Some Urgent Help Please

[ajp]

During our recent shopping spree online (that 30% sale was dangerous you know), we purchased some electrical items, including 2 christmas light things. I had a couple of adaptors and thought they would suffice, but after about half an hour, it appears I have burnt them out. Does anyone have any experience/knowledge/advice on how to handle the US electrical stuff in our system and what I can do to possibly fix this? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!!!

[KeithS]

Hmmm...need some more detail Anthony. Did they come supplied with a transformer (black brick that plugs into the wall?) If so, and you used that, then it probably fried it as US power supply is only 110volts, where as we use a 240 volt system.

Most US -> Australian adaptors just change the pin arrangements, they do not downgrade the voltage.

Now - if the item you purchased did have a black transformer, you may be lucky and it just burnt out the transformer and not the lights themselves. In which case, you can probably get a 240v transformer from Dick Smith etc. You need to know how many volts the product takes (the US transformer will have it printed on it) and buy a 240v version with the same voltage output.

Hope this helps a little (and I hope you get them working!)

[ajp]

Thanks Keith, I think you've given me enough information to tell me that I fried the lights so I'll probably have to change them or even rewire it. No they didn't come with a transformer, and I probably should get one. I did think that the converters were enough, so that's an error on my part.