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I bought a “TXINLEI 858D 110V Solder Station, Digital Display SMD Hot Air Rework Station Solder Iron Kit Heat Gun, Tweezers, Desoldering Pump” on Amazon, becaus

I bought a “TXINLEI 858D 110V Solder Station, Digital Display SMD Hot Air Rework Station Solder Iron Kit Heat Gun, Tweezers, Desoldering Pump” on Amazon, because it is a cheap hot-air soldering station. It should not be sold in the United States. The plug on it is wired backwards, so the cable on it is also wired backwards. But they both use the industry-standard IEC C13 / C14 shape. So if you accidentally use the plug on your desktop, it’ll work, but the chassis will be hot instead of neutral. And the same thing if you use a regular plug with this device: the neutral and hot pins are swapped, so you’ll have a hot chassis. It’s illegal. Yet, it’s so cheap, and easy to remedy at home!

unQJTy7H 4y ago
The thing that your chassis is connected to is ground, not neutral. The hot/neutral being swapped thing matters because some stuff only has a switch on the hot leg. (Not your computer; it could just as easily be used with a Schuko plug on the end of that C13 cable - which isn't "polarized" at all!)
- krallja 4y ago
  I missed the edit window, but I misunderstood the issue. The real problem is that a switched & fused neutral is a hazard. We expect devices to have switched hot.
sudosysgen 4y ago
In AC, the neutral can still kill you. Chassis are never wired to neutral. You would die. They are wired to ground.
- krallja 4y ago
  Oops, I misunderstood the issue. The problem with the hot/neutral swap is that the switch and fuse are both on neutral in either scenario (defective cable with correct device, or defective device with correct cable). Thus the device is still connected to hot if the fuse blows.
- bityard 4y ago
  Pedantic note: neutral is only dangerous when something has gone very wrong, which is why nowadays we have a separate, redundant neutral that we call the ground wire. In the breaker panel, neutral and ground are connected to the same bus bar and are, electrically-speaking, the same thing.
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unQJTy7H 4y ago

The thing that your chassis is connected to is ground, not neutral. The hot/neutral being swapped thing matters because some stuff only has a switch on the hot leg. (Not your computer; it could just as easily be used with a Schuko plug on the end of that C13 cable - which isn't "polarized" at all!)

krallja 4y ago
I missed the edit window, but I misunderstood the issue. The real problem is that a switched & fused neutral is a hazard. We expect devices to have switched hot.

sudosysgen 4y ago

In AC, the neutral can still kill you. Chassis are never wired to neutral. You would die. They are wired to ground.

krallja 4y ago
Oops, I misunderstood the issue. The problem with the hot/neutral swap is that the switch and fuse are both on neutral in either scenario (defective cable with correct device, or defective device with correct cable). Thus the device is still connected to hot if the fuse blows.
bityard 4y ago
Pedantic note: neutral is only dangerous when something has gone very wrong, which is why nowadays we have a separate, redundant neutral that we call the ground wire. In the breaker panel, neutral and ground are connected to the same bus bar and are, electrically-speaking, the same thing.

deleted 4y ago

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