Checking An Electric Appliance

[praglen]

I am about to purchase an inheater.stant electric hot water heater for a house I own in the States. The local electrical permit

and code authority in the area I live in tells me there is no problem in installating this heater.

But even with a receipt, will the airport screeners block my leaving the country with the heater?

[Cuban]

The mains domestic electrical supply in Thailand is 220 Volts at 50 Hertz AC in the USA it is 110 Volts at 60 Hertz AC, if you are talking about bringing an appliance from one of these countries to use in the other I would strongly recommend that you do not do so.

There are ways of making it work - however as you do not seem to be aware of the basic differances in voltage I would suggest that you will save more money and create less danger by purchasing such equipement locally and getting a locally quailified engineer to fix it for you.

As for airport customs and security screening - as long as it is packaged correctly I doubt it would raise any interest at the airport. Although taking water heaters into Cuba is a problem - expect them to be removed at the airport on arrival.

HTH.

Edited September 18, 2008 by Cuban

[Crossy]

I agree with Cuban ^^^

There SHOULD be no issues with using your 220V (Thai) heater on the US 220/240V high-power supply and the frequency difference SHOULDN'T matter with a resistive (heating) device.

But you never know particularly if it has some fancy electronic controls. If it has a built-in RCD (GFI, ELCB) then that may not be happy on 60Hz

Personally, unless this type of heater is unavailable in the US I wouldn't bother.

That said, you should have no issues whatever with customs in Thailand, but check the US customs rules on importing unapproved equipment (Cuban, you serious about import of heaters into Cuba?).

Edited September 18, 2008 by Crossy

[AlKing]

I don't see any problem at all in check or uncleck bags. Like previous post, careful about the voltage requirements (110V & 220V etc).

[Cuban]

.....and the frequency difference SHOULDN'T matter with a resistive (heating) device.

(Cuban, you serious about import of heaters into Cuba?).

The issue is putting extra load of the national power supply, anything with a heating element has been a problem in the past.

Changes are afoot with the recent news that the general public can now own cell-phones and DVD players !

Read this news article for more info.

As for the supply frequency affecting appliances, I would only consider a real problem to exist with direct mains powered clock running fast/slow, most stuff these days will not use the 50/60 Hz to clock the electronics inside but have separate IC for this. I remember seeing an old valve based crystal oscillator (battery/mains powered RF Gen.) that used a 50 Hz signal derived from the crystal to create the AC for the 250 Volt supply, cute.

------------------edit to earlier post--------------------------

There are ways of making it work - however as you do not seem to be aware of the basic differances in voltage I would suggest that you will save more money and create less danger by purchasing such equipement locally and getting a locally quailified engineer to fix fit or install it for you.

Edited September 18, 2008 by Cuban

[h90]

Many devices are multi voltage or it can be set somewhere. I don't know what an "inheater.stant electric hot water heater" is, but often devices as heater can not changed.

wrong voltage (even to low voltage) can destroy the device.

So I would check carefully if it works in USA or not.

[longball53098]

Unless the OP can provide a name and model number for the heater its all a crap shoot on the "if" and "maybe" advice whether the heater will function correctly.

The question is about checking the heater in at the airport for the return.

Taking it out of the country is most likely not an issue. Declaring it on a customs dec in the USA may be an issue. Worst case is they confiscate it for some reason. Other than that? Maybe you will have to pay some duty to bring it in.

I personally think its a waste of baggage space and time carrying something you can get in the USA and then you have a guarantee it will work properly.