any way to convert my american solostar juicer to work in the european power grid?

[kaybee]

hi--

Im hoping maybe someone has had some experience with this and can give me some advice. I have a solostar II juicer, which I love and have become pretty dependent on. I am going to Ireland for the summer , and then Rome for school from Oct-Feb, and really want to take the solostar with me. However, I thought I could just pick up a converter for it, and turns out, after talking to a friend, that those "converters" are only made for low-energy-using-appliances like shavers and hairdryers. This friend said that theres no cheap, easy way to make my juicer usable in the European system. He said it would probably end up costing me about $300 dollars to get the sort of converter that it would require. argh. I dont want to spend the money on another Solostar that is European-compatible, because frankly, I just dont have the extra cash kicking around :). and likewise i dont wanna spend $300 bucks on an adaptor. I suppose theres a possibility of finding some used juicer over there, but I really dont want to depend on that; I sort of need to have something right away to use if possible, and also wont have a way (besides my bike, haha) to go trekking all over the country tracking down a juicer...... I also suspect that there are not as many second-hand juicers hanging around that people want to get rid of in Ireland as there are here in the US, and that this might be somethign difficult to get. [Sport is going to "adopt" me for the summer and help me get all the stuff I need to stay raw, but I really want to take this juicer with me.....plus, i already have a good juicer, it seems a waste not to take it....] Also, Ive looked into the manual juicers, but they just dont seem that reasonable, and when I called tribest about their manual solostar-type juicer, i was told it probably wouldnt do carrots and stuff well; that the pulp didnt come out really dry.....that it was mostly just for wheatgrass

Anyone had any expereince with this, OR ANYONE HAVE THE SORT OF ADAPTOR I NEED THAT THEY MIGHT WANT TO PART WITH FOR A REASONABLE FEE??? ;)

any help much appreciated.

thanks
-kaybee

[Spectatrix]

First, as a caveat, I've never traveled in Europe, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.

Second, hairdryers are quite high-powered appliances.

Third... it looks like what you need is a power converter (basically a mini-transformer) rather than just a plug adaptor. I found this one for $34, Amazon seems to have a bunch, most of which are less than $20: See here. It looks like many of them have hi/low wattage settings, 50-1600W for high, <50W for low. Your appliances should have the wattage on the device itself or in the documentation, so familiarize yourself with the requirements for whatever you're taking.

[Arky]

My advice would be to buy a secondhand 'site transformer'. These are available on eBay and although they are still not cheap, particularly when you take shipping into account, they are the best value means of using US equipment. You've probably seen these before and not realised what they do - they're big yellow boxes that builders and joiners use when they're using power tools on a building site. They drop the UK 230v voltage down to 110v.

The reason I suggest you obtain one of these, instead of buying a transformer of a lower rating from a shop is that you can be sure that a good site transformer will cover the needs of any appliance you wish to power from it, whereas a cheap new transformer from a retail source will probably quickly turn out to be a waste of money because it is unable to handle high-ampage equipment.

However, you should also note that the voltage in Italy is not the same as in the UK, for example, so LOOK before you buy!

You may find that a transformer is still not a viable option because it is either economically unviable or because it is quite simply too big and bulky to carry in a suitcase.


J.