Solering iron element source

[Harry Bloomfield]

harry expressed precisely :

Really, you obviously do not do much in the way of small repair work. I gave up on sticking old copper irons in the fire long ago lol

I would disagree. Many things are not intended to facilitate repair, but none the less they can be repaired. I've saved thousands of pounds simply repairing things rather than throwing things away.

Put simply - Because the value of stuff has dropped as the complexity and wages of experienced and capable staff has increased. The repairers these days at best just swap out complete modules. So likely as not a new module will then fail with exactly the same problem in the future.

Examples - our drier /washing machine stopped drying. I traced the problem to a none resetable bi-metal thermal trip. I drilled a tiny hole in a appropriate place in the the trip and reset it, after sorting out the cause of the trip - lint blocking the air flow.

Later on another fault developed, where the processor would regularly crash mid way through a program. I traced that issue to a failing 20p capacitor which I replaced with an uprated one, since when there have been no more issues. It had failed just outside the warranty period.

I have since found numerous others have have the very same issues with the same model and have been able to document the fix. Cost of a commercial repair was quoted as £170 - £200, which no doubt would fail

13 month later. Cost of my repair 20p + an hour of my time resulting in a more reliable repair. I am aware of at least a dozen others who have now been able to use my fixes, to sort there problem out - so obviously the designer cut corners in under specifying the part.

Four years ago I was given a top of the range dishwasher, which had failed after just a few months of use. It was installed in a commercial premises, so wasn't covered by a warranty and the cost of getting it repaired was close to the cost of a new one. I fixed that in just a few minutes an it is still going strong.

Not a matter of penny pinching, I derive some enjoyment from fixing the unfixable and learning something in the process.

[Harry Bloomfield]

harry formulated the question :

I have a choice of around 10 or 15 irons plus vacuum desolderers. The above is my standard iron for small bench work and it work(ed) rather well. My backup to it is a 40 year old 50v GPO telecoms iron, a left over from my time working at the GPO.

[Harry Bloomfield]

on 05/04/2012, Man at B&Q supposed :

It may surprise you to know that most of the electronics in the country comes from the far east. Having pulled it apart it is quite well built, the failure of the element was likely due to a one off manufacturing fault which all manufacturers suffer.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I think that silly. Maplin will supply the spare part mail order at the same sort of low value order surcharge as RS etc. About 2.50 p&p. That you don't like the way the shops charge for special order stuff is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Thanks for confirming you're a wanker.

In this case the element is designed to be replaceable. As it is in any iron worthy of buying.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

All elements fail eventually - depending on use. Same as tips.

[Theo Markettos]

CPC operate differential order codes. For example, a TV they stock has code 'AV21027' at 359+VAT. But if you look in their current Techbook ('Publications' section of the website) it's 349+VAT, with a code of AV2102704. If you search for that specific code you get the discount, but if you search for the model number only the full price shows up.

So if you know this month's two-digit brochure suffices (each brochure has a different one and they change every month) you can try to see if it's available discounted. Maybe someone could write a script to automate this?

Theo

[Man at B&Q]

Did I say otherwise?

MBQ

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If it were an iron left on all day (and maybe night too - I've seen that)

2 years might not be a bad life. Especially when the replacement is so cheap. You won't get a 'decent make' spare element for that sort of price.

[whisky-dave]

No, we use them for health and safety reasons too. In a student teaching lab, it's less of a worry if they rest the iron on the cable amonst other things they could do. I think our surface mount soldering staion use low volages ESD soldering irons, the bits are about =A320 each. Think we using 26 swg solder but that seems a little large compared to last year, which might have been 32 swg.

The whole setup cost about =A35k which isn;t just the soldring irons but the microscope too. Planning on gettingn a video camera for it too at some point.

Tell me it's not because of low voltage TC irons is it ;-)

[whisky-dave]

RS charge us =A310 for things they don;t stock, and farnell charge us =A315.95 for things their parent compnay newbury stock in the USA. Been waiting for 8 MOSFETs that's under 40p each from them which says

3 days delivery.

doubt the P&P for 8 of these is =A316 even from the US first class !

On 14th March I was told they'd be despatched immediatley they become availible.

Oh and I brought one of those Maplin Irons a couple of years ago when they were on special offer for a little under =A340 IIRC.

=A0 London SW

[Nick Odell]

Okay, I realise that as soon as I hit "send" I'm going to have my front door broken down by the Health and Safety Police but if I'm working on a project involving soldering I'm likely to keep my Weller iron switched on all day with the tip in a jar of water. I've never electrocuted myself (or anyone else) never tripped an RCD and never burned out an element. The type of work that I do means long periods between solder joints and if I were to switch the iron off I would have to keep waiting for it to reach operating temperature and I've never considered the quantity of soldering work I do would justify an instant heat gun. This way I don't have to clean and re-tin the tip too often either.

Nick

[Bob Eager]

If it's worth it and I have the time, I try different suffices until I find one that works!

[Bob Eager]

I found a similar thing with a particular model of Brother knittng machine (one of the electronic ones). I ended up documenting the fix and sending out kits of capacitors to lots of people.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Nick Odell formulated on Thursday :

That is the situation where a temperature controlled iron is the better option. No tip burn through over heating and you have much more heat output capacity than you would expect from such a small tip, you start soldering a joint and rather than the tip having it heat rapidly drawn out of it, the element just just generates more heat in response. You just dial in the exact temperature you need for the job.

[Harry Bloomfield]

on 05/04/2012, Dave Plowman (News) supposed :

It has had possibly 20 hours total run time since new, absolutely no wear in evidence on the only tip used with it. I just have not had much time for such work for a few years.