Soldering iron with no ground on plug?

[Omelas0469]

Hi,

I would like to learn to repair my own electronics. I've done work on an LCD screen and a radio and would like to continue to gain experience.

I just ordered my own soldering iron at a cheap price off ebay (check it out)

I don't see a ground on the plug... Does this mean it's not safe for me to use it and I just wasted my money? I understand that it might be dangerous to work on a laptop with this for example because of the ESD risk.

Did I just waste $4, or can I use this?

 

[NickS]

The ground prong is for your safety not the safety of the circuit. In the event of internal short the ground prong serves as a path for the mis guided energy that is lower impedance than the path through you the user. If you are worried about it just re-terminate the power plug.

When working on a circuit you should have a wrist strap that ties you to the same potential as the circuits ground. Thus eliminating potentially massive voltage deltas between you and the circuit that manifest themselves as part killing blue arcs(sometimes too small to see or feel).

 

[Resqueline]

When soldering on MOSFET gates you may introduce more than the 20V they tolerate by means of an ungrounded solder iron tip's leakage capacitance/current.
If soldering unprotected static sensitive devices I'd try to find a means to connect the tip to a wrist strap to a circuit common. You could also just measure the tip voltage.
That being said I have yet to damage a device due to ungrounded soldering irons, and I've been doing it for decades.

 

[(*steve*)]

I'm not entirely sure I'd like to strap myself to an un-grounded soldering iron.

 

[NickS]

Perhaps we can reach a common ground(pun intended). If you tie the tip to the circuit common through a high value resistor then you could perhaps accomplish Resqueline's goal without putting yourself at risk.

 

[Resqueline]

All wrist straps have a built-in 1M Ohm resistor just with that safety aspect in mind, afaik..

 

[(*steve*)]

Perhaps we can reach a common ground(pun intended). If you tie the tip to the circuit common through a high value resistor then you could perhaps accomplish Resqueline's goal without putting yourself at risk.

All wrist straps have a built-in 1M Ohm resistor just with that safety aspect in mind, afaik..

Yes, indeed they do. It still doesn't make me want to do it though