220 Volt Ciruits

.....whoa!!! Won't 220 volts, straight out of the main breaker box damage stereo equipment designed to run on 110-120 volts???? Craig.

you can set ps audio's pp600 to accept 220 and deliver 110. the only challenge, as i see it, is the $1900 admission fee.

You can take the 220vac feed thru an center tapped isolation transformer giving you two 110vac feeds. Check with a qualified electrician before you attempt anything!

I think some of you may be confused. 220 from a appliance outlet (clothes dryer plug), is actually two 110 volt runs, as is the feed to your main breaker box. If you split the 220 into two runs (this is NOT a transformer, but a wiring thing), you risk no damage to your equipment. There are a few pieces of US stereo gear that are designed to run on 110 and 220, this usually requires circuitry changes by the manufacturer. In any event, if the piece you wish to power from the appliance plug is NOT 220, the conversion box I mentioned, (the first posting on this thread), will provide at least two dedicated 110V plugs. Since the breaker for "dryers" is usually large, a duplex of 110V outlets per side of the 110V run would not be a strain on this electrical drop. If you cannot find the data sheet I mentioned (printed by General Electric), then call or hire an electrician to build the box that converts this safely. Really, it is not a big deal to wire it, I have done this myself, but It has been so long, I am afraid I might give incorrect wiring advise on the procedures to safely do this.

Thanks Albert, it seems that I was one of the "confused" ones. When I recently had a dedicated AC system installed, the electricians started at a 220 volt 50 amp breaker at the main breaker box and ran a 220 volt mainline to a secondary breaker box where the 220 volt was stepped down to 110 volt. Then 4 110 volt 20 amp lines were run from there to 4 duplex outlets. In short, it's my understanding that the 220 volt AC had to be stepped down to 110 volt before it could be used by stereo "stuff". But before the electricians came, I hooked up a cheap duplex outlet to the 220volt/50amp breaker using 50 feet of mainline cable (to test Redkiwi's directionality observations) and plugged in a 100 watt light bulb (just as a test). Well, the light bulb glowed about 100 times normal then went POOF-- I was lucky I didn't burn the house down or electrocute myself-- or both. AFTER the electricians installed the secondary breaker box, I did test the directionality of wire thing-- and yes it is "directional", but that's another story:). Thanks, Craig.