The Problem of Power

Getting Instruments To Turn On

As we prepare for Israel one issue continues to come up again and again, and that is the issue of power supply.  Israel wall outlets are on a different voltage (220 volts) than US outlets (110 volts).  Most laptops and phones made in the last few years can handle any voltage within this range.  They need only a plug adapter which merely allows them to plug into different shaped sockets.  

A US plug (left) versus a European/Israeli plug (right).

However, scientific instruments are not so versatile.  In fact scientific instruments can be rather finicky.  It is almost a right of passage for graduate students to spend weeks figuring out why an instrument that was working perfectly well one day won't even turn on the next, and that is using the power supply meant for that instrument.  Now it seems like every day we need to purchase another power converter (which steps down power from 220 volts to 110 volts) for another instrument we did not realize needs more than a plug adapter.  

A few days ago I thought of a clever scheme to circumvent the issue altogether for the peristaltic pumps I need.  I thought to myself "I will just borrow a peristaltic pump from someone in Israel.  That way it will already be adapted to the 220 volt power supply."  So I sent some emails to find out if there was a pump I could borrow.  Yes there was a pump I could borrow, but I would need to bring a step down power converter because it is set up to run on 110 volt power.  

One of the many attempts to make a DC powered peristaltic pump run off of AC wall power.  Photo credit: Kevin Harmon

It gets more complicated yet again.  Some of the instruments we need to use in Eilat are set up to run off of batteries (DC power) not wall power (AC power).  These instruments need first a converter to allow them to convert the power from USA AC to DC (with alligator clip endings) and another to convert from USA AC to Israel AC.  I think Jerry-Rigged is a more than appropriate adjective of such a system.  Alas we have no other choice.  USA AC to DC converters are hard enough to find as is, finding Israel AC to DC converters are almost impossible to find.  I haven't found one yet, and I've been looking for weeks.  

It seems like such a small issue to overcome, but in reality dealing with just this issue has taken days of my time.  It is just one more lesson to keep in the back of my mind when working abroad.  Make sure you will be able to plug things in and turn them on.