Rating between power cord and equipment

Question

My country's power supply is AC 220 V. My equipment is rated 220 V 5 mA and linked to a power socket rated 250 V 15 mA.

Will my equipment be fine?

Answer 1

Mains equipment and power sockets are usually rated in amps (A) rather than milliamps (mA) - so I would assume that:

• The equipment requires 5 A
• The socket can supply up to 15 A (although this (at least in Europe) is usually 13 A)

Regardless of this, the socket will only supply the current that is required. So your equipment only requires a third of the current that the socket is able to supply - so there is no problem in that respect.

If it situation was reversed, and your equipment needed 15 A and the socket could only supply 5 A, then there would be a problem, and the equipment would not be able to function correctly, or overload the socket.

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When matching devices and power supplies Just remember: Voltages need to be matched, whereas current drain needs to be less than the supply.

In other words:

• If the current capacity is greater than that required by the device, this is not a problem.
• If the voltage of the supply is greater than that required by the device, then that will probably fry the device.