It's the best gift I've ever gotten I've always had Windows computers, and while they are slightly easier to work from the get-go - compared to a Mac, in my opinion - they do tend to run out of gas fairly quickly.įunny thing is, a year ago I was the ultimate Apple hater, and today I own an iPhone, an iPad Mini and now my beloved MacBook Air.
And, if you want to power a European vintage or flip clock in the USA, there’s the Chronos 230, which can supply 230V AC at a precise 50Hz, which is what a European clock is going to need.A couple of weeks back I got my very first MacBook - a spankin' new MacBook Air, to be precise. If you’re going to invest in a vintage flip clock, you need to protect your investment with the proper electrical conversion system. And, Chronos comes with everything you need including your country-specific plug adapter, saving you a great deal of running around. If Chronos seems costly, consider the cost of locating and buying another flip clock to replace the one damaged by other converters. Chronos uses a precision Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator (TCXO) to assure the clock keeps absolutely perfect time, and a pure sine waveform to assure that it is quiet on your nightstand. Chronos is triple-protected against faults and is supplied with a fully certified wall adapter, making it safe in the home. That’s where KCC Scientific ( comes to the rescue, specifically the innovative product they call Chronos.Ĭhronos will take 230V AC at 50Hz and output a very stable, precise 115 V AC at 60Hz with a pure sine wave. Thus the output will be less than a perfect sine wave, will not be a perfect 60.00000 cycles per second either, which will cause the clock to keep very poor time-all the while producing audible noise! And noise isn’t something you want on your nightstand. Many electronic devices will not run smoothly and quietly with this waveform and, since the manufacturer was not focused on precision, they don’t have the frequency accuracy needed, either.
The output from these budget devices only approximates a sine wave (shown below) and it’s not very smooth. In a cheaper device, the frequency is changed to 60Hz, but the wave output is often a modified sine wave, which looks like a chopped up rectangular wave, not the smooth sine wave that the clock was designed to accept. Getting an electronic device to output a smooth, super-accurate sine wave at 60Hz is complicated, requiring special circuitry. So why not just get a cheap one? There are some budget import shaver converters available which claim to do this, for example. So now we know we must get a device that changes both voltage and frequency. Yes, you’ll be able to plug it in, then immediately, you’ll smell the clock’s internal motor or transformer burning up. Just getting an adapter does nothing to make a US clock work with a different electrical system. The first mistake a new flip clock owner might make is to simply get a plug adapter. Because of the nature of the motors in vintage flip clocks, simply decreasing the voltage will not work … a clock designed to run at 60Hz will run VERY slow at 50Hz. Whereas the United States uses an electrical system consisting of 115 V AC at 60Hz, most of the world uses a higher voltage 230V AC at 50Hz. The problem for collectors of these clocks outside of the United States and Canada is that many of these clocks will not work properly in their countries because of the differences in the electrical systems. While the fascination with US-made flip clocks may have had its beginning in North America, flip clock fans can now be found the world over. Video: Choosing the Proper Converter for your Clock The following blog is also summarized in this video, courtesy of.