Help in Iraq - Need adapter to break for generator power Ask questions and find answers to many subjects relating to electrics and electrical work

[gkc]

I am in Iraq. I don't know a lot about electricity, so please excuse me if I say something ignorant.

Here they use 220 and most wall sockets are like those in England.

When we have federal power, we can run anything. But federal power is pretty limited. We are also connected to a neighborhood generator and have a maximum of 7 amps. We have to switch a lot of things off when we are on the neighborhood generator.

What would be really helpful is some kind of adapter (or, if necessary a replacement wall socket that we could use to replace some of our wall sockets) that would know when we have federal power and when we are getting power from the neighborhood generator. What I would like is something that would only supply electricity when we have federal power. Then, if the power switches from federal to neighborhood generator, I would not have to go around and turn off those appliances that we plugged into the sockets that only work when there is federal power. This would especially be a big help at night. We could leave our heaters on and not wake up to a freezing house.

The best thing would be some kind of simple adapter that we could plug into some of our wall sockets.

Is there anything like this?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Sincerely,

GKC

[ericmark]

Without knowing how federal power and neighborhood generator are switched over there is very little I can suggest.

However I do have one thought. Active RCD units will drop out when the voltage drops below a pre-set level. If when it changes over you get a few moments before the neighborhood generator cuts in then anything fed with an active RCD would auto disconnect.

Most RCD's that plug into sockets are the active type. There are other items that do the same. My remote controlled power switches also do not reconnect after a power failure.

With more details may be some one on here will have some other ideas.

We did try many ideas with a narrow boat to get auto change over but in the end went for two radials one off inverter other off shore power and just swapped plugs over as required.