wall warts in China?

Hi, Walter:-

Tell me the city and I'll try to give you some useful advice. It's not Taiwan if its 220VAC.

Not shipping the (useless) wall wart could significantly reduce the shipping charges as well.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Thanks, Spehro. Let me find out from my distributor and I'll get back to you.

-walter

If anybody in the States has an answer to your question, Jameco

will be able to answer you.

Jim

Old external modems used to use a 9VAC 830mA to 1A transformer wall wart. The 9VAC was closer to 12VAC when unloaded, and would probably work, if you could dig up an old external modem from somewhere in China, where the primary was the right V. The Practical peripherals ones come to mind.

I did just this, buy locally, for a US 110volt device imported to Australia some years ago.

The best thing is for the customer to take the requirements to a supplier in China, afterall most wallwarts I see in Australia these days are made in China.

Letting him purchase locally has several advantages, shipping weight of course, correct wall plug and importantly (maybe not in China) the device he buys locally will conform to code requirements in that country. Even if your 110volt wall wart could be supplied from a transformer it may not conform and if anything ever went wrong Well!!

--
John G

Wot's Your Real Problem?

hi, Walter.

I am in Shanghai,China.But I am confused about your question.

What help do you want really?

I want to know where I could refer a customer (a musician, not an engineer) in order to purchase a wall-wart AC transformer with a 220V primary and a

12VAC 500mA secondary with 2.1mm x 5.5mm coaxial plug.

If the customer were in the USA, for instance, I would tell them that they could order the equivalent (with 120V primary) from

or they might find it at Radio Shack, which is a retail chain with many local stores. In Europe I would refer them to Farnell, I guess.

But I don't know what retail or mail-order stores there are in China.

I have not yet found out where in China this customer lives - the question is coming to me through my distributor.

Thanks!

Hi,Walter.

On my opinion,there are a lot of factories in China who sale such transformer,at least in Shanghai city.

But the price depends on the amount.

You had better find where the customer lives.Of course if you let a musician buy transformers,that seems difficult.

best regards.

Call YOUR distributor, get the facts. He is on the spot and should know how to proceed.

We have given you a few clues about what to ask.

If you pay I will talk to him.

Send air ticket and I will go and help him!!

--
John G

Wot's Your Real Problem?

I think you guys have a slight misconception of the picture...

I make a little consumer electronic item (a headphone amplifier, used by electric bass players) - street price $169. My distributor (in the USA) has a potential customer in China who wants to buy *one* of these. The customer needs to buy an AC adapter that will work for his local mains voltage. Again: quantity *one*. I was just wondering whether there are retail electronic component stores in China, the equivalent of Radio Shack or Fry's in the USA; or mail order, the equivalent of Jameco, Mouser, etc; or some other sales channel I don't know about.

There will not be anybody flying to China on the basis of this sale, I think :-)

In any event, I still haven't been able to find out where in China the customer lives, so the question is probably moot.

It was a good try but really I was only joking.

There are certainly such places in Honkong where I lived for a while some years ago but in China I don't know.

--
John G

Wot's Your Real Problem?

Walter:

Can you not get a multi-input voltage unit with leads in and out?

I know we can get this sort of thing commercially in the UK, sold by Friemann & Wolf, but made in Germany. They are universal input switching PSU's, their distributors in the USA might be able to assist.

or in the US:

FRIWO USA, Inc.

1340 Newport Road, Suite 130 Colorado Springs, CO 80916 Tel: +1 719 597-1620 Fax: +1 719 597-1628 snipped-for-privacy@friwousa.com

Peter Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

Go to

This is a web site for magazines listing asian manufacturers for all these sort of things. The customer can look for a manufacturer in his/her city, phone them and either buy direct from them, or get a local agent for their goods. It is unbelievable how many manufacturers of these products are in asia.

Regards Anton Erasmus

The customer lives in Suzhou, Jiangsu. 60miles west of Shanghai.

What he'll need is a wall wart adapter with 220V primary, 12VAC 500mA secondary, and 2.1mm x 5.5mm coaxial plug. Quantity one.

Thanks for any advice you can send my way!

-walter

Hi, Walter:-

If he can get to Shanghai, he could go to an electronics 'market' (at Xujiahui, I think) and most likely get such an adapter over the counter in quantity 1, probably for less than 20 yuan.

I don't know about the availability in Suzhou, but it's a fair sized city (5-6 million) with some electronics manufacturing industry, so it might have a similar place downtown, but Shanghai is only 45 minutes away by inexpensive train.

Things like adapters are sold at such markets (similar to the tiny shops in the Akihabara section of Tokyo) by many different merchants, analogous to an Asian 'wet market' for produce, fish and meats.

He'll need the specifications (english is fine for those) and something like a picture of a typical adapter (preferably without the prongs showing so as to not confuse, and the coax plug showing) maybe out of the Mouser or Digikey catalogs). I assume your design isn't terribly fussy on the voltage so that regulation should not be an issue.

A bit of trouble for a $169 sale, maybe, but you should only have to prepare a specification sheet once.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Thanks a bunch! Visiting an "electronics market" sounds like it would be an interesting experience.

It won't be hard for me to put together a spec sheet like what you describe. And it would be useful to European customers as well.

-walter

Mouser, Jameco, Digikey ... all routinely ship overseas. I think you are making a mountain out of a warthill.

Jim

are

Warthill!? Wazza warthill??

Is that like Hogwarts? Just a figurative expression..

I know they ship overseas, but at least their US and online catalogs don't list any 220V-primary adapters. Not that I found, anyhow.

Plus, I think these places will only ship overseas via private carriers like UPS or FedEx. That can put the shipping cost for even small packages into the > US$50 range, in my limited experience with sending things to Asia. I can't tell a customer to buy a US$169 product and pay another US$60 for the wall wart, especially when the wall wart came from China in the first place and cost US$3 there!