plugging electrical products in Barbados

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Barbnados runs off 115V, if I bring a travel adaptor along with my mobile phone (Nokia), phone charger and hair straighners will they work? Will the phone charge??

[Buenchico]

A phone charger basically consists of a transformer (to drop the voltage) and a rectification circuit (to switch from AC to DC).

If you only put half the usual voltage into a transformer, you'll only get half the usual output voltage (which will probably be insufficient to charge the phone). Even if the voltage is high enough, it's possible that components within the rectification circuit might not function at the lower voltage. So it's unlikely that your charger would work. (A standard Nokia charger is labelled with an input of 230V, plus or minus 10% so it seems extremely unlikely that a UK charger would work in Barbados).

Take your phone anyway (assuming that you've already checked that it will work in Barbados). I'm sure you'll be able to find someone out there with a Nokia phone who'll let you plug your phone into their charger. (There'll be no problem with plugging a Barbados charger into a UK phone. It will still have the same plug and it will still deliver 3.7V)

Hair straighteners might work but it depends upon what electronic circuitry (if any) is built into them, alongside the heating elements. The chances are, though, that half the voltage would simply result in roughly half the heat output. (i.e. the straighteners probably won't work).

Chris

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thanks Chris. A full bodied, well-structured and informative answer as always.

Cheers!

[Trotbot]

My phone would charge, but battery life was significantly lower than normal

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was this in barbados trotbot?