EU / US Power Cables

    Ok, so I recently bought a power supply for my PC, and I put it all in and look at the power cable only to be struck with a WTF moment when I see that its what I later found out to be a European cable... So this is pretty much useless to me, and it has left me wondering, why do the US and Europe have different power cables? Why cant they just standardize it? because I could see this kind of thing pissing off a traveler that doesn't know about it, and goes to plug in a laptop or something and just cant without forking out the dough for a new cable / adapter.

    If someone wouldn't mind enlightening me that would rock, because until this point I didn't even know there was a different cable, I never had to check.

    Well, it's actually good that they are different since we don't use the same voltage. If i would take a product made for the US market and plug it into a power socket over here it would most definitely fry unless it supports both. Most power supplies have a switch that enables you to switch between the two.

    What are the benefits of having the higher voltage plugs? I'd imagine that there must be something , but I can also imagine its probably nothing too big since neither side has started to move towards the others solution...

    and Yes I knew about the switch on the back (although until recently I didn't know what that was for) but my new PSU supports either without the switch, so no biggie.

    wasnt there this direct current voltage in the US and ac voltage in Europe? :S or was it the frequency of ac voltage? i should have been listening closer in those physics lessons back in school...

    anyway: it can't be unified, since the systems are different. on the other hand there exist traveler converters, that don't take up much room.

    Quote from madgernader

    What are the benefits of having the higher voltage plugs? I'd imagine that there must be something , but I can also imagine its probably nothing too big since neither side has started to move towards the others solution...

    Higher voltage means lower power loss during cables.

    The US use a 60 Hz Powersystem while the EU (starting with germany) uses 50 Hz. The Hz states how many times the polarity changes within the power device/cable per second. It's not so much about voltage or ampere as those in general don't do any harm as long as they stay within a range of +-15% of the supposed value but the frequency is what can harm the device.

    There is not just a difference between EU and US but between almost any country.

    I once had a power supply with a whole bunch of excotic looking conector cables :)

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