With no load 110V converters' output is usually around 124V btw...
Depends... I have here an old 220V -> 110V converter and without load it gives 117,9V from 232,2V input. Weaker converters may give higher levels that they can still put out at least the 110V when the load applies. This is however very bad if your equipment is not wattage hungry enough to drop the voltage level. At the moment I had no good artificial load at hand (at least 100W) to test with load... 20W load gave no more than 0,1V drop...
Yes, I know that measuring without an load is not a good practice for testing, but for having comparable results there should be similar inexpensive artificial load available for everybody who measures their converter. So, measuring without load gives at least some starting point for evaluating the converter...
I have not measured it (don’t have the equipment even). But I doubt, it being made in Japan, it not delivering what is specified.
Inexpensive multimeter would be good to have, it's handy device for basic debugging and measurements. It would be good to measure what the converter actually does than relying product being good just by judging where it was claimed to be made.
Sorry for mudding your sales post, but I have seen too many bad examples of converters during years.
Well if measured we should measure with an MSX as load I guess, even different MSX could get different result probably but the results should be comparable I guess.
So to confirm (I have never done this kind of thing) could I test as follows:
1. Connect a outlet splitter to the transformer (this gives me 3 Japanese outlets).
2. Connect an MSX to 1 outlet.
3. Connect multimeter to second outlet.
4. Measure AC voltage with MSX off (no load) and on (load).
Any multimeter will do or do bad ones exist there as well? I found this for example. Would that be okay? Or will this be better.
I was tinkering with this idea about artificial load, but so far no really good idea what thing is practically available globally for everyone with minimal costs. And what makes it worse, the artificial load equipment should create an load which puts the tested converter under some load, say around 80-90% of the maximum power it's promised to give out. Then the real characteristics start to show up - like how hot it really gets (does it eventually melt it's covers, like I have seen some doing), does the voltage level keep constant and what are the measured values over the longer period of time and does it start generating some unwanted like line noise.
With a computer as an load the problem is that the taken power is not constant, even when the computer type plate (or power supply) has some value, it's the maximum amount of Watts used. When running idle, the actual consumption may be a fraction of given maximum. And of course applied equipment will affect. Using at least *some* load is of course better than nothing, but may give false results too.
Then I thought about old fashioned light bulb, which consumption should be pretty much all the time what is promised in the package. In this idea there is a flaw though. 240V bulb in 100-120V line does not work as wished, you would need a light bulb which is manufactured for the 100-120V line. And getting one here in Europe isn't that simple.
Nowadays laptop with 90W charger (they are almost always multivoltage 100-240V appliances) might be quite good load actually. You could use the battery of the laptop to near end and then connect it to the converter. The consumption when charging the laptop battery and using the laptop same time should put the converter in quite good load for a while. But in this case you would need a Japanese style charging cable...
So, no, finding similar artificial load for comparable results isn't that easy... After all, it would be easier to someone just buy all kind of converters and test them out with same gear.
