Voltage in Majorca!

[mike]

My eldery father i-law has been living in majorca for some 20 years and has recently suffered several strokes. He now only has the use of one hand and really misses not being able to write letters any more. A friend here in the UK kindly gave him a very basic dedicated word processor (just displays a few lines of text and runs simple WP). A computer is too complicated for him to understand/use. The WP has an external"brick" for a psu (9V dc o/p I *think*).

Anyway this WP box-thing works fine here in the UK but when wifey took it too majorca the thing just scrolls junk text at switch-on. Brought it back here - works fine! I just wonder if the supply voltage in ES/majorca is not correct for such WP things? Too much voltage variation perhaps? Frequency different? Can the mains plugs there be inserted either way around (ie swaps live/neutral) and if so could this make a difference somehow? We could always look for a WP in ES to start with but just wondered what the trouble could be.

[Chip]

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 22:14:40 GMT,it is alleged that mike spake thusly in uk.d-i-y:

Nominally 230 volts, however, likely to be 220 volts +/- a bit in the same way the UK is likely to be 240 +/- a bit :-)

It's still 50 Hz.

I believe Spanish outlets are non-polarized, meaning live/neutral can be either way round. This (although for a long time booed and hissed at in the UK) *shouldn't* adversely affect anything reasonably modern but if the WP has a filter that expects the neutral to be near earth, reversal of polarity could cause an issue, but again, it really _shouldn't_, especially being an external 'brick'.

I would suggest possibly a faulty socket, (worn/loose connections), a worn or badly fitting plug, or poor voltage regulation by the power company.

Also, does the device have a 3 core cord? If it requires an earth for the filter in the PSU, it may react very oddly to no earth, possibilities certainly include the random scrolling of garbage characters, and these could also be a symptom of 'dirty power' caused by the above mentioned loose connections.

If the device is old enough to be designed for '240 volts' rather than

230, that could also be the problem. Many older UKian devices don't like being fed 220, let alone the 190 - 200 or so it can drop to in some places in ES. More a fault of the original manufacturer than the power company, but that doesn't really help your FIL either way.

Whether you end up getting it working or buying one locally, I wish your father in law all the best, and hope things work out so he has something he can write on soon:-)

[Andy Dee]

Some 110v supplies still exist in parts of Spain... Out in the country in Mallorca it may well be 110v. A

[s--p--o--n--i--x]

Majorca generally uses 220v but 110v is still uses in older buildings.