Weller Iron failure. WSP80 worth repairing ?

[Craig Sawyers]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

Short sightedness at Weller. Once they were trustworthy, but once the trust is gone, it's a long road to get it back, and modern management principles won't allow them to work at it for that long. There is enough of their modern gear out there to hang the whole firm out to dry as the (lack of) quality becomes evident to more people. Metcal (OKI) and JBC seem to have taken over without a fight.

David

Indeed. When my cable went shorted on my TCP, it took the transformer too - shorted turns and smoke before the fuse caught it. It was wound with solderable wire, so lousy thermal management - overheats, insulation melts and windings short, bang.

Weller did not want to know. The German guy (the mails are somewhere in my archive of such) basically said not covered, sod off.

The correct answer was "Dreadfully sorry sir - here's a replacement".

I'll never buy another Weller.

That is actually Sales Training basics. We were told that a customer who is delighted by the product, and the resolution of any problems will be vocal in recommending the company.

A perfect example of this is Cuisinart. We bought an expensive food processor of theirs about 20 years ago. 8 years later the plastic bowl and accessories were cracked and leaking. No problem, they said - here is a complete new set of plastic parts FOC. Four years ago they failed again - so they sent us the current generation of top of the range food processor free of charge - the whole darned thing. Considering that the original purchase was two decades ago, that is service above and beyond.

The opposite holds. Witness Weller with its joke after sales support.

Craig

[factory]

Originally Posted by Chris55000

Hi!

This any help?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...=1631111599310
Chris Williams

Yes, that clearly identifies the heater as being pins 1 & 2 and the sensor as being pins 3 & 4. Also gives a value of approx 7Ω for the heater element and 22Ω for the sensor (ambient temperature not given), pin 5 should be ground for the tip.
A mention of DIN 5 pin 240° socket being used for their PSU build, pins are numbered in sequence and ignore the two extra pins on the Weller PSU socket that are not used.

Originally Posted by Oldcodger

Iron or magnetic switch ? I've had a Weller 1201 for a lot of years( thinking back it's over 30 year old). Some time back it didn't heat up properly. I bypassed the magnetic (temperature) switch and all is well. I keep it mainly as a "go to " iron for quick jobs. For other stuff I've got an old Maplin electronic soldering station, but Maplins copy of the Weller is not as good. Might be worth opening the iron body and testing the element.Working in a few places with production lines I've acquired a few irons like this. This one is one of two I rescued from the bin.

Neither, the WSP80 uses a temperature sensor in the iron and given the base station/PSU has a digital display (mentioned in the OP), it must use a sand-based controller.

David