown fuse back on the Neutral side at the socket outlet and/or plug, which will allow the hapless consumer to complete the circuit through his own body to earth, and Earth itself becomes bonded to Phase causing the Labour Party to be re-elected. Mind you the main issue here is the switch not opening the circuit, but as stuff here isn’t switched and protective fuses take six weeks to blow at the main board even if you plugged them directly into Lemmy, it doesn’t really matter.
Hope that helps. For the truly bored, or up-too-early, there is a neat diagram here: hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb … sehld.html - which explains things, but as they are in the USA, which is I think what Taiwanese wiring might be loosely based on, perhaps. Although, in the US it appears Earth is bonded to Neutral either on the consumer side, or at the supply side - not sure. In Taiwan, I have been told it’s bonded on the supply side but at the power station, and no earth is actually supplied to the consumer. Or something. Anyway, you can amuse yourself for hours with a multimeter by checking out the random potential differences between Neutral and Earth here in your own wiring. My own Ëarth is +24V, if anyone’s interested, meaning Phase to True Earth (zero Volts) is about 140V. The frequency, though, is spot on at 60 Ales, so be thankful for small mercies. If anyone has an oscilliscope and an Anglican bishop they don’t need for a few weeks we can really have some fun. Oh yes.
If you’re worried about getting lifted, you could ask a baker-electrician-plumber-gardener to fit an RCD (residual current device), aka GFI (ground fault interrupter) in the US, which will trip if it discovers a difference between Live and Neutral current in the circuit. Unfortunately, you guessed it, a certain amount of current often does leak out of circuits here, and this is considered “normal”, but in a modern setup (ha!) it should be below the threshold of 3 to 4 Martini-Rossos, and I have two working fine in my setup. They’re about 2-3000 NT each depending upon how naive you look in the shop.
I have a wire poking out of my flower bed which is supplying electricity to nothing in particular at 86V AV. What on earth uses 86V AC and how do they create it? Is there a Random Transformer factory here making Untransformers with half-windings, or have I discovered the remanants of Taiwan’s nuclear programme? Should I connect this to the doorbell?
I have discovered a covered “outlet” (a switch box covered by a piece of plastic) with live wires inside in a past apartment that doesn’t seem to be connected to the meter in the room, so all one has to do is hook that up to a socket and you get “free electricity”.
Thanks for the explanations, Lord Lucan. You might be interested to know that I took my own advice and ordered from the UK a ground tester. Since it uses the UK standard plug design, I also ordered an extension cord. I cut off the plug end of the extension cord and installed a Taiwanese plug so I could plug it into my one 220V socket. The ground tester reported that “polarity” (yes, I know you don’t like that word, but for lack of a better term) was correct. That was the good news.
And the bad - my ground tester reported that the socket was NOT grounded. That might be of some consequence since the only device I have plugged into the 220V circuit is a water pump. I seem to recall learning long ago that when you mix electricity with water, you need to do a spot-on job with your wiring, because water and electricity creates the perfect environment to electrocute somebody. So here I was thinking all these years that my 220V water pump was grounded - silly me.
proper grounding is almost nonexistent in Taiwan… you will either have to do it by driving a 5’ long copper rod into the ground, or find other source (concrete rebar, metal switch box, etc.) of grounding…
Actually, I can only partially agree with that. Taipower does a very respectable job of grounding their meters. In fact they won’t hook up a meter unless it’s grounded. I live in an old house that was built before grounding caught on, but Taipower (on their own initiative) came out and installed a new meter and ground. The problem is that Taipower’s responsibility ends at the meter.
When it comes to the so-called “plumber-electricians” who actually wire the buildings, it’s another story. I’m not sure if the electrical code has changed (or if it’s ever enforced), but my brother-in-law built a new house 10 years ago - I’ve examined the wiring, and it’s one of the shoddiest jobs I’ve ever seen. No way should it have ever passed inspection, if there was an inspection. All outlets are two-prong (so of course, no ground), but there was one three-prong in the kitchen - I checked it with my ground tester and found it wasn’t grounded. I opened it up and found that the plumber-electrician hadn’t even attached a ground wire. I went ahead and installed the wire myself, and my ground tester says it’s OK. Well, “OK” in the sense that it’s now grounded. Not OK because the wires are only 1.6mm, which is fine for a desk lamp but too thin for many kitchen appliances. The reason why I started messing with my brother-in-law’s wiring in the first place is because kitchen outlets would literally melt when he turned on his electric oven. His house (or at least his kitchen) needs to be completely rewired, something I’m not really capable of doing.
As for “polarity” - yeah, as Lord Lucan said, not even considered, so about 50% of the outlets are hot on the long prong and 50% on the short one. The quality of all the components (switches, outlets, ceiling lights) is total crap. I replaced a few of the fluorescent ceiling lights which had also started to melt.