What will happen if I plug my 110V tv into a 220V receptacle?
If you want to fry your electronics or appliances that's it's a sure way to accomplish that.
While appliance working ONLY at 220v will just not work or under perform (like a hair drier) when plugging electronic equipment that runds ONLY at 110v then that item will be "fried" as all its electric components will be burnt as it will receive twice the power that it was build to receive. Should that happen the safety switch on the 220v circuit where the item was MISTAKENLY plugged will be triggered (hopefully or there will be risk of fire and serious injuries, even death) and the power will be shut off. That's a major but possible mistake.
If traveling abroad those who come to US will unlikely damage their appliances (like electric razors) as they will receive less power (110v vs 220v) and usually these items are protected against these mistakes by the specifications of their own design. The opposite is not true of course as just mentioned above.
So do not play around with dangerous items please! ;)
On a positive note though: Nowadays most appliances have dual power and should work whether plugged in a 110v, 60Hz (most common in US) or 220v 50Hz (most common in Europe). So nothing really happens... it just works as long as you have the proper adapters to plug the appliance to the different receptacles.
Note: One of the differences is that (without going into the math of it all), an appliance working at 110v will draw x2 times the power than it draws when working on 220v so if an appliance was drawing 3A at 110v it will only draw 1.5A when working at 220v.
Best.
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