240vac soldering iron on an inverter

[bagmaker]

My rig is a little different Jon, thanks though.
There is only one "appliance" potentially connected to the mains -the battery charger, everything else runs off battery/inverter.
There are sparkies and there are sparkies, for sure, mine is a nice bloke who learns every day. Thats why I asked him to do our rig, he didnt assume anything in the first place.
That said, I am still pretty sure the earth and neutral are linked, I will have a gander tomorrow.

[T1 Terry]

Who has an inverter where the neutral is tied to earth? Most are isolated.

Just about all inverters above the Chinese garbage grade have an auto sensing earth/neutral link so the RCD fitted to the inverter actually works along with all the RCD's after the inverter.
This is not the problem that blows the tip off the soldering iron, it is the 12v/24v/48v battery voltage that causes the arc. The soldering iron tip is connected to the appliance earth wire, many of the cheaper inverters have that earth wire connected to the body of the inverter. If you connect the grounding wire to the vehicle body as suggested by just about every inverter manufacturer, you now have a path from the battery negative to the soldering iron tip. The negative cable on most solar panels and DC to DC chargers are a direct connection to battery negative via the controller/charger. This means the connection for the positive solar wire and the soldering iron tip is a short across the battery once the MC4 connector is joined.
If you don't want continual solar problems I'd advise anyone reusing the MC4 connectors to punch the pins out of each connection, push them fully home into the mating connection and then soldering the connection to ensure the circuit is complete.
As soon as I finish this post I have to go down to the marina and fix my error of reusing an MC$ connector that still has the plastic plugs attached. This panel was the furthest from the junction blocks and I reused the MC4 connectors on the extension cables at the solar panel end. This is the only panel that is now no longer working, even though it did work a week ago when I rewired the system to get it going at all

T1 Terry

[native pepper]

Never had an earth on any of my inverters, but never soldered using one. Have driven a MIG welder from an 3/5kw inverter running of my 120ah lifepo4 pack and that worked fine, know a bloke who carries a TIG welder and he uses it on the road, will ask if it is earthed to his bus. Was worried what it would do to the pack, but it didn't effect it in any way and it remained cool not dropping below 13v.

Have stick welded just using lead acid batteries, that was hairy, but worked for what we needed in the bush. Not good for the batteries they got really hot, but did the job well enough to get the vehicle back to civilisation. Bloke had to change one of his batteries as it was cactus, wouldn't turn the engine at all, so we tow started it.

[2foot6]

Why not just unplug the iron before you solder....

[bagmaker]

interesting again!
I wonder if the TIG welder tip will do the same

[T1 Terry]

Why not just unplug the iron before you solder....

Cause the solder won't melt if the soldering iron isn't hot? We aren't talking about one of those huge lumps of cooper used for solder guttering together, the temperature controlled small tip stuff used for light gauge electrical wiring and electronics.

[T1 Terry]

interesting again!
I wonder if the TIG welder tip will do the same

Hmmm....... I thought the TIG was a completely isolated supply because of the very high frequency arc, but I could be wrong ....

[supersparky]

interesting again!
I wonder if the TIG welder tip will do the same

Hmmm....... I thought the TIG was a completely isolated supply because of the very high frequency arc, but I could be wrong ....

I also thought that the TIG had an internal isolating transformer otherwise the filler rod would become active, like the old arc welders used to do. Don't know if the late model arc's do the same thing. I gave up swapping electrodes without gloves years ago.

[T1 Terry]

interesting again!
I wonder if the TIG welder tip will do the same

Hmmm....... I thought the TIG was a completely isolated supply because of the very high frequency arc, but I could be wrong ....

I also thought that the TIG had an internal isolating transformer otherwise the filler rod would become active, like the old arc welders used to do. Don't know if the late model arc's do the same thing. I gave up swapping electrodes without gloves years ago.

Ya wanna try that with the Honda welder/generators if the work bench comes into contact with the generator frame. Leaning against the bench while putting the new electrode in and wack, get up off the floor and go looking for the electrode.

With the TIG, it is already creating an arc, so there is no actual contact until you accidentally dip the tip into the puddle, then welding stops and the tip has to be ground to a point again. I like that idea Jody Collier has with the clear jumbo cup so you can walk the cup and hold the filler rod with the TIG finger glove, I shake so much it's near impossible to hold the tip out of the puddle but still close enough to hold the arc.

T1 Terry

[supersparky]

Thanks for the laugh T1. I remember sitting on a gantry crane in a pair of shorts welding up something and dropping rods and gloves and stuff all over the workshop floor. The things you remember ehh?