Adding Ex-pat To Our Name, But Need Practical Help

[jkitiyakara]

This is my first ever post, and I'm sure I'll make lots of mistakes. The situation is that I am bringing my severely ill 80 YO Thai husband (and our elderly dog!) back to his childhood home. (I am 74). The Thais in New Orleans have been wonderful with their help, but I am feeling numb and scared. We will visit a relative in Bangkok for about a month, and I think we have been offered a place to stay, though it is out of the way. Then we will go to Songkhla, where we hope to rent or buy a house, or buy and renovate the house his father built 75 years ago. My main problem is packing (just like a woman!?) I finally got a large, flat screen monitor and planned to bring my husband's CPU, scanner, and printer, but the Thais are saying that it won't work, even with an adapter, and that I should buy a new computer in Thailand (but what about my 17" flat screen monitor?) We will have another problem with our VHS/DVD player. It seems frivolous, but I would like to share some of my favorites with family and friends. I'm afraid they will not work on equipment sold in Thailand. Is there some kind of TV that can be switched from 220 to 110 that I can use with my equipment? I am reluctant to rush out and buy a lot of new equipment when we don't know how much time we have. Well, that's just it for starters. If anyone has any advice for us, I would really appreciate hearing it. We plan to arrive on 18 November. Thanks.

[daveh]

The problem with your TV and VCR is not only the voltage. The main concern is the format. Thailand uses PAL and the US uses NTSC. I'm not sure if the newer TVs can handle both formats.

The problem with your DVD player and DVDs, aside from the power, is the region code. Each DVD player has a built in chip that will only allow it to play DVDs from a given region and each DVD has a region code on it to restrict which DVD players can play them. The good news is in Thailand, it is fairly easy to buy a DVD player that is regionless for under $100. This means you can play DVDs from anywhere in the world on it. Also, in Thailand you can buy bootleg copies of DVDs that are regionless, which means you can play them on any DVD player.

Regarding power in general, these days many electronic components can handle pretty much all power supplies, This is especially true for laptops as they are meant to be taken from country to country.

The only way you can know for sure if your equipment will work in Thailand is to look at the power requirements for them. Normally there is a transformer on the power cable. The transformer is that little black box. If you look at the input/output specs this will let you know if it will work. For example, on the transformer of my laptop, it states:

INPUT: 100-240V~ 2.3A(2,3A) 50-60Hz

OUTPUT: 19V 3.95A(3,95A) LPS

The input voltage with the little squiggle says that it can handle AC voltage from 100 to 240. Both the US and Thailand are within this range. It must also have an input frequency between 50 and 60 Hz. Thailand is 50 and the US is 60. So by looking at this I know it will work just fine in Thailand AND the US.

If your component does not have a black box, then it means it is internal (for example, DVD players have them inside, not along the power cable). This information will be near where the power line goes into the component.

If you have an external transformer on something, like a scanner, but it will not work in Thailand as is, all is not lost. You can replace the transformer in Thailand with one that takes Thai power input, but produces the same output as your transformer.

So if I happen to find a transformer in Thailand that said:

INPUT: 220V~ 2.3A 50Hz

OUTPUT: 19V 3.95A LPS

It should work with my component just fine. You can find tons of transformers in Ban Mo near Chinatown.