EEVblog #1160 - Weller Responds

[EEVblog]

Weller responds to the magic smoke escaping from their WE1010 soldering station, and the lack of a primary side mains fuse.
Prepare to be awestruck at their commitment to safety!

https://weller-tools.com/we1010na/



The Current Source tears down a Weller WEP51 iron:

[Mr.B]

Weller reputation.
Toilet.
Flush...

[sibeen]

They may be typing up another letter very shortly.

ROFL - what a cluster.

[alpher]

Weller reputation.
Toilet.
Flush...

Sure, plug up 120V only device , designed mostly for professional electronic technicians to 240V and voilla:
Their reputation , what?

[ataradov]

But hey, it has safety brochure included. What else do you want?

It probably does not affect their reputation very much, but makes me personally not want to buy one for sure.

[The Soulman]

I don't like to spoil a nice rant, but does the 110V model ship with a fused plug in the supply lead?

[alpher]

It doesn't, I believe the fuse in the plug is the British only idea (thanks God).

[EEVblog]

I don't like to spoil a nice rant, but does the 110V model ship with a fused plug in the supply lead?

If it is, they should would have and should have said so in their response.
But no, I don't believe it has one, that's not a US thing.

[cdev]

A grounded product here usually has a fuse, if it has one (and something like a soldering iron really should) in the case. How much could it possibly add to the cost, maybe $1 ?

[alpher]

My Goodman AC system has no fuse between 240V and its control xfmr. It costed me $5000 to install, and it came with a defective defrost controller board, and the new board has been ordered for a week and I still haven't seen it. As a result, I'm burning electricity on heating strips to keep myself from freezing.

Proudly made in USA.

If it cost you $5000 to install you paid way too much.
Not sure about USA but it should be close, the Canadian code states that up to 15A you usually don't have to provide a primary fusing, being that the smallest size commercially available breaker is 15A and the lowest gauge acceptable for wiring is 14 and that the objective of the code is o protect the wiring.

[beanflying]

The more important question is will EEVBlog get another copyright strike for an injection of humor 

[HwAoRrDk]

I cracked open my cheapo Atten soldering station to see what that was like. It has a 1A fuse on the mains input. The transformer has a fuse symbol on it's label too, implying that is also fused! The label rates it at 5A. And to top it off, the (captive, so you can't misplace it) mains plug is also fused at 13A.

If the Weller did originally come with a fused mains cable/plug, they should have made it captive so it can't easily be lost and operated with a non-fused input. Plus then someone in Dave's situation would not have plugged it in to 240V because it has the wrong plug ("What's this bloody yank thing doing on here? Ah, it's 110V...").

[alpher]

If it cost you $5000 to install you paid way too much.
Not sure about USA but it should be close, the Canadian code states that up to 15A you usually don't have to provide a primary fusing, being that the smallest size commercially available breaker is 15A and the lowest gauge acceptable for wiring is 14 and that the objective of the code is o protect the wiring.

The system costs $1700, and local installers usually inflate that by 3x.
I know a guy who does it cheaper, and is very experienced, but at the time my AC failed, he was not in the town, and 90F was killing me in mid summer.
So I asked the company with the shortest queue, which probably is not the best idea.

The AC has a rated power of 8kW for the indoor unit, mostly dictated by the heating strip.
Sure, a failed xfmr won't burn the thick wires, but the xfmr can burn the air handler, then my house.

Ie US you don't rate AC systems in KW, guess is that you're talking about run of the mill 2 Ton system (2 ton = 24,000Btuh ).
And that XFMR wouldn't burn your house, it may have stinked it, that's all.

[alpher]

Ie US you don't rate AC systems in KW, guess is that you're talking about run of the mill 2 Ton system (2 ton = 24,000Btuh ).
And that XFMR wouldn't burn your house, it may have stinked it, that's all.

The Ton rating is for the compressor, which is powered by outdoor unit power panel.
The indoor unit only runs air handler and heat strips, aka emergency heat, and is rated in kW.
And you might be right, it is hard for that little guy to set the metal enclosure on fire, but still it is a hazard, anything mains without a fuse is one.

FYI, the past participle of stink is stank.

d,
I  really don't know if stanked is any better than stinked don't  care much anyway.

All I know is that either indoor evaporator coils or outdoor condensing units are rated firstly in BTUh then in the customary tons of refrigeration.

[coppercone2]

that transformer looks like it shit its pants. You removed a brown panel and it looked like there was a bunch of dookie in there. Clearly designed by children. It's like those old school night dress that had a flap around your butt. This one clearly got soiled.


 They are too lazy to modify a document and put a 1$ fuse holder in there with a piece of wire. I think they did it so something hard to replace fails and they can sell more or charge exorbitant repair prices. I am pretty sure you can have a 5 second over voltage on the mains easily. I don't know how it passed testing?

[lowimpedance]

A grounded product here usually has a fuse, if it has one (and something like a soldering iron really should) in the case. How much could it possibly add to the cost, maybe $1 ?

Especially with all the effort/cost that went into protecting the secondary,  leaving the primary without one is totally bewildering.

They are too lazy to modify a document and put a 1$ fuse holder in there with a piece of wire. I think they did it so something hard to replace fails and they can sell more or charge exorbitant repair prices.

Put in a thermal fuse in the transformer and achieve the same end with out burning down the owners home/work.

[alpher]

that transformer looks like it shit its pants. You removed a brown panel and it looked like there was a bunch of dookie in there. Clearly designed by children. It's like those old school night dress that had a flap around your butt. This one clearly got soiled.


 They are too lazy to modify a document and put a 1$ fuse holder in there with a piece of wire. I think they did it so something hard to replace fails and they can sell more or charge exorbitant repair prices. I am pretty sure you can have a 5 second over voltage on the mains easily. I don't know how it passed testing?

Why would they do that?

[coppercone2]

Usually people that buy lab equipment fix their own stuff. Especially broke high schools and whatever. This works and its cheaper then a thermally fused transformer.

[TheSteve]

I'm kind of tired of the rant videos - are you more worked up about the lack of a fuse or Weller's response?

It is sad there is no fuse though, I used to like Weller gear and with the prices they charge they can certainly afford a fuse.

Perhaps this is an opportunity to make a video showing why a fuse is important and how a fuse should be correctly(value/rating) sized for a given product.

[boB]

Sometimes UL (or other NRTL) will make you add a fuse internal to the transformer.  Another idea is to add a resettable fuse (PTC) next to it so that it opens up when the windings get hot.   But what UL standard did this iron get tested to ?  Most irons should be tested to the same document I would think.

Weller has been around for a very long time.  I would think that they would not move from what already works ?

I don't remember if that soldering iron base actually emitted fire or flames ? That is not allowed.  Not sure about the smoke.

What UL and others do is to place a cheese cloth over the unit and during an overload, if it marks the cloth, then it fails that test.  It can break but can't be unsafe.

[coppercone2]

I'm kind of tired of the rant videos - are you more worked up about the lack of a fuse or Weller's response?

It is sad there is no fuse though, I used to like Weller gear and with the prices they charge they can certainly afford a fuse.

Perhaps this is an opportunity to make a video showing why a fuse is important and how a fuse should be correctly(value/rating) sized for a given product.

because its annoying corporate bullshit guiding the decision not to implement a fuse. if you worked for a engineering company you would know why it makes engineers angry. especially if sales is involved. I mean if you are someone that cares about the product like you say you do when you apply. You want to work on it, do more testing, make it reliable but some guy is annoyed a document has been on his desk for too long so he pushes it through so he can say he pushed it through. Who would think this is an acceptable failure mode if you found it during testing? It even looks unclean. I would feel embarrassed. You can't even give some kind of complicated electrical mumbo jumbo as to why it broke, even a lay person can figure out its built like shit when it breaks like that. 0 class trashy.

I wonder if weller even has toilets, perhaps they shit on the floor if this looks acceptable to them.

[timelessbeing]

I don't know what all the fuss is about. So your iron spewed some smoke. So what??

This isn't evidence that it's going to "burn your lab down".  It probably would have gone open circuit and then died. It's probably packed full of fire retardants. I don't think Weller needs to go looking for certification loopholes for a two cent part. I'm also sure they also don't want to be sued.

Prove that it's dangerous first. Then you can rant.

[NiHaoMike]

My Goodman AC system has no fuse between 240V and its control xfmr. It costed me $5000 to install, and it came with a defective defrost controller board, and the new board has been ordered for a week and I still haven't seen it. As a result, I'm burning electricity on heating strips to keep myself from freezing.

Are you sure there isn't an embedded thermal fuse like most transformers have? I'm not sure why they bother with heat strips when infrared lamps are a far more efficient (probably better to say "effective") way for backup heat.

[Brumby]

I have to ask the question:  Aside from improper use (which is certainly the case for Dave's experience) has there been any confirmed problems with the lack of a mains fuse reported from units in the wild?

I'm not saying a fuse isn't worth having - it absolutely is - but have there ever been cases where these units have caused issues by not being fused on the mains side?

If they've been doing this for years and years without problems, then the argument to include a fuse becomes a bit harder to win - especially in the corporate arena.

For those who wish to argue that the moral thing to do is to add the protection of a fuse before something dramatic goes wrong, then I will point you to other corporate decisions where a known and demonstrable problem was left unaddressed because it was cheaper to deal with any lawsuits than to fix the problem properly.


It does not go unnoticed by me that the response came from Marketing.  I might suggest the Engineering people might like to make a more appropriate response to a forum frequented by EE's and like minded people, but external communications are going to be the domain of the Marketing crowd - no matter how loyal an engineer might be to the company, nor how protective they would be of its reputation.

Edit:
Even if a response from Engineering was drafted and passed to Corporate Communications for review, I can easily imagine they would not understand what the engineers said and would toss it out of fear and ignorance.

[beanflying]

I don't know what all the fuss is about. So your iron spewed some smoke. So what??

This isn't evidence that it's going to "burn your lab down".  It probably would have gone open circuit and then died. It's probably packed full of fire retardants. I don't think Weller needs to go looking for certification loopholes for a two cent part. I'm also sure they also don't want to be sued.

Prove that it's dangerous first. Then you can rant.

This Video is more about the SMOKE and Mirrors of the corporate kind. Here have a freebie and say nice things about us giving you a .....

The first video well oops I screwed up but if it had a fuse maybe it wouldn't have. That is debatable but should just serve as a warning to others as much as a rant on the lack of a fuse. For me it stopped me using a variac on a 100V Meter and I have made that meter incapable of being plugged into anything besides the 100V down converter I now have. It cost me money to do but maybe it has saved me from a cock up in the future.