[sdiy] Perverse Nature of Equipment...

[Batz Goodfortune]

Y-ellow Jim 'n' all.
         My heart goes out to you...

At 12:31 PM 4/5/03 -0800, patchell wrote:

>     I can't believe it...the heating element in my WTCPT Weller Iron
>just died...just when I needed it not to fail me.  Doing some last
>minute work on stuff I am going to bring to the below meet.  Similar
>thing happeded last June...while finishing up the Mikado, my crimping
>tool broke.  A new iron should be here on Wed...(fortunatly a
>replacement iron is not overly expensive...I could have replaced the
>heater for $15, but after looking at this thing, over 20 years old, it
>seemed best to replace it, the plastic is cracking, the cord is showing
>signs of wear...).

I'm glad you could get replacement bits so cheap. That's what I would have 
done a few years back when mine gave up the ghost but it wasn't to be so. 
It was a Friday morning when it died. I'd planned on doing a lot of 
soldering over the weekend. I managed to find the only one available in the 
whole frigging town and get them to send it to me by currier.

Right from the start I didn't like the design of the new irons. The pencil 
was the same but having the holder separate to the transformer was really 
annoying. Every time I'd go to pick the iron up I'd drag the base and all 
with me and the transformer box it self is shaped stupidly so you couldn't 
even glue or strap the base to it. This thing cost me just under 200 clams BTW.

Maybe a year later I was working one day and it died again. Last time it 
was the element in the iron that died so naturally that's where I started. 
It took me some time to figure it out but eventually I figured I was 
chasing a red herring and opened up the transformer box.

Inside I discovered a transformer which was only a bit over half the size 
of the original one. They'd scrimped on the transformer to the point where 
it was right on the edge of the current needed to run the iron. So to safe 
guard that, they placed this stupid "SOLDERED IN" in-line fuse between the 
transformer and the socket. For a start, the only way to get it out is with 
a soldering iron. DER!!!! And of course it was the fuse that was blown.

But it was not an ordinary 3AG or whatever. It was some damn cheap-assed 
proprietary thing and it had no rating stamped on it. The only other iron I 
had to unsolder it was something a friend dumped on me at some point. She'd 
bought it in Holland so it had the wrong plug. So first I had to modify that.

After looking at the fuse and all things considered, I just thought. 
"Bugger this!" And decided to crack out my old transformer. But there was 
one more snag waiting me. The cheap plastic proprietary plug on the thing 
had broken years ago. I replaced it with the only suitable (current wise) 
plug I had at the time. A 4 pin Jones plug. So in essence, what I had to do 
was pull the connecting hardware out of the new one and put it into the old 
one. Which meant even more modifications. Grinding, cutting and shaping.

I have to say that the net result is brilliant. The transformer's in the 
base so the holder is stable. You don't have to fill the sponge with half a 
liter of water just to keep it wet. And the transformer is pokey enough to 
handle the job.

But here in lies my beef. Comparing the old one to the new one, they've 
scrimped so much over the years. The old one was/is ergonomically designed 
and had more than enough grunt so as it wouldn't fail. The new ones are 
right on the edge and really badly designed IMHO. The things are made so 
cheaply these days that I'm sure I'd never buy another one. Except, what 
else is there? Some cheap-assed Dick Smith or Tandy crap that's even worse? 
And you can always get Weller tips. Chances are that 2 years down the line 
you won't be able to find anything that actually fits a Tandy or Duck 
Smuth's iron. (Which has been known.) And is there even anything better out 
there?

Considering the money I had to pay for the thing. And this was from the 
distributor here BTW. And their insistence that If I did want just the 
pencil it would only be 20 or 30 dollars less than the whole thing anyway. 
I feel considerably cheated.

The old one has this nice big furgie flat pack in it. The new one has a 
transformer that even dick smith wouldn't put on the shelf. With just over 
half the VA. I feel that Wellers aren't what they use to be. And like so 
many other companies these days, are trading on the reputation they use to 
have. We buy Wellers thinking we're getting the best and most reliable but 
that just isn't the case anymore it would seem.

Bad Weller. Naughty Weller. Grrrrr.

Be absolutely Icebox.

  _ __        _       ____Happiness is a warm penguin____
| "_ \      | |
| |_)/  __ _| |_ ____       ALL ELECTRIC KITCHEN
|  _ \ / _` | __|___ |  Yeti music by Yetis for Yetis
| |_) | (_| | |_  / /
|_,__/ \__,_|\__|/ /    Disgusting-> http://all-electric.com
                 / ,__   Music -----> http://mp3.com/electrickitchen
Goodfortune    |_____|  Cult  -----> http://www.subgenius.com