I just arrived in Tainan, and I can’t seem to find any hotels with three-prong electrical sockets. The best I could find was one place (光華大飯店) that gave me a power bar with the third (ground) prong broken off.
Do they not have them in Tainan, or are they only in newer buildings? Is it safe to plug my laptop into this power bar?
Don’t really have them in Taiwan as there’s usually no earthing. Some places have them for cosmetic reasons.
[quote=“Lord Lucan”]
Don’t really have them in Taiwan as there’s usually no earthing. Some places have them for cosmetic reasons.[/quote]Yup. Even when there is a 3-pin socket on the wall, most of the time the ground pin isn’t connected to anything.
[quote=“Nibble”]I just arrived in Tainan, and I can’t seem to find any hotels with three-prong electrical sockets. The best I could find was one place (光華大飯店) that gave me a power bar with the third (ground) prong broken off.
Do they not have them in Tainan, or are they only in newer buildings? Is it safe to plug my laptop into this power bar?[/quote]
You can buy adapters (single 3-prong adapters or surge protectors) at the stores with buckets and hoola-hoops everywhere. I call them the “everything store” or the 5 and dime store (because they remind me of the old 5 and dime stores in the states). The Taiwanese call that kind of store ew-jing-hang (that is not pinyin that is how I say it and I tried to put it as phonetically correct as I could so hopefully people would understand you).
Take your time and look around, you will find them. If you have trouble locating that kind of store, try 3C or any electronic/computer store and they will defiantly have the surge protector but not always the single 3-prong to 2-prong adapter.
Oh! Almost forgot, if you ask if they have it in stock and they say no, look yourself until you find it, they do have it.
My guess is that almost everyone here is connected to an un-grounded outlet, either with desktop or laptop.
Is it safe?? I have no idea, but I have never had any problem that could be traced back to the power.
I rarely see a three pronged electrical outlet. Not all is lost though, adapters are readily available.
wu jin hang = hardware store
wu jin hang = hardware store[/quote]
/takes notes
Always use a power bar with a fuse in it. I had a TV and stereo just plugged into the wall, had a power surge, and went shopping for new stuff the next day. My computer in the other room was hooked up to a power bar and it was fine.
Good idea. Don’t rely on the fact that there appear to be fuses in the fuse box/consumer unit. They are often all joined together to make one big 200A fuse, rather than the lots of little ones they appear to be.
It’s so humid you don’t need an earth, but if you have 3 pronged cords you can buy an adaptor.