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Soldering heating problem
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From: Tony Parks <kb9yig@...> |
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Tony,
It seems unlikely to me that your AC mains power would be THAT distorted (non-sinusoidal) that it would significantly affect the thyristor trigger point. I'm not a power engineer, but I think it would cause significant problems elsewhere (to many other devices) if your utility company was sending you severely distorted waves. But I don't know what the standards are. Is there "any possibility"? Well, I suppose so, however unlikely. If you don't get enough heat when cranked up, then this is not the cause. RMS voltage is RMS voltage. Changing the thyristor trigger point has been used for decades in light dimmers. Do you have any light dimmers and do they still work? FYI, my AC mains voltage here (USA) has been running a tad below 100V RMS many days during the last month. Nominal is 115-125V. That's about 17% below normal voltage, at least 30% low on power with a constant resistive load. LED and CFL lighting seems to mostly ignore it, as does good electronic gear, so you might not notice that you are having a brownout unless you still have incandescent lamps. Andy |
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VERY possible. If they're not sending out a pure sine wave, that indicates a really bad problem on their end - for instance RMS measurements would be way off. Also most places have 240vac going in, and if the ground/neutral isn't solidly connected all the way, you can get really weird problems (like motors running noisy or hot, and so on). We had that problem and blew light bulbs until it was found and fixed - one leg was high, the other too low a voltage.
I find it strange that soldering irons aren't lasting. When I was in business (industrial electronics repair), I soldered all the time. I'd go through tips on a regular basis, but the rest of the iron kept going - a cheap iron, well, I've got one that I've had for many years (admittedly, I didn't use it on a daily basis and haven't used it in some time). I used a propane iron in the field, and did go through those rather regularly, maybe once every couple of years. I think that you might be onto something because of how quickly they go bad - a bad waveform could possibly do that. If the peak voltage was high, but the actual area under the curve (overall) being low, it could wear out the elements but not get hot enough. I've seen something similar to that in the past (on a plasma cutter/torch). I'd be real interested in seeing the waveform. Right now I'm using a temperature controlled iron from Radio Shack - purchased in 2012. I had to replace the iron itself because of bad internal connections once (I suspect factory defect), but other than that, no problem. I have a small 15w pencil iron, and my old 150(?) watt monster (very old and I've had it for several decades - great for coax connectors and ground plane connections). Bob N4FBZ |
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I used the same irons off and on for at least a decade.? I'd just grab one of my trusted ones from the storage box and go at it. Over the years, I did notice that it was becoming more difficult to solder plus it was taking much longer for the iron to heat up. This seemed to happen to all of the ones in the box.? Then, last year, I had a situation where I absolutely needed to solder 10/12 ga wire to some XT60 connectors.? I had no luck with any of my irons in the storage box, then brought out my two "Radio Shack" guns, one around 120W and the other 240W.? Neither of those would do the job either and I was dumbfounded as that particular soldering job should have been cake.? I decided to try watching some Youtube vids on soldering to the XT60's.? One of the best videos showed a simple 60W iron being used successfully.? Hard to believe for me, but I ordered a similar iron last year (the one I shared the link for in prior post).? Within minutes of its arrival, and to my surprise, my first 10 ga to XT60 soldering was completed.? This iron also heats fast and had molten solder tip in about 30 seconds.? My box irons all took about 3-5 mins to get to the proper heating.? I've gone on to use this 60 watt iron for more complicated jobs with one of the most difficult being to solder BNC females to a "cookie tin" chassis.? Difficult for sure, but I'd never have been able to do the job with any existing iron.? One of the guns did help on that job too (the 120 W gun).
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I suppose one way to truly check your situation would be to beg/ borrow an auto battery and feed a true sine wave inverter with it, plug in your iron and see if you still have issues.? Or maybe just temporarily use your car battery, with the car running of course, while you test your irons.?? I've been able to easily do some outdoor soldering with my 60 W iron and my 400 watt auto inverter (and no, that's one's not true sine wave.... I suggested the true type to eliminate any possibility of error or improper iron function). Jon On 7/18/21 11:27 AM, Robert D. Bowers wrote:
VERY possible. If they're not sending out a pure sine wave, that indicates a really bad problem on their end - for instance RMS measurements would be way off. Also most places have 240vac going in, and if the ground/neutral isn't solidly connected all the way, you can get really weird problems (like motors running noisy or hot, and so on). We had that problem and blew light bulbs until it was found and fixed - one leg was high, the other too low a voltage. |
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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 |
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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?
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73, Gary - W6GVS At 03:17 PM 7/18/2021, you wrote:
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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.
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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 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, |
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On 17/7/21 11:09 pm, Tony Parks wrote:
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.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? 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 |
Mark - N7EKU
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