SIRT posted:Post is a bit misleading. First of all, who uses a soldering gun on small electronic circuit boards?
I've worked on tens of thousands of electronic items using Weller WTCP irons for over 40 years now, never had an issue. Hakko is generally the dominant and safe iron used in today's facilities. If people took a deeper dive into todays electronic BGA's & protection circuits, they wouldn't be assuming and generalizing such things.
I see daily posts on this forum with questions to which I knew the answer when I was sixteen years old. People come here without any background in electronics and ask questions which I don't doubt you knew the answer to long before I did. These people with just as much love of toy trains as you and I, come here for help, many not knowing what a wire nut is. AND I USE A WELLER GUN, when I have to remove a large component from a board and my ESD safe irons just cannot provide the necessary heat. I connect a ground wire to the tip of the Weller and a known good ground. (see my photos early in this discussion) This ground wire will drop the potential at the tip of a Weller gun from 35VAC to well under 1V better than the tip potential of both my ESD safe irons. I brought this topic of damaging soldering iron tip potentials up on the forum a week or so ago and got a couple of responses. Though that thread never grew legs I did get several likes to that post and take that to mean that at least some of the forum members did not know of these dangers. I was very happy when member CTR renewed this topic two days ago. J
