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Funny Soldering Station

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cne

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Hi,

Recently I was given a Weller WLC100 soldering station for free. I took it because I knew they cost about $50 new. The only problem with it being, it had a bad power cord.

I took it to the workbench, replaced the power cord, and all was well. The next day I went out to the workbench and I picked up the iron when it was turned off. I was startled after receiving a minor electric shock when I touched the tip.

I took a look inside to find the live and neutral connections were reversed on the line cord. I observed that one side of the line cord is connected to the tip of the iron.

Is this normal? Is part of the heating element shorted with the tip?

Thanks,

Cameron
 
Sure, the neutral is ostensibly considered grounded, higher end irons might have an isolated element and be connected to a separate earth ground but it's generally not required. The few mv's you'll find relative to ground on a typical neutral line shouldn't hurt any IC's.
I've been on the receiving end of a neutral/live reversal on a bench grinder that didn't have a double insulated motor. Not fun.
 
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Yep, you should be fine, but this is why it's a good idea to verify and mark polarity before you try to replace cables.
 
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The element probably is double insulated, which is why you don't get shocked when it's hooked up properly, when it's not hooked up properly the tip is directly connected to hot line, the element doesn't care which side is live so the iron will work just fine either way, you'll just fry yourself and apply 120V ac to anything the tip touches. I was a bit mistaken on the double insulation I mentioned above, it doesn't mean squat if the polarity is reversed.

I'm guessing you have a switch on the iron? It's quiet common to only switch the live wire on AC connected devices, since your polarity was reversed even with the Iron off the tip still had 120V AC applied to it. The switch was disabling the neutral line which stops the iron from working, but a human touching the case grounds it relatively well.
 
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