tool wearout

[traw]

DMM starting to give me inflated voltages... is that battery wearing out or 'planned obselence' of low priced meter?

use weller wes51. seems it's also whacked. now i have to crank the temp to get it to heat up and stay heated. i think i damaged it soldering to those dang all copper binding posts. can i just get a new pencil or is it a bigger problem?

[tool49]

My DMM started acting up and after opening it, I found that it was the "brushes" of the rotary switch in front. After cleaning them up, I get good voltage reading and correct resistance value.

As for the WES51, mine use to shut off regularly in the middle of a soldering job. I changed the pot to adjust the temperature and the main board (around 35$ in parts) and voilà!

These stations are quite rugged and easy to maintain so you can just bring it to a local service point and they'll fix it for you or you can risk opening it if you're qualified enough.

Hope this helps!
Sébastien

[mrshow4u]

....I used to always use the Weller WTCP stations, with the tips that set the temperature. Then Cooper tools purchased them. I bought a Weller teperature controlled station. It failed three times within the warranty period. I didn't mess with it because it was within the warranty period. I called Weller after the third time and asked "what gives?". They asked me a few questions, then determined it was "because I was putting too much water on the sponge". Lame excuse for a bad product. The old ones, the WTCP's had some maintenance issues after ten years or so. ...thermo-switch, heater, etc. but none of the sponge is too wet crap. I'm all done with Weller. I use Hakko now. Love'm no problems good, fast tip temperature control. In my opinion, Weller was taken over by marketing, and you see what gifts marketing has left for the world.

Just another point of view.