The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20220527113530/https://anton.belodedenko.me/canada-power-restored/

home

Motorhome

Netflix

FortiGate

Home Improvement

Belodedexit

2 September 2017 / Our Van Conversion

Welcome to Canada, mains power restored...

My wife and I have been travelling in our converted van across continental Europe in 2016/17.

Towards the middle of our trip, we decided to fast
track our plans to move to Canada for family reasons.

We came back to London, put the van on the boat using a German motorhome shipping company called Seabridge and picked it up a few weeks later in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The thing about North America (and Japan), is that they use 110-120VAC, while our van was built with a battery charger/inverter locked to 220-240VAC.

I suspected this was the case, but wasn't sure, so I decided to take a gamble and not bring a step-up transformer with us.

We drove from Nova Scotia, via PEI then New Brunswick, crossed the US border into Maine and then back out through Quebec and finally to Toronto, Ontario. While camped at Algonquin National Park, I plugged us into camp site mains supply for the first time to discover that our inverter wouldn't actually work at 110-120VAC.

So, I bought a Defender 3.3KVA site transformer from eBay in the UK for £40 and shipped it to Toronto for £60 using parcel2go.

After fitting it with an appropriate plug, we now have 240VAC 60Hz from 110-120VAC 60Hz supply.

The transformer travels in the foot well by the sliding door.

So, thanks to UK building site safety regulations, requiring lower voltage supply, we have a weatherproof transformer to use while camping in North America.

For anyone in a similar position, these types of transformers don't appear exist outside of the UK market.

That is all.

Anton Belodedenko

I am a jack of all trades, master of none (DevOps). My wife and I ski, snowboard and rock climb. Oh, and I like Futurama, duh!

Read More

Disqus seems to be taking longer than usual. Reload?

— on many things randomly and in no particular order —
Our Van Conversion

Mobile Satellite Internet for under £200? Yes you can...

Electronics and the Other Odd Jobs

On the Roof...

See all 10 posts →

Netflix Un-blocker
DIY residential proxy network

Build a private residential proxy network using Windows, Linux and macOS desktop PCs by following http://app.belodetek.io#instructions

Anton Belodedenko

Netflix Un-blocker
black.box

TL;DR to unblock Netflix find a Pi and follow this You must have heard about VPNs by now. Thanks to some very arbitrary content licensing laws, availability of content on the Internet,

Anton Belodedenko

on many things randomly and in no particular order
—

Share this

All content copyright Anton and Anna Belodedenko © 2022

Latest Posts Ghost