before Dave's shocking discovery, I trusted the Weller name.
having seen it, in electronics magazines for yrs. as a sign of safety , reliability & quality used by the professionals.
sad to see this is no longer true!
Would a fuse have saved it?
Remember that fuses for the wrong voltage tend to be twice the rated current of what they should be.
Luckily, Daniel and other kind people from KS are extremely helpful, but that's only in US. I've heard news from India and Saudi Arabia that the service there are not nearly as good as it is in the US. So it's a YMMV thing.
keep in mind chinese stuff has other problems, like those hot air stations that the handle actually catches on fire. bad plastics/thermal design
Anyway that smoke out from the Weller could have triggerd a smoke detector... you know what can happen next.I know exactly what happens next, someone gets annoyed by the beeping and has to disable the smoke detector
More than that, in a commercial environment it could cost you thousands of dollars for a fire brigade attendance, the adjoining businesses would also be required to evacuate the building losing time and money as well and no doubt giving you a bad reputation with the neighbours, and for what?, the lack a ten cent fuse.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-1160-weller-responds/msg2048764/#msg2048764
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/pull-in-case-of-fire!/msg707589/#msg707589
Anyway that smoke out from the Weller could have triggerd a smoke detector... you know what can happen next.I know exactly what happens next, someone gets annoyed by the beeping and has to disable the smoke detector
More than that, in a commercial environment it could cost you thousands of dollars for a fire brigade attendance, the adjoining businesses would also be required to evacuate the building losing time and money as well and no doubt giving you a bad reputation with the neighbours, and for what?, the lack a ten cent fuse.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-1160-weller-responds/msg2048764/#msg2048764
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/pull-in-case-of-fire!/msg707589/#msg707589
So its somehow Weller's fault if someone overreacts?
Years ago I got pages to replace a terminal in a dispatch center the next town over. When I arrived the monitor wasn't there and when I asked where it was the dispatcher said he tossed it out the back door as it was putting out smoke. So I put the replacement in place and picked up the old one from out back, tossed it in the truck and went home and back to bed.
He didn't over-react, just tossed it so he didn't have to smell the smoke. Imagine if everyone over-reacted and called the fire department every time an iphone battery went up in smoke.
The dispatcher did say he was tempted to tone out the fire department which shared the building since it would have been humorous to call the fire department for a fire in the fire department
Would a fuse have saved it?
Yes.
Can you please show your data proving this?
You're asking for data showing that fuses work?
they do it for the high end customer
you don't know how cost reduction works in a corporate setting do you?
... the fuse that would be fitted by Weller, that is large enough that it would not cause nuisance fuse opens under normal operation in the long term at the usual 110-130 volts you see in North America
So you had better luck with cheapo stuff?
I have a Quick 957DW that has been serving me since 2014, and a Owon VDS3102L since 2014, though I don't use it that often. It's used as a portable USB scope for field works.
I also have an Analog Discovery since the same time, and it's been used occasionally on MCU projects. It's still working fine.
Also on my list is a Uni-T insulation meter. It blew up a Fluke and survived (purely my fault). I use it for testing PSUs I made.
And none of them run chips below their rated minimum operating voltage, and we can't take that as granted.
Thats not what I said. It performed just as the UL test said, it didn't burn down his house.
I know exactly what happens next, someone gets annoyed by the beeping and has to disable the smoke detector
FWIW, I looked at my Weller WSD81, with the intent of adding a line fuse to it, and found that it already had one. Has one of the IEC power inlets with the little slide-out drawer for fuse access.
I guess that fuse only gets omitted on the "cheaper" models?
It looks that way, I have the same fuse. So how much was that station?
As far as the fuse blowing out of nuisance, I guess you have never heard of time delay fuses or resettable PTC's.