Thread: Intersting story about a 110v tools imported from states.

Sounds like electrickery to me .

Maybe they had some old stock. Who knows.

Kev.

Do you know which tool shop?

Yep............I will PM it to you.

Halfie,
I am in the Navy and our FFG's are mostly 110 volt (there are some 240 volt circuits onboard). If you look at the power supply on the tools you will be suprised to see how many run in the range 110-250 volt. All the techo's tools were purchased off the shelf in Australia and could run both US & Aus voltages.

Corbs

So you reckon they just swapped chargers with him and had a good laugh about scoring the free box of beer?

The thought never entered my mind

Originally Posted by Halfie

So you reckon they just swapped chargers with him and had a good laugh about scoring the free box of beer?

That would be my guess. Lots of electrical items are made for 110 - 250v these days, saves the manufacturer from needing to do 2 seperate build runs. They just rebadge at the end.
For heavens sake don't think that all 110v items are that way or u'll be in for a rude shock when the smoke jinni leaves its home.

Sometimes there is a little switch that selects which windings are used on the transformer in the charger. It might be inside or under a sticker.

You often see it on the back of computer power supplies.

I have a lot of XLT gear with 110 chargers (fast and normal 1Hr), but had a stepdown tranny that can power 4 chargers at once available before purchase.

Have looked inside both chargers and there does not appear to be 110/220 switch. Charger is switch mode so no transformer with different taps to connect mains to either. I simply run via the stepdown transformer and leave it at that. Oh, I did buy a 800W 12 to 110 V inverter so that I can charge from car battery in the field if I need to, thats good and can charge power two fast chargers, but its hard on car batteries unless the car is running.

Interesting........

Wonder why they had any interest in his 110v charger then?
I have a relo who is an appliance repair guy....I might see what he reckons over Christmas dinner.

A long, long time ago when I was an electronics assembly tech, I used to assemble machines that had switch mode power supplies in them (smaller than most chargers) that would operate off anywhere from 80V to 260V (or there abouts), without needing to change anything ... just plug it in.

This gear was used in Oz as well as exported to the US and Europe.

Could be these chargers have a similar setup.

You can't buy a laptop that wont work on any ac voltage any where in the world - just plug it in and go. I suspect that some of the cordless tools have used that sort of transformer for years. I heard rumours of it when I was thinking of bringing my stuff over 4 years ago but back off because I couldn't get absolute confirmation. I suspect the manufacturers aren't gonna say anything either as there would be a made rush to buy in the states and ignore the local suppliers. And it would make sense in that it's cheaper to have one charger for everything instead of a few.

I might actually put it to the test and get a relative to send over a charger and ill plug it in and see what happens.

Everyone prob realizes it but you can also buy an 18 v Dewalt charger which plugs into the cigarette lighter it does flatten car batteries fairly quickly

We've got a panasonic video camera (very old) that was bought in Paraguay. In the instruction booklet it says you can plug it into either 110 or 240. The circuitry works out what to do Quick plug change and it was Aussified