PamNS

Are there any ex Brit electricians out there who can help me with working out what goods to bring out to Canada?
What I need to know and cannot find a straight answer to anywhere is, what is the effect using 50 htz UK electrical goods (with a transformer to convert the wattage) on a 60htz based canadian supply? Will they work OK, or not at all, or will they just get "knackered" slowly?

lee58uk

the probs you will get is motors run faster, etc, and clocks will not run to true time, its just to much trouble.

macmike41

Even battery chargers for power tools etc can't take it for long - my drill, cutters and nail gun lasted less than a year before the chargers gave up the ghost.

neill

Direct AC drive appliances are the worst affected.. Like hairdryer motors, basically anything with a high-power motor is likely to be "direct drive AC", and will run at 6/5 speed on 60Hz, they will suffer increased damage over longer periods as they are not designed to run at higher frequency.

(Don't bother bringing these as they are heavy, expensive to transform, and anything above 1800W can't even be plugged in to a standard outlet here -- even if you convert the voltage!)

Modern low-power electronics are usually fine -- It is true that modern electrical appliances that have AC transformer/rectifier circuitry designed ONLY for 50Hz will suffer increased wear in the transformer/rectifier, but they usually break for other reasons (i.e. power spikes, we get LOTS in canada).

EDIT: my battery power charger broke too.... I was going to have my folks send me a new one when they informed me theirs broke too at almost the SAME time as mine, so i think it's more to do with quality!!!

MikeUK

Its not as bad as many would have you believe.. if you know what your doing

If the item says it runs on 50-60hz then bring it along and stick it on a transformer
If it say 50hz only the leave it behind..
If it says 100-250v 50-60hz buy a plug adapter as that’s all it needs

For what its worth I have a Dyson running on 220v at 60hz as most candian house have a split phase feed of two 110v out of phase so if you know what your doing you can run at lot of UK things in Canada.

I should point out that should any of these start a fire then you may find that because ist doesn’t meet Canadian spec your insurance won’t pay out.
So if you’re not sure, Then don’t


Key points, anything with a motor or items like a TV use a lot of power on start up so make sure your transformer has at least twice the power you expect to use,
My UK TV pulls aprox 1000watts for 1 second at start up and then settles to about 300watts

Things like kettles and other heat only items can be plugged straight in but will tend to run between ¼ to ½ power.
Anything with an AC motor will run slightly faster as a rule, so if its speed critical don’t bother

MikeUK

I checked with some of the engineers here at work as we’ve got a few ‘European’ industrial systems that we use transformers to power,
They said most “reasonable” motors designed for 50Hz will run OK on 60hz, (but not the other way around as the motor fails to run at sufficient speed for their cooling fans to shift enough air over the coils)
I run several UK Bosch Drills, Saws, Etc on the 220v here without issue

Bill_S

Another thing to remember, be sure you plug your goods into the "English" outlets in your home, rather than the "French" outlets. Otherwise you'll only get French TV stations and French radio stations.

iaink

Really depends on the motor type, synchronous vs ascynchronous and the starting and control circuitry etc too.

Ive a feeling most industrial motors have more sophisticated curcuiry than domestic motors, and a others have said single phase synchronous motors (clocks, turntables etc ) will run fast.

Another victim of 60Hz is the microwave synchotron...wont do much to heat anything at the different frequency.

Remember in addition to picking a transformer with sufficient overcapacity, remember they are lossy, so your hydro bill will be significantly higher, and also for the high power ones they can be getting pretty unwieldy and expensive.

Also the 220 coming into canadian homes is not grounded the same way that 240 is in the UK. In the UK neutral and ground are common, but here the ground is floating between two out of phase 110V lines.

Raymate

Joining the two, this sounds interesting. As this sort thing is not standard I assume I will not find a professional in Toronto to do this sort of hybrid power setup. I would love to have 110 and 220 at the same time.

I have a lot of HiFi gear that I would love to bring to Cananda but I'm not sure if the risks are worth it.

I'm an Engineer but not with electrics, I know the basics. I was amazed by the lack of earthing in Canadian homes. I get static shock of a lot of things. Of course it could be just the weather and the dry air.

Steve_P

Most Canadian homes are well grounded. It may different then the way you are used to but they are grounded.

Static shocks have nothing at all to do with how our homes are wired.

macmike41

Does anyone know the 'logic' of wiring here eg UK has a ring for the lights up/down stairs (kinda) and rings for the mains up & down (sorta). But here it seems anything goes as long as the power gets there and the lights don't dim when you turn anything else on - is it just 'X' number of power sockets plus 'Y' number of lights make a feed from the fuse board (never seen a ring here) or what?

Steve_P

Never heard of a ring.

Light and plugs are usually on the same circuits cna't remember what the max allowed is but I think 11 or 12 rings a bell although don't quote me I'm not an electrician.

Kitchen has different wiring than rest of house usually split receptacles for counters so both plugs at an outlet are on different circuit breakers usually 15 amp double pulls. Fridge should be on its own breaker.

Bathroom plugs should be on a GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) as should outdoor plugs.

Simplified Wiring code books usually available at your local Rona or Home Depot type stores.

Cheers
Steve

macmike41

A 'ring' is when you run a line from the power board round various sockets then back to the power board, or a line from the power board round various light fittings then back to the power board - its much too long since I read about Ohms law and my memory aint what it was. But I remember (I think I do any way) that the 'ring' attempts to keeps each socket up to voltage irrespective of what other sockets in the rings are drawing. Whereas running a line that ends at the last socket in the line means that if all the sockets in the line are drawing power the last socket in the line will be low on voltage. But I guess if you limit the number of sockets the effect will be minimal.

Thanks for the link - I'll spend a while reading up.

PamNS

A big "thankyou" to all of you who have replied to my query. Anyone know where I can buy a gas TV? No, seriously , it is all a lot clearer now, thanks again. Pam.

lee58uk

the use of a transformer alone wont change the freq, only the voltage, they dont use ring mains in canada, and to help confuse they run lights and sockets together etc.

getting static shocks of every thing is cos the air is so dry most of the time and to get the shock is a sign of a good earth for the charge to go to earth.