give your soldering tip a longer life - with this economy circuit

give your soldering tip a longer life The life expectancy of the tip of a soldering iron may be increased substantially by heating the iron to full capacity only during actual use. To accomplish this, the input power to the iron is reduced during the periods the iron is resting on its stand. This is achieved by using only one half of each cycle of the mains voltage during the rest period. with this economy circuit Heating of the iron during half cycles of the mains voltage only is effected by con- necting a suitable diode in series with the "live" mains conductor as shown diagram- matically in figure 1. A suitable actual arrangement of this is shown in figure 2. When the iron is suspended at rest, the spring-loaded switch is open, and the diode passes only one half of each mains voltage cycle. When the iron is lifted for use, the draw spring causes the switch to be closed by the aluminium strip: the diode is then short-circuited and full mains power is applied once more to the iro...