Thread: German Electricity

i thinkl that the price you pay in germany will be more expensive than buying it in aus with the euro conversion

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

I have a friend who will be in Germany soon and could bring me a Festool goodie or two. I know there's been discussion on this before, but as far as I can see the German Festool products will work here with a simple change of plug. We are of course 240V AC/50Hz and Germany is 230V AC/50Hz.

Can anyone find fault with my logic?

Interesting to note that USA prices are cheaper than Germany, and of course that includes freight etc. Go figure.

Thanks & Regards, FenceFurniture.

yes it is the same and it will work, it used to be 220/50 but through unification and global standardisation it became 230. Remember that is only a nominal voltage and the actual voltage is allowed to vary by +/- 10%. so it will be fine!

The German prices contain 19% VAT (or MwSt as they call it) which can be reclaimed if you buy for export out of EU. Without VAT German prices are actually lower or lineball with US !

FF...I was in Germany recently and one of my prime aims was to get some Festo gear, believe me.......it's not worth the drama.

1. There are very few tool shops as we know them and they are generally hidden in an industrial area. Went all round Dusseldorf looking for an outlet...no luck (and my son lives there)

2. Following week went down to Saarbruken....local Praktica (Bunnies on steroids) was just down the road, inside all the worlds known power-tools except Festo, guy was very helpful , rang around and found an outlet in the industrial area near the French border, trooped over, very helpful but absolutely no haggling and price was dearer than Aus.
If you buy there, need to get a certificate from the seller which you then present at the Airport to get the tax refunded....not at all easy, believe me.

3. Next drama...Aussie customs....A cabinetmaker friend of mine went to London to upgrade his daughters flat...took all his tools...did the job and returned to Aus....come hell or high water, customs wanted to charge him import duty on all his own used (obvious wear and tear) tools.

So to answer your question....not worth the effort.

Bryan, taking the Rotex 90 as an example:
Germany E474.81 which becomes A$641 less 19% $538
Straya $815

CT36:
E689........$919.........$772
Straya $1200 and we don't have the auto clean version here yet (extra E100).


stolar - thanks for the confirmation.

ravna - err, when I say he'll be in Germany soon, that's quite true - he's there all the time! He should be able to purchase online (time isn't a problem). Will investigate VAT with him (he's an exporter), and it won't be travelling with him. Just shipped (planed) over here with some other stuff.

Thanks guys.

Also consider the volume and weight. Systaniners are great tool boxes but could also be bulky.

Don't forget to include postage prices, which from Germany are obscenely expensive! Power tools are still quite heavy, esp. with the high density plastic Systainers from Festool. This may make the prospect of airline luggage just too expensive, and postage a less expensive, but still pricey, alternative. I've found German prices/currency conversions uneconomic. A less expensive alternative is from UK dealers. Most will automatically deduct VAT, whereas the Germans seem to want to pocket the diff themselves!

Remember also that all warranty privileges are automatically abrogated in using a tool outside its country of origin!

Thanks Ratbag. Do you like my signature? There are ways to minimise freight.

In regard to your specific query re Continental electricity, there's no problem whatsoever.

Even in Australia, or at least in Tassie where I am, voltages can fluctuate dramatically. I've measured mains voltages varying from 220-255v. The utilities typically allow a nominal voltage of 240v +/- 10%, equating to a 216-264v tolerance range. I may be wrong, but personally I've never heard of any problem with mains voltage within this fairly wide range.

Power tools tend to be relatively robust, with quality continental tools having well made armatures and windings easily able to adapt to varying voltage. More problematic is voltage drop from using high current tools with a long chain of low quality extension cords, which leads to premature armature overheating and failure. I doubt that Festool, Mafell, Kress, Metabo et. al. would modify their tools other than a plug change to cater for such an insignificant market such as Aust/NZ.

as much as i believe in supporting our local suppliers, whether thats festools, makita, etc etc. i really want to save a buck.
that is the bottom line for any business, whether you are a one man band or a large company.

i am currently out of work, and cant physically work for the next week because of a bloody broken toe! so buying tools is not a high priority right this minute.
but i have been researching cheap, effective ways of importing tools from overseas.

with regards to festool.
festool in the u.s. have the cheapest prices to date.
the u.k. market should be very cheap, because of the weak sterling pound and strong aussie dollar, but that it is not the case.

rather than importing from germany directly, it may work out cheaper importing from the u.s.
right now the festool wcr 1000 work centre retails here for approx au$700.
it can be purchased through amazon.com plus postage for au$420.
it is very high on my hit list once work gets going again.

its a pity the u.s. use 110 volt, so importing power tools from the u.s. may not be a good idea. but the festool accessories are worth importing given the strength of the aussie dollar.

regards, justin.

Does it make a difference if the Germans use square-wave AC instead of RMS sine wave like the rest of the world? Sorry, the devil made me say it.

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

Does it make a difference if the Germans use square-wave AC instead of RMS sine wave like the rest of the world? Sorry, the devil made me say it.

Robson, we have a wannabee politician here, who was (rightfully) accused of being Xenophobic. Her response was (in a thin, unconvincing voice) "please explain?" (howls of derision in the House, of course).

BTW, what's your voltage system?

Despite the uncontestable fact that we suffer a total power failure at least once a week, so
sometimes several outages per day,

We have 117VAC RMS (root mean square) 60Hz, true sine wave, of course. I have a photvoltaic system which can deliver (true sine wave) 500 watts for 8 hours. I use it mainly to drive my Harman P38+ wood pellet stove to heat the entire house when it is dark and -25C in a winter blizzard here in the Rocky mountains.

Square wave AC pauses at 0 / zero for a few milliseconds ever 1/2 AC cycle. So most common electric motors are always looking for the starting "inrush" current, usually about 2X the running current. They operate in nearly a "stall" mode which sucks my battery bank flat in no time, motor rpm's less than 1/2 normal.
Most common home electronics, coffee pots, etc, don't notice the difference .

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

Does it make a difference if the Germans use square-wave AC instead of RMS sine wave like the rest of the world?

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

Square wave AC pauses at 0 / zero for a few milliseconds ever 1/2 AC cycle. So most common electric motors are always looking for the starting "inrush" current, usually about 2X the running current. They operate in nearly a "stall" mode which sucks my battery bank flat in no time, motor rpm's less than 1/2 normal.
Most common home electronics, coffee pots, etc, don't notice the difference .

When I saw your first posting, I assumed you were being funny. Seeing your second posting suggests you are serious that you think square wave is used in any commercial power grid. Forgive me if I misread.

A sinusoidal waveform is the natural output of rotational motion with forward translation (time in this case). For example, if you paint a dot on the outer rim of your car's tire, the path that this dot traces out as the car rolls forward will be a pure sinusoid. The same is true for the rotating magnetic field inside an electric generator.

A square wave signal is the typical output of a low-quality DC-to-AC conversion that does not have a rotational mechanism to create the sinusoid (or electronics to simulate one).

Moreover, it is actually motors that are most immune to square wave inputs, not the reverse. Nearly all Festool motors are driven by Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) which is a form of square wave with a variable frequency that controls the power delivered to the motor. (For more information on the topic, a good starting search term would be "VFD".) If it is a variable-speed tool, it will have a PWM controller (MMC electronics by Festool naming).

Also, a square wave doesn't pause at the zero-crossing, It is the opposite. It pauses at the peak voltages, and changes nearly instantaneously from positive-peak to negative-peak. This does not result in high in-rush current. The cause of in-rush current is the rotational speed (rpm) of the motor. When the motor is not rotating, it looks like a low-resistance coil of wire. As the motor begins to spin, it creates an opposing magnetic field which increases the impedance (resistance) of the coil, and the amperage is reduced.

I run my house on the mains, 117VAC, as I said. We are at the end of a 500 mile/800km powerline which runs through the mountain forests. ANYTHING goes wrong and we have another power failure, average is one per week. Teh seconds, ten hours, who's to know?

So, I bought all the parts and assembled a photovoltaic power system for emergency use. I have 2 x 6VDC deep cycle batteries wired up to give me 12VDC. The solar panels are high up on the house wall which makes them really difficult to steal.

I guess I got it mostly incorrect. Anyway, the first inverter that I bought (850W) for $100 had a square wave output. The factory sent me a graphical representation which showed that the wave-form does sit at zero in between each half cycle.
That explained why the 3 electric motors in my Harman P38+ pellet stove sucked 90A @ 12VDC when the total needed was, in fact, 450-500Watts. I depended upon an electronics engineer to explain the business of inrush current to me, as it applies to my situation.

Then, I got lucky and found a 1,250W sine wave-output inverter for $250. Now, all needed motors spin right along. Of course, I have the pellet stove shut down for the summer. . . . . but I am never without my morning coffee!

We had a long, very cold and unusually snowy winter. I burned 10,000 lbs wood pellets just to get the upstairs main kitchen to 18C.