Pinecil cuts out / reboots during soldering

[kwiizu]

The support blaming it on grounding issue! and want electrician to check my house...

[clystron]

I too am having an issue with my new Pinecil randomly resetting. I'm glad it is not just me.
I am using USB-C from a PinePower (UK version) power supply.
I think the issue might be down to grounding.

The PinePower has a 2-pin mains connector (Live & Neutral) and no earth. The USB output is therefore not referenced to mains earth.
When I plug the Pinecil into the PinePower, I get roughly 92Vac on the soldering iron tip (and also the earth screw on the Pinecil).
I presume this is due to the Y-Class capacitors in the SMPS in the PinePower making a virtual earth sitting at half mains voltage!

Touching the Pinecil to anything earthed causes a small spark from the soldering iron tip to the earthed trace. This is obviously not good news for soldering anything that is ESD sensitive ! It also causes the Pinecil to reboot. This also occurs when the pinecil is cool.

I've tried connecting a permanent earth wire from the earth screw on the Pinecil to mains earth. This has eliminated the 92Vac on the soldering iron tip, but it still occasionally reboots at random on its own. I guess the Pinecil doesn't like the leakage current.

I guess my only solution is to take my PinePower apart and convert it to a 3-wire mains cable with earth wire, eliminating the leakage current issue.

[kwiizu]

I too am having an issue with my new Pinecil randomly resetting. I'm glad it is not just me.
I am using USB-C from a PinePower (UK version) power supply.
I think the issue might be down to grounding.

The PinePower has a 2-pin mains connector (Live & Neutral) and no earth. The USB output is therefore not referenced to mains earth.
When I plug the Pinecil into the PinePower, I get roughly 92Vac on the soldering iron tip (and also the earth screw on the Pinecil).
I presume this is due to the Y-Class capacitors in the SMPS in the PinePower making a virtual earth sitting at half mains voltage!

Touching the Pinecil to anything earthed causes a small spark from the soldering iron tip to the earthed trace. This is obviously not good news for soldering anything that is ESD sensitive ! It also causes the Pinecil to reboot. This also occurs when the pinecil is cool.

I've tried connecting a permanent earth wire from the earth screw on the Pinecil to mains earth. This has eliminated the 92Vac on the soldering iron tip, but it still occasionally reboots at random on its own. I guess the Pinecil doesn't like the leakage current.

I guess my only solution is to take my PinePower apart and convert it to a 3-wire mains cable with earth wire, eliminating the leakage current issue.

The support that I had contact with blames it on the grounding in the house and want me to contact electrician lol.
So If I understand you correct is still come downs to the pinecil doesn't have a earth? Or is it a combination of the pinepower and the pinecil?

IMO this is so stupid that several of us have the same problem and the support just ignoring it and blame the house.

[snurry]

Curious if this is maybe an issue with UK and AU PinePower?
Looking at the contents section in the store pages:
US: '2 pin US plug power cable'
EU: '2pin EU plug power cable'
AU: '3pin AU plug power cable, not grounded'
UK: '3pin UK plug power cable, not grounded'

[VaZso]

Curious if this is maybe an issue with UK and AU PinePower?
Looking at the contents section in the store pages:
US: '2 pin US plug power cable'
EU: '2pin EU plug power cable'
AU: '3pin AU plug power cable, not grounded'
UK: '3pin UK plug power cable, not grounded'

I think it is only about they are the same.

US/EU plugs have only two pins, so they are not grounded.
Although AU and UK plugs have three pins, they are still not grounded (third pin is internally not connected).

[metnetdave]

My UK one is only two pin connection to the power supply, so no Ground/earth on the psu

It does look like a psu issue  @pine64  any ideas for a solution the combination of Pinecil and pine power is unworkable?

[clystron]

I've temporarily fixed my problem by grounding my PinePower.
No need to take it apart. I simply plugged an additional USB cable into the PinePower, and connected the 0 Volt wire of it to ground.
This removed the 92Vac I was seeing on the Pinecil, and it doesn't appear to crash and reboot now.
It is also a lot safer when soldering ESD sensitive components.

Personally I would have preferred the soldering iron tip to have a 1M Ohm bleed resistor to ground, as that would be the safest when working on ESD sensitive components, but this still resulted in around 50Vac at the tip and occasional crashes and reboots. I guess the Y-class capacitors in the PinePower are leaking around 50uA of current onto the 0 Volt supply rail and the Pinecil is very sensitive to supply disturbances.

[kwiizu]

I gave up on the pincecil and just bought a ts100 instead.

[VaZso]

I gave up on the pincecil and just bought a ts100 instead.

Why is it better?
Both have a barrel connector what you can use with another power supply which may or may not has this issue...

[beta-user]

I made the same mistake of buying a Pinecil together with PinePower and it kept rebooting for me as well. I bought a new, different power supply with DC connector and that fixed it.

Perhaps I will be able to use PinePower for some other project, so hopefully it won't be a complete waste of money. Pine64 should add some kind of warning on their store page!