EEVblog #1160 - Weller Responds

[TheNewLab]

I am sure this has been said many times, but,

Dave you just have to accept the 240volt one and do the teardown on it. If, two for two, after all this. It would be truly revealing

Also, regarding the UL listing. You can contact UL laboratories by email and they will respond quickly to let you know if the UL rating is valid.

I did this regarding a CLC Tech bag that had a 4 plug surge suppressor and slot to put inside the bag. It didn't look right so I contacted UL, and I received a response within a day or two to learn that they had applied, accepted, then canceled. They did follow tests for some reason, then removed the UL rating.

I thought that was rather interesting.

[mikeselectricstuff]

It would be useful to ask them exactly which standards were applied for CE marking - this is sometimes included on the declaration of conformity, but I don't think it's a requirement.
It might also be good to take up their offer to see if the 230v version is any different - the 110V would only need the UL listing.

[beanflying]

If the current is higher than the fuse rating then the fuse will eventually blow, and as the fuse is always rated to blow at a lower value than the cable current handling capability of the winding then the winding will never blow. That's the basic idea of the fuse.

And a 200%+ potential overload until that happens? We are not talking about cable or insulation breakdown due to voltage which almost certainly will be fine we are talking about transformer windings and heat generation as the likely cause of failure. More power more heat what fails first? In this day and age tell me of a company who would make a consumer grade product with that sort of margin?

[coppercone2]

a Chinese one with a seemingly bad reputation does?

[sibeen]

If the current is higher than the fuse rating then the fuse will eventually blow, and as the fuse is always rated to blow at a lower value than the cable current handling capability of the winding then the winding will never blow. That's the basic idea of the fuse.

And a 200%+ potential overload until that happens? We are not talking about cable or insulation breakdown due to voltage which almost certainly will be fine we are talking about transformer windings and heat generation as the likely cause of failure. More power more heat what fails first? In this day and age tell me of a company who would make a consumer grade product with that sort of margin?

Nup, just no. This is not powering a resistive load.

[EEVblog]

Dave you just have to accept the 240volt one and do the teardown on it. If, two for two, after all this. It would be truly revealing

No, Weller should have simply said that in their response. It's shouldn't be my job to have to verify anything.
As for a 240V unit:

Also, regarding the UL listing. You can contact UL laboratories by email and they will respond quickly to let you know if the UL rating is valid.

I have no doubt it is, under the product category they listed it under.

[coppercone2]

how are they not sure if it had certification if they made it?? Do they send a few bad dogs through once in a while for fun?

[sibeen]

If the current is higher than the fuse rating then the fuse will eventually blow, and as the fuse is always rated to blow at a lower value than the cable current handling capability of the winding then the winding will never blow. That's the basic idea of the fuse.

And a 200%+ potential overload until that happens? We are not talking about cable or insulation breakdown due to voltage which almost certainly will be fine we are talking about transformer windings and heat generation as the likely cause of failure. More power more heat what fails first? In this day and age tell me of a company who would make a consumer grade product with that sort of margin?

Nup, just no. This is not powering a resistive load.

I'd better expand upon that. We could cut the wire from the secondary to the board to open circuit the secondary and exactly the same thing would have occurred when Dave plugged it in.  The power is going to be in the magnetisation current and the I²R of the primary winding - excluding eddy currents etc. If the current exceeds the rating of the current carry capability of the primary winding then a correctly sized fuse would interrupt the current before damage to the winding could occur.

[nsd_c]

There is no such company called Weller anymore. There is some nebulous "Apex Group" which acquired Weller brand name due to a series of acquisitions of acquisitions of acquisitions. As a result, they keep manufacturing (contracted in China) and selling the legacy Weller products. There are no Weller technical people left with the company to reply to your query. All that is left is marketing, lawyers and a bunch of MBAs. They have no idea about any technical stuff, all they know is that there is a certification mark, so they are OK.
When those legacy products become very obsolete, they hire some noname oem/design company to uplift their product line, and make sure they pass through the certification. Once this is done, the oem design contract is over, and Apex just manufactures and sells boxed products, having no idea how it was designed.

I think your information is kind of way off except for one aspect (which I'll get to).

I'm not sure of the exact history/timeline of the Cooper Group / Apex, but I believe that I read recently that Weller was acquired around the 70s. As evidence of this, I have a Weller soldering gun that is approximately this vintage that says "WELLER APEX" on it. I know it to be this vintage because the housing is bakelite and not the newer ABS type, and because it belonged to my grandfather. The case that I have it in is slightly older, I'd say 60s vintage, and says "Cooper Group" on it. Yet, you can find on the Internet Archive that the Cooper Group name was being used as recently as about 10 years ago, with the name switching back to Apex again in ~2010.

My (first) point being, for a good many decades while Weller was owned by the Cooper Group / Apex group, they were definitely designing new stations.

Second, I don't know that Weller has ever built any of their flagship soldering stations in China. (If so, this has been a recent development.) My understanding was that, at some point in the (late?) 90s (or thereabouts), they moved manufacturing from the US to Mexico. This is consistent with Weller stations that I have found at my place of employ, which I'd date to about the mid 90s (based on what projects they would have been purchased for and by looking at PDFs of old Weller catalogs). I have purchased a number of brand new tips (from suppliers such as Digi-Key and Mouser) as well as parts for some Weller stations (ET and PT series tips and components) in the past year, and these have all been mfg'd in Mexico. I did recently purchase a Weller fume extractor that was made in China, however. (But this seems to be a rebadge of a generic fume extractor; e.g., Tenma sells an identical looking unit.)

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist (), my belief is that (and this gets back to your theory) development of new Weller products ceased in the US approximately when manufacturing was moved to Mexico (if not at the same time). If you look at Weller catalogs from the late 90s/early 2000s, then compare their product line-up year after year to that point, you'll notice that, yes, they have been producing the same few "legacy" soldering stations since then: the WES51 and WESD51 (with variable temp control and use ET series tips), and the WTCPT (MagnaStat-based and uses the corresponding older PT series tips with the TC201 handpiece). I will point out that the WTCPT is visually identical to the WTCPS, which you can find images of both with and without "Made in USA" visible on the front (implying that mfg. moved to Mexico during the production of the WTCPS). The WES51 power supply appears to be nearly visually the same as the older EC1002, except that the EC1002 used a larger handpiece, similar in appearance to the TC201 (which I believe shares some parts).

To address this point and continue my theory,

When those legacy products become very obsolete, they hire some noname oem/design company to uplift their product line, and make sure they pass through the certification.

I believe that the "noname oem/design company" here is actually Weller's German-based offices. I use as evidence the fact that, at some point in the early 2000s, all of the new Weller models started to gain visual styling that diverged from the WTCPT and WES51. In addition, these newer models used vastly different tips, and it seems that they've even started to move to cartridge-based heaters at some point in the past ~ten years.

I also point to catalogs from a couple years back where nearly every soldering station can be seen to indicate "Made in Germany" prominently on the front panel. Note that that particular catalog appears intended for the European market and does not show any of the US legacy models (WES51, WTCP, etc.).

It might be the case that newer Weller units are being made in China, though, as I noticed that photos of the same Weller stations that, in that catalog, all say "Made in Germany" now do not on Weller's current website. (Can anyone confirm/deny this?)

Also, btw, if you go to the US Weller website (e.g., this page) and do a "View Image" (or equivalent) in your browser, images are hosted on a web server with a .de web address, such as:

https://media-weller.de/phpthumb/phpThumb.php?&w=412&h=343&bg=ffffff&far=1&f=jpeg&q=85&src=../weller/data/images/images%202/WX_1_T0053417699.jpg

One last thing, if you search "Weller made in Germany," you can find old marketing gibberish such as this:

The success story of Weller is built on the success factors of passion, innovative spirit, open-mindedness, German manufacturing and quality.

For over 50 years Weller has been passionately developing, designing, manufacturing and selling its products at its German location in the Swabian town of Besigheim. The Weller team of skilled and dedicated professionals manufactures high-quality soldering products in Germany using highly complex production processes.

A number of employees have been with the company for decades and so are able to pass on their extensive experience and know-how to young and motivated co-workers.

Consistent quality assurance, sustainable production and high development standards have made Weller the world market leader in manual soldering systems.

"Made in Germany" is a seal of approval for the Weller name - a name synonymous with quality, reliability and innovative spirit. It symbolizes the trust people place in products made in Germany and embodies the highest quality standards in the global market.

Aaaaand one last thing: the guy in that marketing video that Dave linked to sounds awfully German.

So, TL;DR: Weller US branch moved operations to Mexico, probably laid off all US engineering staff. Weller German offices probably existed prior to this move and continued to exist to be able to sell Weller products to the European market. Their offices there designed new units for the European market, and those were ported to the US market slowly. Eventually someone high up decided to hand the reigns of the US Weller branch more or less fully over to the German branch.

[FrankBuss]

My Ersa i-con has a primary side fuse, and a spare fuse. Attached is a mini-slideshow-teardown

[coppercone2]

It's no excuse because they are using the brand name and the model number. You can get a recommendation that this thing was good and then you buy the same spec and its missing a fuse or something? If they don't maintain quality over time then its a bullshit brand. It's cutting your own product line with unknown crap. You don't do this.

If they were smart they would randomly pick some of their over seas units and throw a few in to the final inspection phase of their primary line (if they are good enough to have one) to make sure they are not producing crap. Not drop shipping stuff.

I am kinda laughing about von neumann machine behavior of production lines. You setup a alternate line in Germany, then the German manager sets one up in Mexico, then the guy in Mexico decides to set one up in China, then the Chinese decide to set one up in Africa. Then in the end you end up with a portion of your brand being assembled with a wood fueled PCB oven ran out of a cave in ISIL contested territory by American funded freedom fighters........

There is a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits episode about this about some kinda military mind reading machine that ended up getting over produced by accident and no one can track it down.

[Muttley Snickers]

I don't know what Dave wrote when he initially contacted Weller and he didn't state that in the video but either way I thought the response from Weller was less than adequate, rather disappointing in fact.   

Somebody also mentioned in the Youtube comments that they believed this series of soldering station to have an illuminated LCD display as shown in all the brochures and marketing material and apparently they don't, again Weller's response was a joke. I won't be buying another Weller product.   

[EEVblog]

I don't know what Dave wrote when he initially contacted Weller and he didn't state that in the video but either way I thought the response from Weller was less than adequate, rather disappointing in fact.   

I wrote:

Please forward this to the appropriate person if it's not you.
Not sure if you have seen my video, but my WE1010 smoked and could
have started a fire.
Sure I goofed and plugged into 240V instead of 110V, but the unit has
no safety fuse on the primary winding to prevent a fire hazard in case
of transformer failure. This is very bad, and many people are
wondering how it passed UL certification.
(Forum and videos links)
It would be nice if we could get some sort of official response from
Weller on this.

[EEVblog]

Somebody also mentioned in the Youtube comments that they believed this series of soldering station to have an illuminated LCD display as shown in all the brochures and marketing material and apparently they don't, again Weller's response was a joke. I won't be buying another Weller product.   

Official photoshopped product promotional image used by them and countless dealers:


What it actually looks like:

[mikeselectricstuff]

Out of curiosity, was your 110V unit CE marked?

[EEVblog]

Out of curiosity, was your 110V unit CE marked?

No

[EEVblog]

What's crazy is they have no less than 2 fuses and a massive polyswitch on the secondary side. Not all of those are needed, and that extra secondary fuse could have paid for the primary fuse. It's wacko.

[coppercone2]

i don't know how a EE, even fresh out of college, would not realize the secondary can short out from many different reasons and that secondary fuses won't help with that, or that the primary can short out either.


Thats why I said its a money maker of some kind.

[Towger]

What's crazy is they have no less than 2 fuses and a massive polyswitch on the secondary side. Not all of those are needed, and that extra secondary fuse could have paid for the primary fuse. It's wacko.

I firmly believe this is a manufacturing (lost in translation) mistake, but they don't want to admit it.  But, still think there should be a thermal fuse in the transformer.  Everything else which uses a linear power supply seems to have one, certainly in 220~240v land.

[EEVblog]

FYI, for those asking why I found their reply so inadequate. My contact at Weller who passed on the question to higher up came back to me to assure me they weren't fobbing me off and they were busy working on a formal response, so it was kinda like the response was hyped up, and then I got the lackluster Dear Sir response.

[EEVblog]

What's crazy is they have no less than 2 fuses and a massive polyswitch on the secondary side. Not all of those are needed, and that extra secondary fuse could have paid for the primary fuse. It's wacko.

I firmly believe this is a manufacturing (lost in translation) mistake, but they don't want to admit it.  But, still think there should be a thermal fuse in the transformer.  Everything else which uses a linear power supply seems to have one, certainly in 220~240v land.

But this (lack of primary fuse) was done on two different models, bot bottom end units. Seems like a very deliberate choice.

[coppercone2]

protection money

[Brumby]

But this (lack of primary fuse) was done on two different models, bot bottom end units. Seems like a very deliberate choice.

Especially when (I would expect) they would have had pre-production units, engineering samples and a few prototypes to have reviewed before manufacture began.

There's no way in hell the manufactured unit should have had a "surprise" like a missing mains fuse.  It would have been a very deliberate decision to build them as they are.

[jmaja]

If the current is higher than the fuse rating then the fuse will eventually blow, and as the fuse is always rated to blow at a lower value than the cable current handling capability of the winding then the winding will never blow. That's the basic idea of the fuse.

And a 200%+ potential overload until that happens? We are not talking about cable or insulation breakdown due to voltage which almost certainly will be fine we are talking about transformer windings and heat generation as the likely cause of failure. More power more heat what fails first? In this day and age tell me of a company who would make a consumer grade product with that sort of margin?

Nup, just no. This is not powering a resistive load.

I'd better expand upon that. We could cut the wire from the secondary to the board to open circuit the secondary and exactly the same thing would have occurred when Dave plugged it in.  The power is going to be in the magnetisation current and the I²R of the primary winding - excluding eddy currents etc. If the current exceeds the rating of the current carry capability of the primary winding then a correctly sized fuse would interrupt the current before damage to the winding could occur.

I don't know that much about transformers. What does actually hapen with increased voltage? Without a secondary load a perfect transformer doesn't take any power. I measuser my 230 V Ersa to have about 2H (measured at 100 Hz using DE-5000) and 42 ohm primary side. Simulating that (just an inductor) with LTSpice I got 5.7 W idle power at the transformer. I added a 1 ohm fuse. It took 135 mW.

Doubling the voltage changed these values to 22.9 W and 540 mW. Since the fuse must be able to handle about 100 W, which equals to 0.43 A and 430 mW at 1 ohm, it wouldn't cut the circuit at 540 mW, but the transformer can probably handle 23 W.

If the inductor is no longer 2H at the increased voltage, it's a different story. Decreasing it to just 1H increases the power at the inductor to 91 W and power at the fuse to 2.1 W, which would probably blow the fuse.

What would happen, if somebody applied DC? At least 100 W could be put to the transformer causing it to overheat before the fuse blows.

[Fungus]

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

Would it respond fast enough? Dave said this went up in seconds.