NeXe Lights
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| So I have the problem of not being able to run European fixtures due to them being 240v. I know I could use a cheap 120 to 240 volt transformer, or even have a electrician install a 240v circuit somewhere in my house. But then I still have the problem of getting it to be 50 hz instead of 60 hz. Are there any solutions to this problem?
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WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA
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HID, LPS, and preheat fluorescents forever!!!!!!
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| Although an inverter is ideal for 220-240V 50Hz fixtures, most choke ballasts should do fine on 240V 60Hz albeit somewhat underdriven much like running a 120V 60Hz choke ballast or HX ballast on 110V 60Hz, but 220V 50Hz choke ballasts should run perfectly fine on 240V 60Hz. Some collectors have also used the 240V taps of multi tap magnetic HID ballasts to run European lighting equipment. If your fixture has a series capacitor, you would need to adjust the microfarad value by trial and error with different capacitors. Additionally, most electronic ballasts do not seem to care about frequency at all. In fact, many are rated for both 50Hz and 60Hz. On a good note, some Japanese magnetic preheat fluorescent and HID HX ballasts work pretty well on North American 120V 60Hz supplies if they are rated for either 100V 50Hz operation, 110V 60Hz operation, or 110V 50Hz operation. Lastly, incandescent lamps and halogen lamps do not care about frequency whatsoever as well
I have learned much of this information through experience, spec sheets, catalogs, and from other collectors.
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« Last Edit: March 29, 2025, 12:25:40 PM by WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA »
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Desire to collect various light bulbs (especially HID), control gear, and fixtures from around the world.
DISCLAIMER: THE EXPERIMENTS THAT I CONDUCT INVOLVING UNUSUAL LAMP/BALLAST COMBINATIONS SHOULD NOT BE ATTEMPTED UNLESS YOU HAVE THE PROPER KNOWLEDGE. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY INJURIES.
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Laurens
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| At 60hz, impedance of the typical choke based ballast will be higher, so current will be lower. If you're less than 10% below rated current i would just run it.
In some cases (Philips HPMV ballasts) you can switch between 220v and 240v settings. You can measure current with a suitable meter and see if running the 220v tap on 240v 60hz results in the best match.
A more cumbersome solution is to get a big 12 or 24v power supply and buy a true sinewave power inverter from Europe (Avoid aliexpress stuff when it comes to power inverters).
Perhaps an online UPS will also do the job, but i think it might get confused from expecting 50hz on its input.
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NeXe Lights
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| I did see on reddit that one solution is taking a 120v input 12v power supply, and a powerful one at that, and get a European inverter to get 240v at 50hz. It should work in theory, but it would be expensive and a bit dangerous.
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Laurens
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| Nothing dangerous about it, as long as you don't buy it from Aliexpress, Amazon and such.
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WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA
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| Techmoan has done a video where a North American pure sine wave inverter was used to get a 120V 60Hz supply in the UK.
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Desire to collect various light bulbs (especially HID), control gear, and fixtures from around the world.
DISCLAIMER: THE EXPERIMENTS THAT I CONDUCT INVOLVING UNUSUAL LAMP/BALLAST COMBINATIONS SHOULD NOT BE ATTEMPTED UNLESS YOU HAVE THE PROPER KNOWLEDGE. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY INJURIES.
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NeXe Lights
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| So someone has done it! Just 240v 50hz to 120v 60hz. Whereas I will be doing 120v 60hz to 240v 50hz.
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wide-lite 1000
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WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA
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HID, LPS, and preheat fluorescents forever!!!!!!
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| Many of these direct frequency converters cost thousands of dollars.
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Desire to collect various light bulbs (especially HID), control gear, and fixtures from around the world.
DISCLAIMER: THE EXPERIMENTS THAT I CONDUCT INVOLVING UNUSUAL LAMP/BALLAST COMBINATIONS SHOULD NOT BE ATTEMPTED UNLESS YOU HAVE THE PROPER KNOWLEDGE. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY INJURIES.
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NeXe Lights
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| Yeah, no. There is no way I'm spending over $1000 on one of these. I'd rather use the old computer power supply I have on hand and a 12v DC to 240v 50hz AC inverter. The computer supply may not be high powered, but since most European fixtures are low powered (compared to US fixtures) that should be fine.
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RRK
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| You can look for a retired double conversion UPS from IT world. Batteries do not need to be in the best shape. Many such units have an option to set output frequency not equal to the input line, and can be get for cheap as a scrap. You need to be sure that the unit is pure sinewave one (most of that class are) and of course has enough power, roughly at least double of the largest lamp you want to run. Look for quality brands like Liebert, for example.
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NeXe Lights
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| I could not find any such machines for a reasonable price. And I couldn't find anything on the IT World brand at all.
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RRK
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| "IT world" I mean globally the world of information technologies. Servers, computer rooms, telecom, data centers and so;)
Look harder, there should be heaps of older generations of UPS generally available just for scrap metal weight. Some probably can start for frequency conversion even when heavy batteries disconnected at all.
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RRK
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I see 700VA Lieberts GXT in local classifieds for $60 for example, even promised to work. Batteries may be near shot, of course. Though, 230V and quite far away from you  The only problem these beasts are HEAVY! |
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NeXe Lights
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| I was looking on ebay for them, probably wasn't the best choice as the cheapest one was for $240. But looking at Facebook Marketplace brought up some good options. But honestly I'd rather have a continuous source of power from the wall, so 120v 60hz and getting 12v DC using a PC power supply and then a European inverter to get 240v (or similar voltage) 50hz.
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« Last Edit: March 30, 2025, 09:23:18 AM by NeXe Lights »
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