If line conditioning is all you want, the primary daily role of a UPS is to condition the line voltage to protect switches and servers from minor line surges and brownouts, and also the humble workstation of end users.? Secondary is the battery backup.function.? I was IT for 25 years.? Osprey nest catches fire in Spring, our servers and the humble workstation were protected as we switched over to hospital generators as the power dropped and came back 15 times in a minute.
Also I do "believe" that most solder workstations use a PID controller to maintain a constant temperature at the point of business of the soldering iron as long as it is used within its specification window.
Just food for thought.
-c
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On Sunday, July 18, 2021, 5:52:53 PM EDT, Gary <gvsmith5@...> wrote:
Just thinking out loud...? Well, sort of.? Would one of those line
voltage conditioners that used to proliferate back in the early days
of computers work to provide a constant supply?
73,
Gary - W6GVS
At 03:17 PM 7/18/2021, you wrote:
Hi,
I've been on a tour of a Snake River hydroelectric dam, and the way
the engineers' there talked about how much they monitior the AC
signal it sounds like perfection is what they expect at all times.
As mentioned before, there could be a problem in your house mains
connection.? Some troubles there can result in low voltage in one
circuit and high on the other.
However, I would much more expect that for the low cost irons it
just "you get what you pay for."? Manufacturing low cost products
nowadays means quality just enough to last before you lose the receipt.
For the Weller iron, we don't know the history of the unit.? Did you
buy it brand new?? Is it still under warranty?? Even a good quality
iron could need repairs at some point.? And I think Weller does make
some low-end units that likely are not made to the standard of their
professional stations.
If you can swing it, a new Hakko or Weller station would most likely
last a lifetime and you wouldn't have to buy another one again.? My
Hakko station is 10+ years old and still works like new (and has
seen a lot of use).
Diagnosing the problems of your old irons.? You might check if the
heating element still gets hot, but not the tip?? Then the problem
is with the heat conduction to the tip and something may be loose or
corroded there.? Or if nothing gets hot at all, a wiring problem.? I
remember with my old 25W Radio Shack iron, the tip would get loose
and stop heating.? The tip was also not iron plated and would
sometimes require filing the whole tip to re-expose pure copper
again as corrosion would eventually wreck the tip.? And replacements
elements were available for those, so obviously sometimes the
element would burn out (mine still works though).
73
