At first glance, [sprite_tm]s weller mod seemed a bit trivial. In reality, it’s like art with analog electronics. He wanted to add an indicator light for the heating element. To pull it off, he built a funky diode capacitor circuit to create a pseudo-regulated DC voltage, then used a zener diode, a potentiometer and a transistor to make a simple voltage switch that activates a transistor driven LED.
another load of usless crap roll on xmass
Posted at 6:26 pm on May 17th, 2007 by steve
lol cool, I’d like this but maybe a smaller version
Posted at 7:35 pm on May 17th, 2007 by Wolfmankurd
Neat hack, I can vouch for those old magnetic switches being unreliabe as heck… My old station would kick out every once in an while; I decided to get a new one when it stoped turning the heater off, and pumping the full 50w into the element all of the time, giving the tip a healthy orange glow…
I picked up EC2002 off ebay for about $30 shipped (it had a loose contact in the connector, the last job for the old station was resoldering the connector).
At least with mine, the base station clicks, which tells me there’s a relay in there. I have a feeling that would be a lot easier to take an on/off signal from.
But whatever works, and it’s an interesting circuit.
-KJ
Posted at 8:18 pm on May 17th, 2007 by Bones
opening the base unit can be done by removing the rubber feet and finding four screws. There is no need to pry the case open with a flatblade screw driver. I like the hack simple useful and informative :-) Another coloured LED on my bench blinking on and off impressing visitors :-)
Posted at 12:13 am on May 18th, 2007 by jeff
OK, the soldering iron is off….. so I…. turn it on and just walk away!
Posted at 7:24 am on May 18th, 2007 by Pedro
A simplere solution is to simple wind a coil of wire around one of the secondary wires, then connect each end to and LED with a very low forward voltage bias. When current flows through the heater, the coil of wire acts as a current clamp and generates a voltage like a secondary transformer coil, which then lights the LED.
–Perry
Posted at 1:19 pm on May 18th, 2007 by Perry
@5: the Weller WTCP series don’t have a relay; it’s the tip that is clicking, as the modder correctly describes.
@1: You don’t have more than one soldering iron? :-)
@9: Yes, that is an awesome idea, I may just do that with mine!
oh, and Will — “a funky diode capacitor circuit to create a pseudo-regulated dc voltage” ?? You mean a half-wave rectifier? :-)
Posted at 10:42 am on May 22nd, 2007 by akmixdown
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Yeah but once you have taken your soldering iron apart to do the mod how do you solder the circuit together?…
lol, just kidding.
Posted at 6:02 pm on May 17th, 2007 by Dax