An Electric shock from a new adjustable soldering iron

[Dhanushka]

Dear all,

I have brought this soldering iron. I got an electric shock after a one day. The voltage between metal part and home ground about 45 V/AC. But changing live wire to the neutral that was eliminated. There was no continuity between metal parts and live or neutral wires. Mains is 230 V/AC and it has two prong plug. Is this normal? How can I solve this?

Thank you.

[magic]

Don't turn it on, take it apart

[TimFox]

If connected to 100 to 120 VAC, this is typical for a capacitor network at the line, with no “PE” ground connection to the exposed metal.  Are you running with a two-prong outlet and an adapter, with no third-wire ground?

[Dhanushka]

The mains is 230 V/AC and this has EU two prong plug.

[TimFox]

Then, to be safe, it needs to be double-insulated.  However, if it uses a temperature servo with switching from the line, it should have an EMC filter and that raises the grounding question.

[David Hess]

That is normal for a two prong device where the neutral is swapped with hot.  High impedance multimeter measurements can be deceptive because of capacitive coupling.

[Mechatrommer]

1st 2 pictures is the circuit, before the ground wire mod (cable changed to 3 prong). the next pictures is mod suggestion, (heat shrink tube, spring for easy contact needed) make sure ground wire insulator will not get burnt by the heat and hence possibly get shorted with offline circuitry. so ensure your house's GFCI/RCCB is working properly. i used normal wire in the pic because i dont have heat resistance rubber wire.