Findings in failed WP80 solder pencil and WD1 solder station - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2024, 06:30:49 pm
content: Hi,Doing a rush job and need soldering....but WP80 solder pencil with WD1 solder station was not properly heating up. At this moment, dont have the luxury of time to do full diagnosis, but have taken the solder station and pencil to pieces.There appears to be no bad connections or visible burning or damage.So i put it back together with a view to looking at it more fully later on......but when i switched it on after re-assembling it, it now doesnt work at all.What surprised me was there is a mains rated TO220 thyristor in there, which means it cant be using that magnastat temperature control.There appear to be a lot of wires going up into the heating element PCB....i mean. surely all it needs is the power wires, and the temperature sense signal wire.?Will commence future diagnosis by desoldering the pencil cable wires from the heater pencil PCB...then probe the ends to see if the transformer voltage is coming up the cable wires.Will take the resistance reading of the pencil heater by probing on the pencil PCB......do you know how many ohms to expect?Is there an overheat_switch_off inside the pencil?Will insert a current sense resistor in the pencil cable power wire and check that current is correct per the power setting.The WP80 pencil is said to be 80w rated, but the WD1 is only said to be 50W rated..so i suppose its allright that way round.Weller catalog:https://www.paperturn-view.com/us/weller-tools/weller-the-original-nam-2019?pid=Njk69558&p=183&v=1.143..the weller catalog lists the WP80 on page 106, and concerns the LT tips on page 142, however, there are no schems of the internals.The WD1 soldering station doesnt even get a mention in the catalog...let alone schems for repairists.The weller catalog has an index on page 4...but there is no mention of the WP80 solder pencil in this......and if you do a CONTROL-F search, it simply doesnt work in their catalog....so you have to scroll through page by page till you get to page 106 in order to find the details on the WP80 solder pencil...and when you get there, there is no detail to help a repairist.

author: Kean
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 22, 2024, 06:51:05 pm
content: As usual, your post is a mix of confusion and nonsense statements/questions.I am honestly not all that surprised it doesn't work after you re-assembled it.To recap:Weller WTCP 51 is a Magnastat based soldering station with a fixed temperature which is set by the tip in use.Weller WD1 is a more traditional temperature controlled soldering station. It is rated at 80W.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2024, 09:06:54 pm
content: Do you have access to a gas ring?You started this thread over a week ago, talk about procrastinating...https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/weller-wtcp-51-solder-station-and-tcp-s-pencil-not-working/

author: stj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2024, 04:28:39 pm
content: 5 wires,2 for heater,2 for thermister1 for earth.did you check the cable end to end for breaks?probably not.