"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" wrote in message
...
In article DSQZc.1963$UR2.1628@trnddc08, James Sweet wrote:

I was thinking they had a chain of diodes and made use of the voltage
drop,
guess I could be wrong though.

The "converters" are just a big resistor. They really have very little use
except for things like hair dryers.



They're most certainly not a resistor, a 1500W converter stepping 240 down
to 120 would be dissipating a tremendous amount of power.