Hey guys. I was feeling a little reckless today and thought it would be interesting to measure the amperage of the outlet on my potentiometer controlled soldering iron on different settings.
I've never measured high voltages or amperages before so I just did what I thought was right. I changed the multimeter probes to test Amps with the the 10A unfused holes. Out of sheer stupidity I forgot to switch the meter to read from direct current to alternating current.
Well I put the test probes in the outlet and started at maximum resistance and slowly starting turning the resistance down on my soldering iron base station (turning the current up). I got about half way through and started wondering why the amperage wasn't reading until POW! I saw and heard a big spark inside the base station and quickly shut all the power off.
I opened it up and looked at the circuitry inside which is very simple. Has a .5Mohm potentiometer hooked up to a 15Kohm resistor, 2 diodes, a 250uF capacitor and a really big transistor.
Anyone know what the transistor and capacitor are for?
Well I looked for what exploded and it turns out it was just some solder exploded and left and open circuit right were the live wire was attached.
I re soldered where there was an open circuit and put it back together and it works fine again.
I was wondering if the only reason it exploded was because I had the direct current measurement on by accident? If I tried the experiment again with the correct alternating current set on the multimeter do I run a risk of another fateful accident or should I get results (as long as I don't go over 10A)?
I've never measured high voltages or amperages before so I just did what I thought was right. I changed the multimeter probes to test Amps with the the 10A unfused holes. Out of sheer stupidity I forgot to switch the meter to read from direct current to alternating current.
Well I put the test probes in the outlet and started at maximum resistance and slowly starting turning the resistance down on my soldering iron base station (turning the current up). I got about half way through and started wondering why the amperage wasn't reading until POW! I saw and heard a big spark inside the base station and quickly shut all the power off.
I opened it up and looked at the circuitry inside which is very simple. Has a .5Mohm potentiometer hooked up to a 15Kohm resistor, 2 diodes, a 250uF capacitor and a really big transistor.
Anyone know what the transistor and capacitor are for?
Well I looked for what exploded and it turns out it was just some solder exploded and left and open circuit right were the live wire was attached.
I re soldered where there was an open circuit and put it back together and it works fine again.
I was wondering if the only reason it exploded was because I had the direct current measurement on by accident? If I tried the experiment again with the correct alternating current set on the multimeter do I run a risk of another fateful accident or should I get results (as long as I don't go over 10A)?