Earth on Attens 936b soldering iron.

[dhead]

Hi.

I'm a bit new to electronics and I hope I don't mix up some of the technical terms.

I wanted a soldering station with a variable temperature control, I really couldn't afford a Hakko one as it would cost me about 200$, so I got myself a cheap 50$ Attens 936b (the same as the previous model of Sparkfun soldering station).

I've needed to replace the power plug from an Aussie one to European, so I decided also to have a look inside the chassis.
What I found is that the phase and neutral from mains are switched according to the silkscreen on the pcb.

That made me thinking a bit...
1. Why the wall (foundation) earth is connected to a device with non conductive casing ? is it so that the voltages would be earthed referenced ? so after passing the transformer one of the leads should be connected to the earth ? I guess (I'm not sure, please confirm that) connecting the earth to the ground plane on the pcb.
2. If the above is true then why the earth wasn't connected to the ground plane ? is it possible they decided to connect the soldering iron tip to the earth as a safety measure ?

[T4P]

It's "ESD SAFE" for a reason. You don't want ESD collecting on your iron