Living in a third-world country means you don’t have the best of everything. The President of your country does not govern the country well, the government is filled with corrupt politicians as well as other authorities and even the power output from your wall outlets are actually unstable. This brings me to discuss the use and necessity of an automatic voltage regulator in protecting electronics equipment from transient voltage fluctuations.

Electronics are typically labeled 100v (to my knowledge, only Japan uses 100v equipment), 100-120v, 200-240v or 100-240v. The manufacturers put those ratings on the back of your equipment for a reason. It means you have to follow them or your equipment will break or break faster than it was projected to.

The automatic voltage regulator provides you stabilized voltages of, 100v, 110v and 220v, even when the power company’s output transiently changes. The particular model shown below has a delay mechanism in order to prevent voltage surges when the device is initially switched on. The device weighs around 17 lbs.

Plugged into each of the varying voltage outlets, an analog and digital voltage measuring device showed the actual voltage readings below: (Do note that the measurements were taken 1 day apart, analog during the 1st day and digital during the 2nd day)

This device is appropriate for those who import a lot of equipment from other countries. A good example would be importing of United States electronics into the Philippines. The Philippines uses 220v while the US uses 110v. A numerous number of “refurbished” Japanese TVs, called Surplus TVs, are also available for purchase somewhere in the city. Japan equipment requires an odd supply of 100v (I think it is the only country that uses 100v), only a handful of automatic voltage regulators offer a 100v outlet. Most offer only 110v and 220v outlets.

This device costs around $50. It has a maximum capacity of 1500W, not that you will actually use all of it, but it’s good to know that you have lots of headroom. There are other varieties (in capacity) of this device, 500w, 1000w, 2000w. It is definitely a worthwhile investment which will not only protect your equipment but also give you a peace of mind.