Transformers

Unfortunately not the fun kind, but the kind that transform voltage. Its been a fairly quiet week, the only thing that’s close to news to report is that we bought a some plug adapters and transformers for the electrical devices (a few power tools, some kitchen appliances) that we’ll be bringing with us.  In addition to using a different style of plugs, NZ operates on 220 volt electricity, opposed to our 120 volt.  Nowadays a lot of electronics, such as cell phone chargers can operate on both 120v or 220v, but there are still a lot that don’t such as our blender, so in order to use them there we’ll need to convert the voltage from 220v to 120v.

There are a couple of electronic things that we won’t be bringing though,  and will need to buy new there, most notable our tv and vacuum cleaner.   The vacuum because they are a pain to import (they have to be cleaned really well due to their biosecurity requirements) and ours is a cheap one that we don’t really care about.  And the tv because the tv signal there is a different standard than the one in the US, so ours won’t work there.  I think it would be possible to get a signal converter if we really wanted to, and it’s possible we might not even need one if we were to get cable, but at this point it seems like it would be nice to have one thing that doesn’t require extensive research, and just get a new tv once we get to NZ.