180 volts on mains

[dr.s.lartius]

That assumes : (a) that the lamps were bought locally to the house (b) that the 'supposed' voltage has not changed since purchase.

This should be good :

[newshound]

Good point.

[Steve Walker]

Over a couple of decades, PSUs may have changed and tolerate slightly wider voltage ranges. It is even possible that some manufacturers PSUs are rated 110V/230V so as to avoid having separate production runs.

SteveW

[Dave Liquorice]

That should be first thing to do...

It's not, Ie storm a few years ago brought down lots of lines and snapped a few poles. Something woke me up in the wee small hours, being half asleep it was a bit confusing that the lights (CFLs) worked fine but some kit was a dead as a DoDo but other things plugged into the same power strip were working fine. Measured voltage, about 120. Switched all circuits but one ring off. Unplugged everything on that ring except an incandescant table lamp and left that glowing brownly as an indicator. Rang the DNO and the power disappeared a couple of hours later to reappear at the correct voltage 36 hours later...

[Murmansk]

OP here

Just to complete the story, I can tell you that after a few hours the entire electricity supply to the flat disappeared and we called the supply company who said that there was a problem in the area and they were hoping to mend it by about 2 a.m.

Everything did indeed come back to life at about 1 a.m. and all went back to normal in that the central heating boiler was happy again and the microwave oven was heating things to the correct temperature.

The text message my friend received from the electricity supply company subsequently suggested that they had replaced a fuse somewhere locally in the network.

[newshound]

That could be nasty, depending on which side of the insulator!

[The Other Mike]

This one, sat in a PC bought in late 2013 accepts 90-264V, it can't be the only one.

[Gordon Henderson]

Am interesting tale from the early days of variable input voltage PSUs... Many years back, I worked at a computer company and we made supercomputer things - the small units had a 1KW PSU rated from 110 to

240v - One day the voltage dipped down to 80v. No problem for this unit, just draw more amps... Shame some of the internal wiring wasn't up to it and it caught fire. Ah well.

It always amused me when working in the US, seeing advertising using amps as a measure of power - "Full 8 amp power" ... etc. Well it made me laugh and shake my head at the same time.

Gordon

[Chris Green]

It must have been very marginal surely if it was OK at 230 volts but 'caught fire' at 80 volts. It would only be three times the current and if it was that hot at 80 volts it must have been running pretty warm at 230.

[Tim Streater]

Three times the current and nine times the heating effect.

[tabbypurr]

3x the current (80v vs 240v) causes 9x the heating in cable.

NT

[ARW]

And then the lights came back on?

[Murmansk]

Erm yes!

"all went back to normal"!!