October 17th, 2007, 10:07 AM
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#16
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Major Player
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Shenzhen, China
Posts: 781
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Andrada
Not sure if you're aware of it, but Japan is more of a nightmare re power than you might think.
They're 100V allright, but frquency differs depending on where you are. Southern/Western Japan is 60 Hz, Eastern/Northern Japan is 50Hz, including Tokyo.
Even worse - some buildings in Tokyo run on 60Hz even though Tokyo is supposed to be 50Hz. When I lived there I was working for IBM Japan and the big banks in Tokyo all ran 60 Hz systems with their own motor generators to power the computer rooms. In the early days, all the computers were imported from the US and were 60Hz machines, so the banks, which were early adopters, standardized on 60Hz.
Of course, when a system was ordered, the IBM ordering system knew that Tokyo was a 50Hz location so all the mainframes came wired for 50Hz and had to go back to the factory to be converted to 60Hz. And if the customer wanted to move the machine to Osaka, it had to go back to the factory again to be reconverted.
Thank God for modern switching power supplies!
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Yes but many still sell hard wired voltage power supplies among the lighting manufacturers. Some even make it an extra big deal option that you pay more for. It's so easy to do too to offer a universal model but many still don't.
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