Does anyone know what kind of outlet is this one:
…and can I safely swap it with this one?
Or is there anything power concerns that I should be aware of??
Electrical – switch this outlet for a USB outlet
electricalreceptacle
Related Solutions
If you're willing to do a little modification, you can use a Kill-A-Watt and hook it up to your computer.
Adafruit has a "Tweet-a-Watt" project that interfaces with a Kill-A-Watt and wirelessly sends the power readings to the receiving unit (which they then hooked up to tweet the current readings)
In the Adafruit forums, I found a guy who was trying to read the Kill-A-Watt directly with an Arduino, instead of wirelessly sending the readings. You could use an Arduino and read the measurements directly into a serial console on your computer and save the results to a file that way.
You should be able to simply swap the switches.
This is your current wiring (grounds have been removed to make it less confusing).
There should be no problem with you swapping the switches like so...
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Best Answer
Your existing outlet (NEMA 6-20) is used for 240 volts while your USB/outlet (5-15) is designed for 120 volts. Assuming the 6-20 is correctly wired, you cannot just replace it with the USB outlet. As well as supplying the wrong voltage to anything plugged into it, the USB charger that is built in will probably die, possibly violently!
(The key to knowing that it is for 240 volts is that the right-hand slot is horizontal instead of vertical. The T-slot on the left is for 20 amps and can accept either a 6-15 (15 amp) ot 6-20 (20 amp) plug.)
If you want to use the new outlet in that place, you will need to go into your fuse/breaker box and change the wiring to the outlet to 120 volts.