converting 240 volts

[v1rtu0s1ty]

Good morning folks. Is it hard to convert an audio equipment that is 240 volts to 110 volts?

Thanks.

 

[hucker]

Good morning folks. Is it hard to convert an audio equipment that is 240 volts to 110 volts?

Thanks.

That is a loaded question. There are two main ways to do it. You can by a step-up transformer to take the wall voltage up to 240 so your gear is happy OR you can remove/bypass the power supply inside the box and replace it with one that accepts 110.

Step up transformers look like this:

http://www.voltage-converter-transformers....ransformer.html

Changing the internal supply is a bit more problematic but amounts to removing the power entry module and seeing what outputs it has, often times 12V or 5V. For large power amps this might be tough and often times high end audio equipment has a lot of magic going on to keep things quiet. If you are lucky you could find the US power entry module and swap it out.

Back in the day I successfully bypassed a european turntable's power supply and it worked fine until the days of CD's arrived and made the turn table obsolete.

 

[gatchel]

I'm just being devils advocate here but don't some pieces of equipment rely on the line frequency to operate properly (50hz vs 60hz)?

 

[cornutt]

I'm just being devils advocate here but don't some pieces of equipment rely on the line frequency to operate properly (50hz vs 60hz)?

The main concern is going from 60 Hz to 50 Hz, where you will probably have to put larger filter caps in the power supplies. Going from 50 to 60 Hz, there's generally no problem unless the equipment contains synchronous motors, or uses the line frequency for a timing reference.

 

[gatchel]

Gotcha.