You would be surprised how many of your electronics do not have a fuse.
If you plug 30V into your laptop it will also start to smoke.
Not everything is idiot-proofed.
Yeah it’s not good that they didn’t include one but it’s not as big of an issue as people make it seem.
This guy is just blowing it out of proportion to get views and money.
I don’t know if you do know that guy, but his form of delivery is quite unique and that’s completely consistent with him. He disassembled and checked tons of devices. Several times providing feedback to the manufacturer that helped to improve the product. He acts a bit affectionate, but not really overreacting imo.
Fuse .10 cents in large bulk per unit.
100,000 units = $10,000 savings + ordering and installing cost.
A normal fuse would probably have sufficed.
The thing will probably / likely draw twice the current on 240 Volts (when it’s wired for 110 Volts).
A normal fuse would have prevented that.
If not, a thermal fuse would have done the job.
It’s a shame that such a reputable brand would not incorporate a thermal fuse in their highly priced heating devices.
True, plus it gives a nice bit of weight to the station, so it will not move when you plunge back the iron in the holder.
But why didn’t they use a thermal fuse in the transformer?
That’s a matter of 2 thin spring steel wires held together by solder, somewhere in between the primary windings.
They will pull away from eachother above 170°C (depending on the solder of course) because the solder will melt, cutting off the mains current.
Like blowing a fuse, i assume… 
But i.m.o. it should be mandatory that devices have some kind of protection against potentially causing fires when the AC mains Voltage is way too high (like twice as high in this case).
It’s a matter of 1 or 2 simple parts extra.
Certainly not a problem to add to the price of Weller products i’d say.
No, but any power supply should have a fuse on the mains side.
And most of them do.
Even cheap wall warts.
I’ve been using Weller soldering Irons since the late 1960’s, and their stations since 1980. Never once had a problem because I plug mine into the right voltage. Dave Jones is an a-hole. When I told him lead free solder sucks, he went off on me. He’s a complete jerk. I’ve been soldering longer than he’s been alive. I think I know what I’m talking about.
But whether or not Dave is an a-hole is not that relevant.
Anyone should be unpleasantly surprised when they find out Weller doesn’t use a mains fuse in those stations.
I’m surprised that that’s even legal actually…
This guy is a total idiot, seriously plugging in a 110V only device into double the voltage is in almost all cases a dead device
and also a good percentage will overheat and may burn, but usually the user instantly notices he pluggen in such a device and pulls the plug before worse happens
You can do the same with PC PSUs they also start to burn in a good percentage
I got myself a more expensive Weller station than this cheap low end one and it has a fuse,
guess why there are cheaper models?
^ THIS
Any electrical device that plugs into mains voltage that is unfused should IMO be considered a very poor quality
Hmmm…. Because the ones without fuse are made under licence in China?
It’s probably not just because of the fuse…
Its always the same if you plug a 110V transformer on 240V, the main winding will burn insulation qick and short out, then the plugs fuse gets into action
If Weller was of poor quality, it would have never gotten a UL listing or approval. Dave is the idiot for plugging in a 120 volt device into a 240 volt outlet. It’s 100% his fault. Aren’t the plugs different over there? I think he did it on purpose. What a dickhead.
If this were a toaster or hot plate or some other electrical device that every house has I would understand, this is the 21st century and the evolution of self preservation has abandoned most folks born during the 90’s. This is a soldering station. Used by someone to repair, build, or modify some electrical device. A safe assumption is that if you know you need a soldering iron for something then you apparently have some rudimentary idea of AC and DC electronics. I mean really, you aren’t buying one of these things to warm your coffee or make a grilled cheese. Sort of like buying a gun, nobody buys one to put a hole in their donuts and complain that it’s the manufactures fault because it hit the dog on the other side of the donut.
You plugged a 110v device in to 220v and it smoked. Well, you’re an idiot. Get over it and buy a new soldering station.
Never leave a soldering device plugged in and leave the house. Idiot.
Never expect someone to make your safety their priority. It’s just not going to happen. They should of would of could of is a mute point. They didn’t and most likely won’t in the future. If you know you need a soldering iron you know how to be safe with it. That includes not plugging it in to twice the voltage than is required to run it safely. Take your responsibility of your own safety seriously and quit depending on others to make sure you don’t kill yourself.
Yabbut… neither do plain ol’ lightbulbs. You plug ’em into the socket, they light up. Just a small coil of W wire, base, glass envelope… that’s it.
Plug a 120V bulb into 240V, and it’ll light up really bright and then go >pouf!<. No fuse required nor wanted.
That’s all a soldering-iron is, a sub-incandescent coil of wire. A fuse wouldn’t help at all. Inrush current when the wire would be cold would be lots more then steady-state current when the coil would get up to temp. So you’d get nuisance trips (or blows in the case of a fuse vs breaker) quite often, just powering up the sucker, even at the correct voltage.
Fuses are meant to protect against catastrophic electrical faults, eg, worn enamel on a wire shorting to the case, etc., not as a current-limiter in case some lackbrain plugs a 120V device into 240V.
Also a voltage spike would usually not cause any damage, small spikes in voltage are common and easily handled by most circuitrs, unless it’s a huge voltage spike and it instantly fries the circuit.
Either way it would not cause a fire.
The smoke is from having the iron plugged in to a CONSTANT 220V, not just a quick surge.
It also happens immediately when plugged in, so there is no chance of you being out of the house when it happens.
You either plug it into the correct voltage, and there is no problem, or you plug it into the wrong voltage and immediately know you screwed up.
It won’t be in between, work for a while and then catch fire when you leave home.
Ummm, nope.
4×. ( I = E² / R )
Nope.
Lots of people think that a fuse acts like an overcurrent switch, that a 1A fuse is fine at 1A but will blow at 2A, 1.5A, 1.1A, whatever. It’s more like a lightbulb with a low lifetime when driven to overcurrent (’though to encourage blowing, now discourage).
Can’t find a nice text-based chart, but did find a graph. A normal medium-acting fuse can withstand 1.1× the rated current indefinitely, and time-to-blow just decreases with increasing current. You need something like 5× or more of the rated current to blow in a fractional-second.
Just like a lightbulb, resistance increases with temperature, so a cold soldering-iron will draw lots more current than when at steady-state temp. 4× the difference from 120V to 240V is nothing. To size-down a fuse to blow for sure at 240V (before the coil heats up sufficiently for the current to drop) will result in nuisance-blows at 120V just with repeated starts (integrated over time).
You wanna put in, say, a magnetic breaker to trip (pull-in current at X amps) at the “right” current, sure, but they’re pricey.
Depending on the kind, that could work, but they can be pricey.
Cheap thermal fuses work in hairdryers where you have airflow and can easily sense when output gets dangerously hot, but soldering irons are designed to get hot, really hot when cranked up, so it might get iffy unless you select the location and rating correctly, under the assumption that some dimwit will plug your 120V iron into 240V mains.
^ I’m pressed Lightbringer! Very clear explanation. Thanks! 
Ooh, beer…
“Primary side fuse” requirement ?
There isn’t one, AFAIK. Very few of my gadgets and appliances have such a thing.
E.g. here in the UK we have a rather unique, and technically horrible mains wiring method using ring mains, conceived in a period of austerity and materials shortages.
However it means that you can typically draw at least 30 Amps from a 240V socket (rated for 13A), as long as it is in the ring, not a spur off it, which is handy if you use an electric welder. As long as the ring is intact (which is a tricky thing to test properly, and there is no requirement to ever do so, until you sell your property.)
Our ring mains are fused, mostly with fuse wire, (or nowadays use re-settable trips) back at the “consumer unit”, at 30A. This fuse is simply to protect the house wiring. Which is only good for 15A, but because it is in a ring, capable of 30A.
We can have many “13A” sockets in the ring, however the ring is only good for 30A total, if in good condition. Which doesn’t stop people plugging in e.g. multiple 3kW heaters, 3kW electric kettles, etc. and somehow it mostly works. A really bad sign is if you have a lamp plugged in, and it dims when you turn the kettle on, or a particular socket gets hot (probable ring break).
So, in the UK, the primary fuse is in the mains plug (another horrible piece of design), and comes in various sizes. However it is common, if one blows, for the uneducated user to replace the correct smaller size one with a 13A one, because they are the most commonly used.
Important life-skills in the UK: how to wire a plug, change a fuse (and choose the correct sized one).
Our plug design is so horrible that re-wirable ones are now illegal on new domestic appliances, they have to be permanently moulded on, which give e.g. kitchen fitters all sorts of problems, when, if they were allowed to just snip them off, thread the cable through, then screw on another one, it would be so much easier. But, to be allowed to screw on a new plug, commercially, requires electrical qualifications.
They also had to be re-designed to incorporate insulation on the upper part of the pins, because small (childrens’) fingers could touch them as they were being inserted.
Other EU countries typically wire each mains socket individually back to a much larger consumer unit, and have individual trips for each outlet.
Their plugs do not contain a fuse. Nor are easily replaceable by consumers. Nevertheless the result is the same, there is a fuse in the primary circuit.
I have no idea how it works in 110V nations.
But, going back to my 110V hairdryer in a UK socket, using a cheap, commonly available, possibly illegal, un-fused travel adapter sold at airports etc., example, it rarely ends well for the hair dryer. Fortunately manufacturers seem to recognise this, and most fit one-time non-replaceable thermal fuses.
Based on an acquaintance with someone who runs an upmarket B+B with USA clientèle, and has had to deal with the consequences, sometimes even tripping out the whole floor, never mind the local disaster area.
I’ve no idea what the wiring regulations are in AUS, but I suspect that something, somewhere external to the device, should have tripped/blown as soon as that thing, predictably, shorted out. If his workshop was wired correctly.
Plugs 120 V device into 240 V outlet them complains about the outcome….
…. priceless. 
. 
The only “drama” here is this guy was a moron.