On 17/7/21 11:09 pm, Tony Parks wrote:
Is there any possibility that the problems I have been having in the last few months with not hot enough soldering irons has anything to do with the AC wave shape my local power, i.e. ENERGY, company is distributing?
This is most unlikely. A heater will convert what's under almost any voltage curve into heat. It might be worth seeing the wave on an oscilloscope and spectrum analyser to rule this out completely (small changes to sine waves are really hard to see on an oscilloscope alone) but it's hard to imagine what sort of waveform could cause what you're describing, particularly with thermostatically-controlled irons, let alone what sort of grid problem.
A friend in Australia has pointed out that he no longer receives a sine wave at his house. The prevalence of switch mode power supplies — including in air-conditioners ("inverters") — and therefore thyristor switching is now so great as to asymmetrically flatten the curve. Bear in mind that Australian power supply is 230/240V Y-wired 3-phase, so there are none of the small transformers on poles that are common in 120V systems. He's at the end of a long street and has hundreds of neighbours worth of switch-mode gear connected to the feeder between him and the nearest substation. If you are experiencing the same phenomenon, it will almost certainly be less pronounced, and as above, unlikely to cause what you're seeing.
Is it possible that all of your irons have rusted materially over the last few years?
- Roland 9V1RT
