People wrote...
The Weller WTC series uses a magnetic tip to control
temperature. When the
magnet heats up it loses strength and the heater switch opens, when the
magnet cools down the switch closes.. This works but it makes it difficult
to solder jumpers to restore cuts in PCB traces. Capacitor leads are often
made of steel. The lead wants to stick the tip.
Another thing is the WTC irons produce a lot of electrical line noise as
the
heater power cycles. In the early 1980s we were
designing a digital
instrument that would reset (lockup) when used on the same power circuit
as
our soldering irons. Seeing as how most of our
customers would have a
soldering iron next to our unit we had to fix this. We rigged a Weller WTC
soldering station with the iron replaced by a relay that cycled on and off
as a noise generator. A power line filter on our instrument fixed the
problem.
Aren't these shortcomings in the older weller irons, and in the cheaper WTC
irons? I wasn't talking about the WTC irons. I was talking about the WES 51
specifically, which I don't believe has these issues.
Jay