unsafe voltage!

[Tortuga]

A warning to all and a request for advice.

I value my electronics and I'm very careful with them. After reading posts on this forum, I bought 4 "estabilizador de tensións" (voltage regulators) and 1 UPS, all of the TRV brand.

This morning I was surprised to see that the battery charger I brought from the US got very hot and melted. It is destroyed. Its power supply is rated for 100-240V and I had it plugged into one of the voltage regulators.

Curious about whether the voltage regulator was working properly, I had a friend test its output voltage: 270 volts! I check the spec sheet and I see it's rated to handle a maximum of 248, so it's not surprising that it was unable to regulate the voltage properly.

I then checked the voltage at the wall outlet: 278! As background, the voltage in Argentina should be 220.

I'm shocked at this and my landlord is shocked as well. He's concerned for his appliances in the house and is going to complain to the electric company.

In the meantime, what should I do? Checking TRV's website, they don't appear to have any products designed to tolerate 278V.

My computer battery will run out in 2 hours and 20 minutes.

 

[kurtdillard]

wow, that's absurd serivce from the utility company. I brought some really nice Nippon voltage regulators and step-up/step-down transformers with me, like http://nipponamerica.com/power-management/voltage-stabilizers-and-regulators?product_id=6092, and they are all only rated to 240 volts input. I would unplug stuff and prepare to move, if it wasn't fixed within a few days I would actually move even if it meant breaking the lease and the landlord wasn't understanding.

 

[OutLaw]

Stop to generalizing!.. there are many Energy companys in whole Argentina even just in BA. Argentina got 220 volt alwise. The fact that a company isnt giving the service well regulated, it doesnt means that since today every expat have to be carefull about energy voltage! Just make your complaint to the company

 

[mulderfox]

the building must be to0 close to the street transformer. they rise the voltage because of the high demand some other house along the street gets 240 others 220

 

[ndcj]

Have you checked other outlets in the house to see if they all show 278V and also checked your measuring equipment to make sure it's reading correctly?

Ask your neighbors, because if the 270V is really coming from the grid, and not from some botched up three phase to single phase connection gone horribly wrong, they'll all be having problems. 270V is way out of spec (220+/-10% is the standard in Argentina, meaning that it should not exceed 242V).

Also the voltage stabilizers should be fused, and the fuse should have popped before 278V no matter what they are rated to regulate. Same for the UPS.

If it is coming from the grid, you can make a claim to the electricity company for compensation for the items that were damaged. You have to go into their office and make a reclamo.