Aoyue 2930 quandry

[koentav]

Hi,

I bought an Aoyue 2930 from Wiltec last week. This weekend I took it out, put the included tip in the handle and soldered with it for about an hour, varying the temperature between 370 and 400 degrees. The iron heated up very quickly and was a pleasure to use. Alas, after an hour of very gentle use Err 1 came on the display and the iron stopped heating.

After a few email exchanges with Wiltec, and measuring resistances of the heating element and sensor in the tip (both very high), it was concluded that the tip is broken and needs replacing. When I asked Wiltec about guarantee, they said tips don't come with it, and I just need to buy a new one.

I don't want to be going through one tip per hour (these things aren't cheap!), and I wonder if I've just been unlucky with a bad tip, or it's actually the station itself that is frying the tip?

I guess I won't know until I buy a new tip, but I would like to have an idea what the probabilities of both cases are.

Thanks for any advice,

Koen.

[Rasz]

When I asked Wiltec about guarantee, they said tips don't come with it

aww thats cute, tell them to pound sand while  giving you full refund or replacement/fixed product ... unless you are from US or some other third world country when it comes to customer rights

[koentav]

I'm in the UK, Wiltec are in Germany.

I've ordered two tips from pcb soldering in the UK, who were very helpful, and indicated that the station is most likely ok, and that new tips do occasionally fail very early on, but that they then replace those.  I should have bought from them really, but they don't carry the 2930 and I had my eyes set on that.

Wiltec normally have good customer reviews,  and I know someone personally who had great dealings with them. I guess I just ran into the wrong support guy.

Koen.

[Kjelt]

What were you soldering? Normally for leaded solder the solder temperature is around 300-340^oC. I only raise the temperature for a short while if I have to solder something with more mass and too lazy to change the tip to a bigger one.

[koentav]

I was using lead free solder as I was soldering with my young daughter, and prefer to be on the safe side.

She did some first time soldering at a maker faire type thing, and enjoyed it so much that I decided to upgrade my old mains iron to a safer low voltage device (well, that was the excuse I gave my wife anyway!). 

We were just tinning wire, playing around with some LEDs, and then desoldered a potentiometer that needed cleaning.

[Bored@Work]

I bought an Aoyue 2930 from Wiltec last week.
...
When I asked Wiltec about guarantee, they said tips don't come with it, and I just need to buy a new one.

That's service, German-style ...

Give them a choice. Ask them if they want (a) or (b):

Option (a) You will cancel the order under recent EU consumer rights directive. You need to do that within 14 days and have some obligations when you do that. Make sure you get up-to-date information, since the rules changed just a few month ago. Also tell them that you will refuse to compensate them for the broken tip. Although they might still ask for compensation, and not refund you in full.

Option (b) They fulfill their obligations under consumer sales laws, which gives you something like two years of warranty when you buy new new goods (make sure you check first). And there is likely nothing in the law that excluded new soldering tips. Funny enough, their English TOS even specifies the sales is under British law, and for the warranty they just specify "The statutory consumer rights will apply." So ask them to send a new tip for free.

(a) means they end up with a used soldering station which they likely can't sell again at full price. (b) means they are just out of the money for a new tip and shipping. If they are clever they might go with (b).

Make sure they don't give you the runaround so you miss the 14 day deadline. BTW, no need to be extremely polite in your mails. They'll interpret this as a sign of weakness.

[Rasz]

I'm in the UK, Wiltec are in Germany.

I've ordered two tips from pcb soldering in the UK, who were very helpful, and indicated that the station is most likely ok, and that new tips do occasionally fail very early on, but that they then replace those.  I should have bought from them really, but they don't carry the 2930 and I had my eyes set on that.

Wiltec normally have good customer reviews,  and I know someone personally who had great dealings with them. I guess I just ran into the wrong support guy.

Koen.

all EU, ask for full refund then, whats the problem?