Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > Any Electrician Type Gurus Out There???

[Rob B]

I bought some gear in Thailand and just plugged it in. I don't think you'll find you have any issues as long as the amp power supplies can cope with the regulation of the slightly higher seconadary voltage it may see.

I did have to set /reset the zero bais of the poweramp stage but they where a class a/b set up where the valves did the front end and the mosfets drove the power stage

[phil_h]

Originally Posted by Ian Harris

As for quality...this is a bit of a gamble, ... I believe the stuff I am buying is pretty near to US / American standards of construction, but it definitely has 220 volt power supplies (which suit Europe fine, but sadly not us in the UK). The gear I am buying does not currently have a formal UK importer, so is not available with 240 volt freindly supply. If its good stuff, I'll upgrade components in due course...if its not, I'll live and learn and stick it on ebay with a suitably realistic description.

I think you missed our earlier point ...
the uk and europe came to an agreement several years ago to all change our mains voltages, and we met in the middle at 230V.
So all of europe and the british isles have run at 230Vac for quite a while.
What you will find of course is that local supply voltage regulation can be variable
UK and germany for instance are better than spain and italy.

So ... if you know people in europe using these valves ok, then they _should_ also be fine here.
The caveat emptor is still there - as you always need to know how much overvoltge a power device will cope with (P = Vsquared / R)

btw
the 'CE' mark on a device which is mains powered _should_ be your guarantee.
If the valves are not CE marked, then it is my understanding that they are not legal in europe (or whatever)

[Ian Harris]

Originally Posted by phil_h

I think you missed our earlier point ...
the uk and europe came to an agreement several years ago to all change our mains voltages, and we met in the middle at 230V.
So all of europe and the british isles have run at 230Vac for quite a while.
What you will find of course is that local supply voltage regulation can be variable

If we are indeed running at a mean level of 230 volts then , as you say, all should be well...but my understanding was that there was a European decision to "harmonise" electricity supply, but it was too expensive for either mainland Europe or the UK to change, so the -6% / +10% leeway just enabled both sides to remain as they were, so any UK volt fluctuations will be around our long-standing 240 volt standard, not the suggested 230 volt.

European Union fudge? Surely not!

Regarding CE approval, at the end of the day, I'm just being hyper-cautious to maximise valve longetivity ... if they're optimised to run at 220, I'd rather feed them 220 (or at least have any fluctuations centred around 220 , not 240).

Thanks for all your input, its much appreciated.

[Ian Harris]

Originally Posted by Rob B

I bought some gear in Thailand and just plugged it in. I don't think you'll find you have any issues as long as the amp power supplies can cope with the regulation of the slightly higher seconadary voltage it may see.

I did have to set /reset the zero bais of the poweramp stage but they where a class a/b set up where the valves did the front end and the mosfets drove the power stage

Rob, that's reassuring...I'm sure I could get away with a 240 volt supply, but I'm not sure how an increased supply would affect the plate voltages on the output tubes (which I think run at about 12-1400 volts)...I just reckon caution is justified (although not so much caution as not buying the things in the first place!)

[sharpo]

A transformer will increase the output by the same percentage as it's input has been increased, so a 10 volt increase on the primary to 230 will equate to a lerger voltage increase from the secondary, if the secondary is putting out 12-1400 volts allready it would increase by about 50 volts "allegedly".

Buy some better valves just in case.

Watford valves are a good source.

[Ian Harris]

Originally Posted by sharpo

Buy some better valves just in case.

Watford valves are a good source.

Agreed, Watford Valves are an excellent emporium....Plan is to replace the valves with Euro/US NOS before even turning the things on (which will immediately double the cost). Then get audio legend "The Cartridgeman" to wave his magic wand over the internals (which will quadruple the cost)...the aim is to get "Desmosedici sound" for "Monster 600 Dark price" ....if it all goes horribly wrong, i'll wait to February and sell the things as ancillary room heaters.