Inspector
Nyuck, Nyuck, Nyuck!
Oh! Drag me into this eh. I'm not an electrician nor do I portray one on TV so don't take what I say as gospel.
We have 220V (208 to 240 with tolerances on that, dependant on location in the country) to all houses. They are two 110V wires, a neutral and a ground. To get 110 they take one of the 110V wires, the neutral and ground, they balance half the circuits to use one of the two legs of the line coming in to the panel. Temporary power to sites under construction are the same, usually just with 110V sockets to plug into. If needed they could set up 220V for bigger machines if needed but not normally for site construction tools. Hence the reason all job site table saws are 110V. 220V is from both 110V legs. Don't ask me the details.
As for Festool or other European 110V tools working here. They should work fine with the 60hertz/cycle power increasing the speed from the 50hertz accordingly. Roughly 20%. Where there could be a problem is if there are electronics inside the tool that might take offence to the change of frequency and let out the magic blue smoke. I doubt it would but that is above my pay grade and I do not know for certain. So for a simple tool cutting the plug off and replacing it shouldn't make any difference as long as the appropriate plug is used. 220V tools can be used directly. Buddy had some 220V angle grinders and drills he had from overseas work that he used here, pre-electronic stuff though.
You could also make a short pigtail with our plug on one end and your plug on the other to plug into a festoon vac (110V type) so the tools plug into it as usual. Use the pigtail when plugging the tool in directly to the wall without the vac. You'll need to bring over a bunch of female ends/ plugs as they will be hard to find here. Not sure how the battery chargers would handle the change either. If the batteries are the same then you could alway get a charger only.
There I'm confused now. Happy?
Pete
We have 220V (208 to 240 with tolerances on that, dependant on location in the country) to all houses. They are two 110V wires, a neutral and a ground. To get 110 they take one of the 110V wires, the neutral and ground, they balance half the circuits to use one of the two legs of the line coming in to the panel. Temporary power to sites under construction are the same, usually just with 110V sockets to plug into. If needed they could set up 220V for bigger machines if needed but not normally for site construction tools. Hence the reason all job site table saws are 110V. 220V is from both 110V legs. Don't ask me the details.
As for Festool or other European 110V tools working here. They should work fine with the 60hertz/cycle power increasing the speed from the 50hertz accordingly. Roughly 20%. Where there could be a problem is if there are electronics inside the tool that might take offence to the change of frequency and let out the magic blue smoke. I doubt it would but that is above my pay grade and I do not know for certain. So for a simple tool cutting the plug off and replacing it shouldn't make any difference as long as the appropriate plug is used. 220V tools can be used directly. Buddy had some 220V angle grinders and drills he had from overseas work that he used here, pre-electronic stuff though.
You could also make a short pigtail with our plug on one end and your plug on the other to plug into a festoon vac (110V type) so the tools plug into it as usual. Use the pigtail when plugging the tool in directly to the wall without the vac. You'll need to bring over a bunch of female ends/ plugs as they will be hard to find here. Not sure how the battery chargers would handle the change either. If the batteries are the same then you could alway get a charger only.
There I'm confused now. Happy?
Pete
. Sorry I feel I've learned on you a lot for info through all of this move.
