Need to know if a U.S. bought vcr, dvd player will work on Bonaire or do I need to buy a transformer for them? Also am thinking of bringing down a Game Cube system as well. Anyone have any experience with this? We finally bought a place on Bonaire and the kids would really like to have these at our new home. I don't want to bring them all the way to Bonaire and find out that they won't work. Thanks for any help or suggestions anyone has. Debbie B

Debbie,
All the electronics will work. The king of gadgets (Jake) uses them all the time. A transformer is recommended to prolong the life of the equipment. You have to be sure you buy one that can handle the full load you will be running from it. They come in different loads. So you also need a surge protector/power strip to attach to it for all the plugs.
Linda

Linda,
Thanks, I will relay to hubby. He is going down in November. He is a gadget man too! I've been the only one down to Bonaire to see the place and Gregg (hubby) will finally get to go in Nov. He's going to be busy, painting the place and lots of other things on our "to do" list. Debbie

Linda, (or Jake)

I'll pop in here, maybe Jake could give me a suggestion of the size of the transformer - would want to be able to run TV, VCR, DVD, Stereo and say a playstation. Also, I assume I can buy it on Bonaire, who would carry them?

Thanks,

Gregg

Depends on the size of the TV, but for most cases, an 800-1000KVa transformer or voltage regulator would do the trick.

Transformers can be had at Playa Trading, Kooymans, or the electrical place across from what used to be Bon Awa (name escapes me for the moment). You would need a couple of conversion plugs too (these transformers have the round European plugs and sockets, and no grounds). You'd set the input on 125V and the output on 110V. Cost is about $50-100 depending on size of the transformer.

Slight more expensive are voltage regulators, which are U.S. standard and ground, and drop the 127V nominal to about 112-115V. Benzer's carries these.

Don't forget to bring a power strip too.

If this is for non-long-term use by you, Gregg, I can loan you any and all of the above - I have spares since we went to a whole house transformer at our new place - we now have 100-110V 50Hz at all U.S. outlets in our house (depending on what the incoming voltage is).

Jake

Hitess - store across from Bon Awa

Debbie,

There is a brand new VCR in the Entertainment Center!!!! Don't go and buy one!!!!

Liz

Jake,

Thanks for all the great info. It will not be a short term thing so I'll bite the bullet & buy one. Appreciate the offer.

Linda, thanks for the follow up.

Gregg

Liz,

Yeah, I think my wife was just using the VCR as an example and for future reference, as we weren't sure where you bought it. I think you had mentioned that there is a spare transformer in the house??? Forgot to have my wife look for it when she was there. I'll be down in Nov so this transformer "stuff" is on my "to do list".

Gregg

Gregg,

The spare transformer is in the same place as the VCR, I think. We bought the VCR here in the States.

Liz

Thanks, Liz. Another question: Does the video store in town by Exito rent games for Ninetendo, or Playstation II, or game cube?

What the procedure should be is to look at the transformer of the equipment and see if it indicates 50/60 Hz. If it is 60 Hz only then you will need a frequency converter - available at Hitess. A voltage regulator is also a good idea given the fluctuations in voltage here on Bonaire.

Several of my electronic devices have died as a result of frequency requirements. Santana Electronics (next to CurOil on Kaya Korona) can generally repair broken devices.

But to put in perspective - I have seen voltage spikes of 190V/AC on what is supposed to be a 110V/AC.

Any device having a 60 Cycle motor from the USA i.e. clocks, refrigerators, wash machines, etc. (divide a 360 degree rotation of the armature by 60 - then try the same division by 50) will become prematurely obsolete.

The problem with any US appliance that draws many an Amp is that the frequency converters from Hitess are only rated at 500 Watts
(Amps = Watts/110.) Thus a dryer for instance (draws about 15 Amps)will not work under the auspice of a freq converter. Some kitchen appliance will not work either.

Hope this helps.

Bruce's solution certainly would simplify some of the issues for low wattage devices, but I will add that with the gobs of electronics and U.S. appliances in my house and office, I only use voltage transformers/regulators, and no frequency converters (which are AC-DC followed by a DC-AC inverter in a compact package, incidentally).

The trick, as was explained to me by an analog electrical engineer is that an appliance which is spec'd at 120V, 60Hz needs to actually be run at about 105V, 50Hz for equivalent power user and product life. Seems counter-intuitive that you'd want a lower voltage at a lower frequency, but in my experience that has worked great, and as long as I've kept the voltage at between 100-110V, all my electronics and appliances have continued to work without fail (although we did recently find that a new gas stove with an electric starter we purchased did need a higher voltage for the gas regulator valve so we had to add step up transformer for that oven, since our house voltage is about 105 due to a whole house transformer we had installed here).

Jake

Bruce, Jake, Linda,

Thanks for all the info. Hopefully I won't burn too many things up in the learning process but think I've got it.

Gregg