[DET62]

I hope to be traveling on my second trip to Khabarovsk soon. It's in the Russian Far East, close to China. Last time I went, my expensive converter kit [guaranteed to work anywhere in the world, has like 6 different converters] did NOT work in Khabarovsk.

Does anyone have a converter that will work specifically in Khabarovsk? If it worked in Moscow it may still not work in Khabarovsk, as I noticed the plugs are somewhat different.

I will be happy to buy the converter from you, or borrow it and send it back, or whatever...

Thanks!

Dee Thompson
Atlanta

[LHecht]

What kind of appliance were you trying to use? I have two converters I picked up (one from a travel store and one from Target), and both worked fine on everything except my curling iron.

[DET62]

I was trying to use a hair dryer. However, I will be trying to plug in a charger on a camera battery this next trip.

Your converters worked in Khabarovsk?? Can you tell me the brand names?

[LHecht]

Not sure of brands, as I throw out as much as possible, but I just bought the Target one a month ago and our Targets in MN carry only one brand of travel stuff. When in Khab I heard from another person who couldn't get her dryer working, though other things she had with (DVD player and laptop) were no problem. Strange, no?

[adamcrystal]

It has to do with the wattage your device requires.

The converters are only rated for certain wattages.

Hair dryers have one of the largest watt requirements of the things you might take , where your laptop/dvdplayer/batter chargers are all much much lower requirements.

When you buy converters be sure to check what wattage they are rated at.

Then find out the wattage requirement of the devide you want to plug in. Make sure the converter is rated higher than the device.

There are 2 types of plug/converters you might use.

The first is just a plug connection converter. You can only use this if your device supports the voltage in russia (220 volt AC I think).

If you need to plug in a device that can only run on 110/120 volt AC then you need to buy a true converter. The converter will drop the 220 volt AC down to 110 AC so your device can use it. (You might still need the first connection converter too to plug the thing in).

It's when using that second type that you need to worry about wattage requirements.

If you are in a big city you might have a real travel type store that actually knows a bit about power in various contries.

You might also need a telephone jack converter if you plan to dial in with a laptop, they don't use the RJ11 jacks that we use in US (some hotels might use them though).

Adam

[DET62]

Thanks for the good advice. I'm hoping to make my second trip soon but trying not to get too excited - just do every little thing immediately! LOL.

[CherAbb]

Hairdryers are the worst appliance to deal with. After blowing up several in Europe I didn't take a chance in Russia. I bought a travel hairdryer that has a wattage "switch" on it so no converter is needed. I picked it up at Walmart I think. Anyway, it worked like a charm. I did still need the plug adapter of course, but no power converter.

Have fun in Khab and I hope your trip comes soon - we adopted our daughter from there in April of this year.

[adamcrystal]

That was a probably a voltage switch.

If you can find things to take that can just run on 220/240 volt AC then you can easily run them with the just plug adapter. Makes it much easier and much less likely to fry anything.

Usually it's a little slide switch labeled 110/220.

Some devices have built in auto switches, they sense the voltage and use whichever setting is appropriate (more common in the more expensive small electronic type devices and some laptops).

Adam