What voltage in Florda, USA ?

Hi, Im going on holiday in a couple of weeks to Orlando, Florida. Can anybody tell me what the domestic voltage supply is.

Regards

John

Reply to
John C
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Same as everywhere else in the US.

Reply to
JackShephard

120V 60Hz (as JackShephard says- the same as in the rest of the US) In Canada, it varies, in summer it is 120V 60Hz but in winter, a much higher voltage is needed to keep the polar bears out of the garbage.
Reply to
Don Kelly

you will need to have some kind of converter if you bring your UK stuff... it will probably be easier to just buy cheap electric shavers and the like when you get here.

Reply to
TimPerry

Don't UK shavers run on 120 V (at 50 Hz)? I keep reading that the Brits have small step down tranformers in their loos for just these shavers.

Beachcomber

Reply to
Beachcomber

These things:

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Actually an isolating transformer with both voltages output.

The only mains socket allowed in most bathrooms.

Wouldn't another useful thing for a Brit to take to Florida be a phrase book? ISTR finding it difficult to shop without one...

Reply to
Palindrome

| Im going on holiday in a couple of weeks to Orlando, Florida. Can anybody | tell me what the domestic voltage supply is.

Most of the outlets will be a nominal 120 volts. The frequency is 60 Hz which may overrun some motors designed for 50 Hz. That could be worse if they are designed only for 240 volts. Be sure whatever you use is marked to be safe at 50 or 60 Hz and 120 to 240 volts.

Battery powered shavers might be best as they run the motor on DC and it is easier to make them handle international power in that conversion.

Electric power in US bathrooms is not transformer isolated. Instead, it is protected with ground fault detection in more recently wired ones, and not at all in older ones. If the outlet has a reset button, it should have that preotection. But these are full current (15 or 20 amps) outlets and can handle most hair dryers, too.

Other outlets in other rooms generally have no special protection except for overcurrent (15 amps or 20 amps).

A few special outlets can provide a higher voltage, either 208 volts or

240 volts, depending on if wired to 3-phase systems or single phase.

We have other voltages, too (277, 480, 600) but you'll probably never come anywhere near where they are used. But everything is 60 Hz unless someone has a need to run a frquency converter (some big industrial uses might).

But just think "120 volts 60 Hz" for all of USA and Canada. Other parts of the Americas and the Caribbean have all varieties of voltages and frequencies, often with the very same outlet type as in the US. I have seen a hotel that has "Euro outlets" in addition to US ones. But these were the Schuko type, not the British type. I'm guessing they at least had 240 volts on them, and a possibility of even being 50 Hz. But these are very rare here but might be seen in certain hotels catering to international visitors.

Reply to
phil-news-nospam

An up-to-date phrase book, to be sure. The language changes with each new high school graduation (c;

Reply to
DaveC

A spanish phrase book?

Reply to
gfretwell

OK, just a friendly follow-up question from one of your neighbors in the states.

What happens when UK residents want to use a blow dryer, curling iron or an electric toothbrush? Do you folks just get used to not using those appliances in the bathroom?

If 240V is supposedly just as safe as 120V, why isn't it allowed to be used for those bathroom outlets?

Beachcomber

Reply to
Beachcomber

You want the theory or the practice?

An electric toothbrush will be double insulated and be approved and have the special plug needed to use in a shaver socket in a bathroom.

If the bathroom is big enough, sockets can be fitted away from the wet area - but that size bathrooms are few and far between.

So, either you use the stuff in the bedroom instead of in the bathroom, or be very, very naughty and use an extension lead.. Which is scarily common - I've seen umpteen houses with extension leads in the bathroom, powering (metal) heaters, mood lights, electric kettles, you name it. In one flat there was a mains radio sat on a shelf over the bath... You could just reach up out of the bath to change the channel/volume..

It would have been far, far better to realise that people will use electrical equipment in a bathroom and found a safe way to do so - rather than turn a blind eye to the much more dangerous practices that they get up to because of the lack of sockets/fused spur outlets.

Who said 240v is as safe as 120v? All the portable equipment used by tradesmen on building sites in the UK will normally be 120v.

Reply to
Palindrome

Saws, drill, and such are 120v? Are neutral conductors made available? Or do they take isolation transformers on-site to do conversion?

Sounds quite odd: a separate market for 120v tools, whereas I would presume that the majority of tools available in UK are 240...

Reply to
DaveC

Here's a saw that is allowed on a building site:

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Same thing in 230v, meant for a workshop/ private use rather than on site:

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Here's a site transformer:

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This is its big daddy where 3 phase is available:

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Most domestic supplies are two wire plus earth single phase. So the neutral is used (normally bonded to earth) with a single "live" wire.

I have both 110v and 230v tools. Plus my workshop has a 30mA current imbalance trip on its 230v supply.

(For 230 read whatever between 210 and 250 takes your fancy...)

Reply to
Palindrome

Most UK shavers nowadays seem to be low voltage with integral rechargable batteries and wide ranging SMPSU for charging and direct running 100V-250V.

Why would you do that in the bathroom? Someone else would probably want to actually use the bath, shower, or toilet.

Toothbrushes are usually rechargable batteries, and sit on a charger plugged into the shaver outlet.

Shaver outlets are 240V. They are usually 120V too, since they contain an isolating transformer and it costs nothing to create a 120V tap.

If safety had anything much to do with mains voltage, the US would be safer than 240V countries, but as significantly more people per capita are killed by US mains wiring than UK mains wiring, it's clear this isn't the case.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

My toothbrush is battery operated, and those are inductively charged while in the charging bay with no electrical (conductor wise) connection whatsoever.

Reply to
JackShephard

Do you have evidence that more people per capita are killed by US mains wiring? This is a country in which one or two people died in a bedroom fire caused by faulty wiring and within a few years, arc-fault interrupters are required now for all bedroom convenience outlets.

In the US, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has accurate year-by- year statistics on electrocutions with very specific details.

In fact, the most dangerous appliance in America is probably the portable window air conditioner, especially if it plugged into an ungrounded outlet or the ground/earth is somehow circumvented.

Years ago, people were killed by radios falling into bathtubs or hair dryers falling into the basin, but since the required usage of GFCI's, now, the fatalities from similar accidents is not so much. Even the hair dryers sold in the US are required to have GFI's in the cord (sometimes called immersion detectors, since technically, most hair dryers are not grounded).

But again, what happened in the history of the UK that caused the electrical code authorities to ban the use of standard 240V appliances outlets in the toilet?. In the early days were people frying themselves in the WC like there was no tomorrow?

Others here have pointed out that it seems to be a great inconvenience that encourages people to violate the spirit of the law. Would not a RCD work equally as well on a UK 240V bathroom circuit feeding an outlet? If not, how can you defend your claim that 240 is as safe as

120?

Beachcomber

Reply to
Beachcomber

I guess that is why the typical new American home will have 3 or 4 bathrooms. We have a required 20a receptacle in a bathroom, just for hair dryers.

Reply to
gfretwell

I can't think of any reason to have a standard 240v outlet in a toilet, a loo or a w.c. There may be reasons to have one in a bathroom.

There is possibly some USUK differences in English at work:

In the UK

"Going to the loo", means going to the bathroom specifically to use the w.c.

"Going to the bathroom", means going there to do something else, eg checking how much loo paper is left.

The word "toilet" is seldom used in polite society.

Reply to
Palindrome

What are 'typical' service amp ratings?

Fascinating how US and UK (probably Europe) systems are so different.

In the US 30mA is used for equipment protection. For protection of people 5mA is used - required in many areas of a house. The information I have (60Hz) is let-go threshold is 10-16mA and severe shock - difficult breathing is 15-23mA.

Is your 30mA RCD for protection of your tools or you? Does the UK have RCD protection required for people? Trip level? RCD on 120V construction sites? My vague recollection is that is 2 hots each 60V to earth? 'Normal' leakage a much bigger problem than US because the voltage is 230?

-- bud--

Reply to
Bud--

The regs say, "The accepted lethal level of shock current is 50mA and hence RCD's rated at 30mA or less would be appropriate for use where shock is an increased risk".

Me. It is common to use 500mA RCD for protection against fire, 100mA for whole installation and 30mA for the sockets.

As above. 30mA.

The only socket outlets on the site are 110v centre tapped to earth, with a 5 sec disconnect time. Inside the site huts 230v 0.4sec circuits are permitted.

Certainly I have several bits of test equipment that leak small currents to earth from their inlet filters, by design. So a 5mA RCD would be constantly tripped, if I plugged the lot in.

Reply to
Palindrome

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