Off topic: generic laptop adaptor?

[Francois Ouellette]

> I took my laptop to Cuba last Christmas, where the line voltage is 220V.
The
> adaptor said it could work with 220V, so with some trepidation I plugged
it
> into the hotel wall outlet. There was a flash and a giant ZZZZAAAAP sound
> which I'd never heard before, and so I yanked out the plug and assumed
that
> the adaptor was dead, dead, dead.
>
> Got home, checked with CPUsed, and they wanted something like $75 for a
new
> one, which is not unreasonable given the output current of the thing.
> Anyway, I decided to try the adaptor on 117VAC line. Again, the zap thing,
> but a bit more subdued this time and I noticed that the laptop was
charging.
> So the charger survived completely.
>
> Finding out that the adaptor survived was good, but the best part was
> thinking that the laptop was out of commission during the one week
holiday,
> so I spent the time lounging in the pool with coloured tropical beverages
> instead of working on some mind-numbing project specification document.
>
> Peter

My experience with hotel electrical outlets in many "foreign" countries
where electricians can be anyone who shows interest in playing with wires is
that NOTHING can be trusted! It may have been that there was in fact 500v in
that outlet instead of the expected 240, or anything else. Who knows. Some
places have a local electricity powerplant that may even produce something
else than the expected 50 or 60 cycles. Some places in Europe used to have
systems with 1600 cycles...

I always carry a little pocket multimeter when I travel and check voltages
before plugging anything to an unfriendly looking outlet. Also, when
plugging the adapter the very first time DO NOT connect it to the computer!

  François Ouellette
<fouellet-cpI+UMyWUv9BDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org>

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml