Easy Grounding for USB Soldering Irons

RE: Easy Grounding for USB Soldering Irons

jaybeuff — Tue, 02 May 2023 19:26:57 GMT

Sorry for reviving from the dead but couldn’t one use one of these cables modified to usbc plugged into a second isbc port?

www.amazon.com/.../B07Z1DXW7B

Would take up less space than the two larger dedicated esd ground/earthing plug mentioned already.

I did find a nice usbc charger that had a US 110v mains port on its side but it sadly does not output 12v. Only 5/9/15/20 with 45w max.

RE: Easy Grounding for USB Soldering Irons

mp2100 — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 23:27:07 GMT

It's not the same as you Earth-Bonding-Plug you listed, but I found this for US earthing.

It takes a banana plug, into the wall mains ground. But there's not resistor included. (googled "grounding plug", US doesn't say earthing.)

www.globalindustrial.com/.../ground-plug-adapter

RE: Easy Grounding for USB Soldering Irons

DAB — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 20:09:17 GMT

Great solution.

RE: Easy Grounding for USB Soldering Irons

dougw — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 18:30:18 GMT

I think I would be tempted to put a resistor in the ground connection to avoid high current ground loops and spark discharges.

RE: Easy Grounding for USB Soldering Irons

scottiebabe — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 15:16:34 GMT

An even simpler option (joking):

I do see these show up on youtube factory tours though...

RE: Easy Grounding for USB Soldering Irons

Andrew J — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 10:58:34 GMT

Can I clarify? You:

cut the USB cable in two so you could use either connector
For each of the cut ends, you trimmed away the outer sheathing, ensured that the coloured wires were not exposed, trimmed down the 0V bare wire so it couldn’t touch anything, trimmed back the foil and twisted the braid together to form “a wire”. Left you with two identical ends of exposed braid.
cut the end off the grounding wire, trimmed back the sheath to expose the internal wire
soldered both the twisted braids and the exposed ground wire together
covered the joint in heat shrink.

I’m assuming you are earthing the USB power source that the soldering iron is plugged into which implies the USB sockets on that source share a common ground? Would that work if the USB sockets were on a laptop or PC? Could you create a in-line ground point in the cable actually used to power it - I.e the cable has three connectors: to the iron, to the USB port and to the grounding point - guess this might get a bit clumsy? Sorry, I feel a bit dumb, I just didn’t get it from the pictures. It’s a great post and a great idea.