Electronics > Beginners
Desoldering station
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innkeeper:
lol talk about a totally hijacked thread!  |O
james_s:
It is not "terribly dangerous" or even "slightly dangerous" to have the neutral and live swapped in the cord. It doesn't exactly scream high quality but it's not a safety issue either. Polarized receptacles are a reasonably good idea and do offer a small safety improvement for some very old equipment like "AC/DC" transformerless tube radios but that isn't anything that will have an IEC cord. Virtually anything with that style cord is going to be designed for a world market in which case the polarity of the incoming power cannot be guaranteed. What would be "terribly dangerous" is designing a piece of equipment today that relies on having the correct polarity in the mains cord for safety.

I don't think the side the fuse is on even makes much difference. Say you fuse the hot and the incoming wire breaks off the fuse holder and shorts to the chassis, what then? The fuse is on the "correct" side, the cord is properly polarized, but you have an unfused short to the chassis in a not entirely unlikely situation. Good thing the metal chassis is also grounded and you have a circuit breaker to protect the whole circuit. The equipment fuse is to protect against a fault that causes an overload which is not enough to trip the whole circuit. Any kind of short to chassis is going to trip it immediately long before even an inadequate power cord melts.
innkeeper:

--- Quote from: Noidzoid on July 03, 2018, 10:26:40 am ---
--- Quote from: innkeeper on July 01, 2018, 11:01:17 pm ---there still in business maybe just email them .... http://www.xytronic.com

@FlyingHacker: xytronic 968 and the ZD-985 are not the same thing

--- End quote ---

I did actually manage to get in touch with them and I got a reply saying they discontinued the 968 fifteen years ago and can't find a manual for it.

This made me think two things:

1: Have I made a big mistake acquiring this old machine?

or

2: Is the 968 a good machine as it is still being catered for with spares still available from the likes of Rapid after being discontinued so long ago?

Any thoughts gratefully received.

--- End quote ---

130, Jian Kang Road, 5F Suite #9, Chung Ho,
Taipei Hsien 235, Taiwan.
TEL: 886-2-2221-1889
FAX: 886-2-2226-1588
Website: http://www.xytronic.com/
E-mail: xytronicpeterchai@hotmail.com
tooki:

--- Quote from: wraper on July 02, 2018, 12:10:11 am ---
--- Quote from: FlyingHacker on July 02, 2018, 12:06:29 am ---I assume most of your products are fused on both wires? Also, the stuff off eBay often doesn’t get safety tested.

Long story short, if you have one of those reversed power cord cut it and throw it away!

--- End quote ---
95%+ of products available here are fused on one wire. UK has polarized plug which is completely different from the rest of Europe. UK plug also has internal fuse because they use ring wiring with circuit breaker which have higher current capability than single socket. We as most of Europe use star wiring with 16A circuit breakers.

--- Quote ---Long story short, if you have one of those reversed power cord cut it and throw it away!
--- End quote ---
I could not care less about that. Plugs ar symmetric if used in our sockets. The exception it that plugs usually are universal with french sockets which are indeed polarized. The real concern is counterfeit cables with hair thin copper strands. I stumbled on such a few times.


--- End quote ---
FWIW, in addition to the French (type E) and Schuko (type F) which together comprise most of Europe, the Swiss (type J) and Danish (type K) plugs are also used in Europe, and those two are also polarized when grounded. (All four are unpolarized when using ungrounded plugs.)

If anything, the Schuko is unusual in allowing unpolarized grounded connections — almost every other grounded plug enforces polarity. (The Italian plug [type L] is the only other unpolarized grounded plug.)


--- Quote from: james_s on July 07, 2018, 01:52:28 am ---It is not "terribly dangerous" or even "slightly dangerous" to have the neutral and live swapped in the cord. It doesn't exactly scream high quality but it's not a safety issue either. Polarized receptacles are a reasonably good idea and do offer a small safety improvement for some very old equipment like "AC/DC" transformerless tube radios but that isn't anything that will have an IEC cord. Virtually anything with that style cord is going to be designed for a world market in which case the polarity of the incoming power cannot be guaranteed. What would be "terribly dangerous" is designing a piece of equipment today that relies on having the correct polarity in the mains cord for safety.

--- End quote ---
A cord with reversed wires, or switching on neutral, is not dangerous if the device is properly designed and assembled. But is every device both properly designed AND properly assembled? No.

So yeah, is it likely that a cord with swapped polarity will cause a problem? No. But it can contribute to (as in, cease to prevent) a dangerous situation whose proximate cause is some flaw in design or assembly. I agree, it's edge cases, but still, why not take every precaution?
james_s:
Absolutely, take every precaution, my only point is that the swapped wires is probably not dangerous. Incorrect, yes, sloppy, yes, best corrected, yes, but dangerous? No, not likely.
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