A340 51K Seats and power

Flew from LHR to IAD last night (God, was I bored!)

anyway, managed to get the emergency exit seats at row 51. Inbetween the seats and the door is a power socket marked:

110V 400hz 1kVA max

Can this be used for laptops and things? it obviously can't draw more than 9 amps current, but the 400hz doesn't sound good.

Regards

Paul
PS: I only ask as I fly back on the 30th sept, I don't sleep, and I've exhausted the list of movies for this month already!

Afraid that's a big no-no!!!

That power socket is only used on the ground by the cleaners. The only power sockets that can be used for laptops and iPods are the Empower sockets in PE and J.

Ta. I thought as much!

[Darren Wheeler]

Go on, try it. [}:)] We await the TR with interest [:D]

I've seen the same sockets on a Ryanair 737-800 by door R1. The 400hz is really odd - I can only assume the aircraft cleaners (on Virgin, as Ryanair don't go in for much cleaning!) use some kind of non-standard vacuum to cope with the different voltage frequency.

I bet there have been some fried laptop power supplies from those sockets too, where some joker has removed the voltage sticker & a pax has thought 'oh, a standard US power socket...' and proceeded to get out their laptop & power supply.

400Hz is the standard frequency used on aircraft.

Why? Because you can carry the same current with a lighter gauge cable a the higher frequency, and of course, on a plane, it's all about keeping the weight down!

A friend did run their iBook G4 off one of these sockets on a US carrier - the sockets were unlabelled, and not covered up. He just thought they were US style power sockets. Nothing 'bad' happened to the machine, but apparently you could fry an egg on the power brick. A switched-mode power supply can cope with the high frequency, but it's not advisable and is probably a fire hazard in gear which is not specced for 400Hz.

The proper in-seat power AC mains (i.e. not the round DC Empower-type) sockets do supply normal 50/60Hz power. The power is converted by the system installed in the seat to 'normal' household mains frequency.

Mike