Chris,
I have also bought the 2 irons, the weller for $35 and the blue equiv for $14.95. Both are good and much better price than the Weller's at $100-200.
One note they are not temp controlled. The pot on the front esentially sets the power or rate at which the iron heats.
For gov work and many more manufacturing they would not be accepted, but for most of us they are very good. One company I deal with on items like this and sell the blue version I pass out their cat to other electonic gurus for they have many such items. One of the people I use to build some of my products I supplied one of the Weller irons and it does very good job.
73, ron, n9ee/r
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--- In Electronics_101@..., "lcdpublishing" <lcdpublishing@...> wrote:
I generally don't buy brand names anymore - been there, done that, and got burned doing it. As Stefan has said, way too many brand names that were once trusted are no longer worthy. Sony is my banned brand name. For a company that spent so much time touting their quality for so many years when they started out, I can't rememeber the last time I had a sony product that was any better than the dollar store, chinese made hack-outs.
The soldering iron I replaced is the $14.00 copy of the Weller unit. It has a plastic base (mine is blue, weller's is red), a dial to set temp but not a scaled dial, a sponge holder and the coiled iron holder on the right side. The weller unit sells for more than twice the price and I could not tell the difference between the two except for the color. I use a professional model weller at work and it is a good tool too, nothing wrong with it.
Chris
--- In Electronics_101@..., Stefan Trethan <stefan_trethan@> wrote:
The problem is Terrance that often they abuse our trust.
Many, make that almost all, of the brands we are very fond of have
strayed on the path of cheap imports.
I know of many cases where they tried passing off cheap imports as the
real thing, and at times have badly fallen on their greedy arse,
plainly speaking.
Some of the companies have learnt, and stayed away from this sort of
business. Some of the companies have degraded and only sell cheap
goods now, others have split off an economy line or brand etc.
There's a lot of Tek gear that's not Tek at all, but bought in. Power
supplies, handheld scopes, meters, probably other stuff too. The
quality isn't Tek either. I don't know if they still do that, but the
quality of Tek gear has dropped so dramatically compared to say 10
year and older stuff there is probably no need. I would not buy
another Tek scope without carefully testing a demo unit. There must be
a reason why the current TPS2024 has a worse step response than my 20+
year old 7D20, price is a big part I'm sure.
I don't know if Fluke bought in, I'm not aware of any models. There's
some flaws and engineering mistakes in some of the meters, but nobody
is without fault. Anyway they manufacture in china now (like anyone),
you can get some models cheaper with chinese markings (I have a
voltage tester), intended for the chinese market. If anyone knows of a
Fluke meter that isn't really fluke engineering, let me know ;-).
I'm not a Weller man, so I know little about their tools. Ersa has
similar reputation, but even they have a desoldering tool in their
history which they'd rather not discuss (it looks strikingly similar
to some of the asian brands).
Don't get me wrong, there are good tools, damn good tools that make
other junk look like, well, junk. And there are some really decent
brands that mostly have good quality. But there are some black sheep,
and some bad decisions.
I don't trust the brand any more, I trust the individual item. A good
brand is a plus for me, but I will not blindly trust any more.
Do I need to mention the (now two!) sets of worthless miniature
craftsman spanners I have sitting around? I specially imported them
from the US following recommendation, meanwhile craftsman had severely
changed the quality from a decent tool to worthless stamped-out crap
;-)
ST
On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 7:05 PM, Terrance<evilterrance@> wrote:
You've really piqued my curiosity with this as well. ?After using junk for years, I got my first Weller. ?It changed my life. ?I haven't used anything else since. ?While it is hard for me to believe a $90 station will outperform my Weller...I would love for this to be true. ?Anybody with hands on experience with both, please speak up!
I'm not normally a brand-loyal zealot, but lately:
If the multimeter isn't a Fluke, no thanks
If the scope isn't a Tek, pass
If the soldering station isn't a Weller, "I'm busy"
Do we all get this stubborn as we age?
-Terrance
