Which color for which region of the world?

August 4, 2009 5:31 PM

I leave for West Africa a week from today and am having a voltage converter issue. Which plug will work?

I own this converter that I haven't used for a few years. Each plug has a colored triangle (green, black, orange, blue, black outline)... presumably those colored triangles indicate in which the part of the world the plug will work. But how do I tell what each color means? I've tried Google but haven't had luck... partially because I'm not entirely sure what to search for.

posted by ekf to travel & transportation (3 comments total)

Consult this site--I always check here before going on trips...
posted by Admiral Haddock at 5:36 PM on August 4

I suggest you buy some of the following from this site:

http://www.110220volts.com/ForeignPlugAdapters/Foreign+International+-+Universal+Plug+Adapters.html

UNIV-7 (Universal female to UK male)

Univ-9Shucko (Universal female to CEE7 european two round pin)

The others on that site should cover just about anything. These are more robust and will last longer than a multiple plug adapter thing... You definitely do -not- need the one with three large cylindrical pins which is for India and Pakistan, nor do you need the one that looks like the USA but with angled positive and negative pins.
posted by thewalrus at 3:23 AM on August 5

Kropla is the BEST. In my personal experience, I encountered mostly the British style, with two blades perpendicular to each other and a third prong between them (the one that is largest in the picture). But this was in Ghana, a former English colony, and all of this is Africa, so nothing's ever quite standard. You will also find some of the US style (two parallel blades, grounded ones are not so common) and European (two round prongs) in Ghana and the surrounding Francophone countries.

If you have those, you should be covered.

But always, always: kropla.
posted by whatzit at 5:25 AM on August 5