C&DEA - Part 4 Standards? We Don't Need No Stinking Standards Or French for "Plug" is "Prise" Which Sounds Like "Prize" for a REASON Mars (which is somewhere near Remulac) '98 David A. Braun Copyright 1998 - All Rights Reserved "The best laid plans of mice and men sometimes go awry." (And vice versa.) Being an electrical engineer (EE), and having taken some power courses, I'm not afraid to fiddle around with line current, wall sockets, lamps, breaker boxes, and so forth. Planning to move to France included a minor exercise in considering power for our appliances. I read some material on the subject and had a little information a priori. As a television engineer in a former incarnation, I have also possess a vague understanding of the rudiments of television signals and cable routing as well. I made a few plans in my pointed little head, packed a few parts (and a Digital Voltage Meter) and hoped for the best. After moving in to our "permanent" apartment (the third move was charmed) first and foremost was the Kid. Being American, our kid has video games and videotapes. In fact he has two kinds of video games, the old 3DO (with a considerable selection of games) and a new PlayStation (with a handful of games as Christmas gifts). During our scouting foray to France in October, we found out that PlayStation games are NOT universal. There are several television standards available on this planet. Games in France are on the PAL (which stands for "Pray And Look") standard and games in the USA are on the NTSC ("Never Twice the Same Color") standard. Just to add a half gainer to the equation, French television is on the SECAM-L system. SECAM, or "System Entirely Contrary to the American Method" wasn't good enough, so they Localized it by changing some specs and adding the "-L." Pursuant to researching multi-standard teevees and VCR's, and blanching at the prices, we decided that what we needed was an NTSC "island" in Sam's room. We brought our standard 'merican-type teevee, a VCR, 3DO and PlayStation with us to France. They all said 120V 60Hz on the back (or bottom). Power here is 220V 50Hz. Plan B, worked out in Fort Collins, was brought along with some tools and hardware. "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is." - Flash Gordon, M.D. Plan A, Theory: Construct a quad box of USA outlets with a French power cord. Obtain a 220V to 110V transformer. Plug the transformer in the wall, plug the quad box in the transformer and plug the teevee and stuff in the quad box. The beauty of the system is that ANY appliance we have can be plugged into the quad box and will probably work. I can recharge my razor or screwdriver. Or the kid can run his electronic keyboard, and so forth. Plan A, Practice: I allowed as how virtually nothing actually runs on AC these days, especially digital stuff. So the 50Hz / 60Hz thing doesn't really matter other than to slightly overtax any internal transformers, which are over-designed by conservative EE's anyway. Amazingly, it WORKED. Score one for us, zero for Murphy on this strategy! (I know, I know, he'll get me back... in fact he already has.) Score half of one for us, really. Because I used a grounded (3-prong) Euro-plug on my quad box. And the transformer is not only UNgrounded, but REQUIRED me to change to a two-prong, Euro-plug. The fact that Plan B was available is probably why Murphy let Plan A work. Plan B (just in case you care): I bought a couple of inverters. These are devices which generate 120V 60Hz AC from 12V DC. They're used to run teevees and VCRs in Rutabaga wagons and such. Plan B was to build or buy a big healthy 12V power supply, or pirate one from a PC and hook it up to the inverters, into which I would plug in the quad box. The inverters, all $40 worth of them, are currently entombed in "la cave," the storage room in the basement, called "the dungeon" by the family because it really is more like a dungeon than a cave. "La cave" reminds us all of E.A. Poe's "Cask of Amontillado." Now, about the kitchen... it made no sense to bring our major (120V) appliances. So we sold them all before we left. We bought a new (220V) washer, dryer, fridge, and range. Being Americans, we brought our microwave, coffee maker, blender, egg beater, popcorn popper, coffee grinder, and so forth. (We left the bread machine in storage because bringing a bread machine to France would be just plain wrong.) Unfortunately, when I was looking for transformers, everyone said the same thing, "Castorama." Castorama is the Grenoble equivalent of Builder's Square. Someone asked me one Monday what I did over the weekend and I told them we went to Castorama. They laughed and asked how many people from HP I saw there. Anyway, I was not overly impressed with the prices of transformers at Castorama. Being an EE, I know that you can pay a lot less for transformers if you buy them at a place that sells transformers (and other EE-type components) rather than anywhere else. So, I called around and found out that there is a lead time of weeks for transformers larger than the 500VA one that I had picked up at Castorama for about $55. Our 120V microwave was 800W, coffeepot 1000W and toaster oven 1200W. Oh hell. We decided in the end to just go ahead and buy a new microwave and coffee machine. It's just as well. Our old cappuccino maker couldn't hold a candle to our spiffy new one. And the new microwave packs identical utility into a much smaller footprint than the old one. (Should you be curious about prices... an 800W microwave with a turntable, a selection of power settings, and a twist-type timer goes for about 600F, tax included, in the neighborhood of US$100. When you take the same oven in the US at about $80 and add 7% or so sales tax, you're in spitting distance price-wise, depending if the exchange rate closer to five or closer to six and a half F/$ when you do the calculation.) We also picked up a 220V eggbeater. Since you can't get good Margarita fixin's here anyway, we don't think we'll need a blender. (These people think that the white crystalline substance on the rim of a glass containing a Margarita is supposed to be SUGAR. There mere thought of this would make Jose Cuervo spin in his grave fast enough to melt snow, if it ever snows where he's planted.) As for the other appliance items... we'll just have to see how it goes. Lamps were going to be the easy part, so I thought. New plugs are 5F and simple to install. The threads in the bub sockets are the same. So all I had to do, I thought, was buy some bubs and plugs and we'd be in business. This is, in fact, true, IF you have standard sized bubs. Unfortunately, we have a pair of Very Expensive lamps (works of art, really) which use E12 bubs. You probably know these as "candelabra" bubs. The day I picked up the transformer, I picked up a buncha candelabra bubs (which run about $2 apiece, or more, over here). Got home and found out... none of 'em fit. "Not a problem," I thought to my self, and walked four blocks to the bub store. "If it can be gotten, this guy can do it," I thought. Turns out it can't be gotten. There is no such thing as a 220V E12 bub. But he DID fix me up where one lamp was concerned. I bought six E14 sockets (and little white cardboard candle-looking thingies) for the hand blown glass and gold Venetian chandelier. An hour or so working out with pliers and snips later, made it functional. The other lamp is also Italian. Carol saw it in a fashion magazine and special ordered one from some place in Connecticut. Now I'm a rather mechanical type of guy, but for the life of me I could not see HOW to remove the sockets without breaking something. The whole lamp only has one screw, in the top, which allows removal of a plug, which allows me to SEE some sort of wiring harness hooking the five bubs together. Fortunately, there are TWO shops in town which have the identical lamp (for $200 less, but who knew we'd be here). One had a sign that said they'd re-open on Monday, last Monday, but it was already Wednesday when I went by and they were STILL closed. The other shop, called "Roma" and filled with absolutely WONDERFUL things showed me the paperwork on the lamp which indicated the lamp was available with sockets in either E12 or E14. But the shoppe itself had no information on how to disassemble or reassemble the thing. They DID have the phone number of the factory in Italy, however. I called the number. I got a recording, in Italian, telling me that the number had been changed to another number. Now, I figured that much out between my French, which ain't so hot yet, and my Spanish, which has cooled off considerably since high school. So, when I called the number, I was pleased that it rang... and was answered. However, a machine picked up and I think told me that the number was no longer in service, or something. Dead end. To quote our HP-France relocation manager (who said on another subject entirely, but the quote works), "Shit. Shit. And RE-shit." [This next section is for the engineers in the group. If you are not an engineer, you'll probably fall asleep. If you are, you'll probably appreciate this bit more than the rest.] OK... 5-40W bubs are only 200W, so I guess I COULD buy another 250F transformer, and run USA bubs in the thing. Too bad it wasn't six bubs, because then I could parallel three series-pairs without any trouble. Then I had the bright idea of installing a series diode, figuring half wave 230V 50Hz has the same RMS voltage as 115V 60Hz if you integrate over a cycle. But I began to doubt that idea when I thought about the fact that 230 RMS is 325 V peak (instead of the 170 Vp of 120 Vrms) and a half cycle at 50 Hz is 10 mS not 8.3 mS. These things mean that if the filament does NOT reach a steady state temperature, it will see 325V peak and then turn off each and every cycle. Both these effects would be bad... the bubs will flash annoyingly during the brief time until they burn out. Being an engineer (lazy), I decided to ask someone who'd know, Dr. Francis Wells, the professor of the power subjects at my alma mater. He said that a simple diode would do both bad things, and suggested getting a dimmer and pinning it so that it couldn't exceed some physical limit associated with the desired voltage level or else experimenting with an SCR and a couple of resistors.] After I found out that "dimmer" in French is pronounced "variateur"... 79F, a piece of popsicle stick, and some glue later, we're in business. ALMOST... Now all we needed was for someone coming to France to bring us the right bubs because those are the ONLY bubs the moving company managed to not pack. And within a few weeks a kind soul from Fort Collins did just that. OK... so what's next? Telephone! I brought a couple of telephones with us even though the French connector is very different. One of the phones is a "throw away" that came free with a breakfast cereal (or something equally indicative of it's value). I picked up a French telephone plug at Radio Shack for $6.99 for my own use who started carrying them after I had HP pay $35 for one mail order about two months previously, for use with my OmniBook laptop. I figured if the laptop could do it, maybe the phone could. I hereby report that (NOT IN A HOTEL WITH A DIGITAL SWITCH) USA telephones are completely compatible with the French phone system. USA phones have the distinct advantage of having the letters that go with all the numbers. French phones don't do that. I later had a conversation with an English speaking individual at France Telecom, who said that our answering machine will even work (as soon as I find a 220V - 3V power cube for it). Now, some of the stuff they forgot to tell us when we agreed to the lease on our apartment, besides the 2.3% tax the (tax is included EVERYWHERE else) and the 300F/mo "service charge," was that we are responsible for having the chimney cleaned every year, in order to have the insurance in force, which is required in order to have a lease. So, dutifully having the sweep in for the ole chim- chim-cherooo, we discovered part of the reason why they told us that only one of the four fireplaces in the apartment is operable. Number two is clogged up. Number three has a teevee cable dropped down it from the roof and another, coming out of a hole recently drilled into the side of the firebox and not joined to the first, but is otherwise clean and clear. Number four has an extension cord ("prolongateur" en Francais) coming down from the roof, but like number three is otherwise clean and clear. (No, we didn't plug the thing into the nearby outlet just to see what happens.) Because the landlord had been bragging about how much dough he'd spent having the place rewired, at the chimney sweep's suggestion ("This is WRONG!") I asked the landlord for an electrician to come by and remove the wires or explain the situation. Besides, we were told that the building has cable included in the rent. The electrician came by, along with the landlord (a gent in his eighties, best described as "Really Cute" by both Carol and Mary). While Mssr. Cuny and I were waiting for the electrician (or someone like him), we had a brief discussion wherein I used a lot more French than the last time we had spoken. Conversely (or conversationally, as the case may be) without a translator present, our landlord found out that he does speak some English after all. When the electrician finally arrived, his solution for the power cord in chimney number four was to roll it up and stuff it back up the chimney. I could imagine the chimney sweep doing the Curly Shuffle (ala 3 Stooges... woob, woob-woob- woob-woob-woob) on the floor if he had seen that. The electrician explained that the teevee cable from the roof was hooked to a box on the roof where three antennas came together. One of the antennas was NumeriCable, the cable. Confusing me... CABLE by definition does NOT come through an antenna. But this is France, so what do I know? Anyway, he opens one of the closets, points to a box on the wall and explains that the cable through the side of the firebox goes to this box. And this box feeds the cable outlets so inconveniently installed nowhere near where we need any of them. He says he's got to schedule an appointment to come back and connect the two teevee cables together. Sheesh. Before he even left, I connected them together with some bits I had bought the previous week. It is then explained to me that, yes, the building has cable, but no, it is not included in the exorbitant rent or service fee. I was told I must go to NumeriCable and arrange to pick up a box and pay for the service. Full cable service in France runs about a hundred dollars a month. We aren't planning on full service which we can't understand. So we'll only get some channels we can't understand, instead of all of them. In the interim, a salesman came around one day. To abbreviate, The Cable Guy is scheduled to show up on, appropriately, April Fool's Day. So, maybe I'll let you know how that went when it is past tense. (Note: I put off sending this missive to allow additional notes on the cable guy. However, Murphy decided to crash that little rendezvous, requiring an entire Part in the Adventure Series to tell it right.) Meanwhile, the more astute are asking, "Yeah, but you said the teevee over there is SECAM-L. What're you planning to watch it on?" We have two solutions there. We bought a multi-standard teevee and a multi-standard VCR ("magnetoscope") before we came over. This way, we can play NTSC, SECAM, and PAL videos and watch teevee, too. In addition, we bought a teevee, in France, for Mary. This purchase also enables the authorities to track the fact that we own a teevee and charge us the annual teevee tax which we are told runs around a hundred dollars (whoopee). If we had to do it over, we'd pass on getting the multi-standard VCR and teevee in the USA and just get one of each here. The prices for that type of equipment aren't much more here, but the selection is MUCH greater. Additionally, if either item purchased in the USA goes bad we are totally hosed. Besides, we don't envision us needing to play SECAM or PAL tapes very often after we go back to America, so we could just sell the equipment before we leave. There is a bunch of stuff on the desk with 110V plugs which will run quite happily on 220V. The computer and monitor have universal power supplies (110/220V 50/60Hz). And the desk lamp only required a 220V bub to convert it. So, throwing caution to the wind, I wired up yet another quad box and wrote *220V ONLY* in black magic marker on red tape on it. Maybe I have terrorized everyone in the family enough so that no one will ever plug anything into this box. (Probably not.) Anything we have that's 110V that gets plugged in there (just because the plug fits)... I guess we needed a new (220V) one anyway. Cuz that is what WILL happen. When Murphy decides to visit again, I'll lock that s.o.b. in the Dungeon if I get half a chance. (On second thought... the bicycles are down there...) Finally, for a standards conversion post script... Sam's school said he was not doing well with his multiplication tables. Figuring that this was because he had never been TAUGHT multiplication tables, we set about doing just that. A couple of weeks later, they said Sam needed help with his multiplication tables... in FRENCH. Doh!