Fan dimmer for soldering iron

Thread Starter

Willen

Joined Nov 13, 2015
333
As a temperature controller, I am going to use TRIAC based common fan dimmer. As I know it has faster pulses than 50Hz mains. Maybe because of this faster pulses, I hear a kind of noise from fan when the dimmer is working but not when I bypass. Question is: If I powered the dimmer in my soldering iron, does the strong pulses decrease the life of the iron coil?

Additional: what kind of devices should not powered through the dimmer?
 

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
4,763
I've been using for years a lamp dimmer (30 W maybe).
No problems so far with my iron.
Very seldom I needed to increase the temperature.
 

DickCappels

Joined Aug 21, 2008
10,138
I have been operating my soldering iron from a triac light dimmer circuit for years and it really improves the life of the soldering irons because they run cooler.

I don't think that triac dimmers are safe to use on things that have a power transformer on the input. Motors and inductive loads need snubbers to protect the triacs from fast voltage changes. To get around that I used STMicroelectronics "snubberless" triacs.
 

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
4,763
I have been operating my soldering iron from a triac light dimmer circuit for years and it really improves the life of the soldering irons because they run cooler.

I don't think that triac dimmers are safe to use on things that have a power transformer on the input. Motors and inductive loads need snubbers to protect the triacs from fast voltage changes. To get around that I used STMicroelectronics "snubberless" triacs.
First time I hear of them Dick. Off to Google.
 
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