I live in US and I will move to my home country where 240V is supplied in the power sockets.I'm planning to ship my computer, LCD TV, speakers, game console, etc. and buy a power transformer. However, I'm afraid the power loss in the transformer will raise my electric bill so in the long run, it's not worth it to ship my electrical appliances.So how much is the typical power loss in a 120/240V step up transformer? The range of efficiency would help.
It is only about 5 to 10 per cent power loss and the range of efficiency is 90 to 95 per cent.
In any transformer when you magnetize it your using electricity. Even if you have no load on the secondary.its just not very much.going from 240 Euro to 120 USA may not be a problem . But beware the 50HZ power supply .The actual loss for most small transformers in per cent is 12%that's 12% on the secondary. say your using 100 watts and have a lose of 12% at 120 volts the secondary amperage for this example would be [100w /120v] x 1.12.93amp the extra .12 amp is created to overcome the loss. Most computers have a switch for selection of hz and volts and a lot of tv's etc do to,,take a look before you throw em outHave a good one from the E
A lot of smaller appliances will operate on a range of voltages, 120 or 240 volts. check the documentation for something like 100-250 VAC 50/60Hz. If you see that, all you need is a plug converter, or, if the move is permanent, just cut off the plug and put on the correct one. So check each one first, and for those that need a transformer, add up the wattages to get a total, so you can get the correct size transformer. PS, for high wattage items, like a hair dryer, just toss and buy a new one, it's not worth the high cost of such a large transformer. It's actually cheaper to get a new unit. For the TV, most all US TVs won't operate in most other countries because of different broadcast standards (NTSC vs PAL vs SECAM, 50Hz vs 60Hz, and different frequency bands). I'd check that carefully beforehand, but offhand, I'd say forget the TV. When you get done all of this, you may not need a transformer, or only a small one. Losses in the transformer are less for a small unit, and are less when the load is low. I'd say 5% or less. If you wind up with a 200 watt transformer (which is big, but not the 3000 watt size you would need for a hair dryer), losses will be small, perhaps 10 watts, perhaps less. .
