On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:00:42 -0400, gfretwell wrote:
I vote with Smitty. Switch mode power supplies have a great tolerance
for power fluctuations. Some are perfectly happy with any input from
100-250 volts without manual switching.

ISTR some designs essentially pick one of two configurations depending
on line input - i.e. if it's around 120 (US and presumably others) or
around 240 (Europe). Such designs can still fry if the voltage isn't
somewhere close to one of those two (i.e. giving it something like 180 for
any length of time would be bad)

Your basic PC supply still has a range of 100-150 or 200-250 depending
on the switch setting.

Yeah, they save a few cents on parts cost. Some really crap ones don't
even have the switch.

They also have a large tolerance to dips, and spikes.

Usually - or at least if something does happen it tends to kill parts that
are easy to replace. Although not always - I've seen some where the
entirety of the 'hot' side and half the LV side has been taken out by a
fault...

cheers

Jules