Not all of us sound like Dave lol
As i said earlier the plug is a IEC C14 standard plug you plug any voltage into the back!
You have a man’s voice, Dave on the other hand………….
Sorry, but Dave rubs me the wrong way. I just don’t like the guy.
It was certainly sold with a power cord to plug into that IEC C14 the day it was unboxed. And people don’t just unplug the cord for no reason.
Yes understandable but i my self do this with PCs that are not in use.
I am all for the consumer even if you think Dave is an idiot i think its wrong for Wella to do this. It is UL listed as an industrial piece of equipment which is on the dodgy side of things. Probably puts them at the same level as Volkswagen lol.
You wouldn’t expect this from Hakko?
Most people will never plug this iron into 240v unless you are at an industrial site where this iron is meant to be used apparently. If it had a fixed plug id think he was a knob but it doesn’t. I have seen PSU go bang cause people had them on the 110v setting so it happens.
This may come as a surprise to you, but the vast majority of the world uses 220-240 Volt mains supply. At 50 Hz.
EU harmonised level between 216.2 volts and 253 volts. Yes that’s right we use a quarter of a kiloVolt, quite safely, between live and neutral (ground). As opposed to a wimpy 110V supply, not ground-referenced, so if you touch a conductor you might get a 55V shock. You get much more of a belt here, but I’ve survived many.
I blame Thomas Edison, he didn’t like AC, in fact invented the electric chair to demonstrate the supposed lethality of it. What a charming man. A belt from DC is quite another matter, you won’t be able to let go, or be thrown off, at high voltages (over say 50V) it is seriously scary stuff. Those who muck about with EV battery packs, take note.
Also most of the world drives on the left hand side of the road, with the steering wheel on the right. Using manual transmission.
110V mains is very actually niche.
It’s only use here is via an isolating transformer, for industrial applications, where site safety under difficult conditions is paramount. It also makes the 110V tools, with their special plugs, much less desirable to thieves.
Quite what he was doing owning a specialist market 110V iron whilst living in AUS, a 240V country, is a puzzle. I doubt that model was ever sold there.
Unless he just made up this story, for effect.
Yes i live in Australia. I mean most people in the USA won’t plug this iron in at 240v unless they are at an industrial site.
Full story is he bought it to try it out because the iron was a good price i think its a lower end model and he was comparing it against the JBC/ Hakko. They where not selling that model here in Australia when he bought it to test. People on the forum said it was good so he bought it to try.
I will add i am not sticking up for Dave he even says he stuffed up its his own fault in the video but i truly believe Weller done wrong. I bought soldering irons and heat gun from China that have no earth connected and i was disappointed in them and they where cheap. How would you feel spending more and this happening?
No earth connection is necessary, if the device is double-insulated, Class II.
Nor would it be desirable, quite the opposite.
Some ground connection point is necessary to bond the thing to your work-surface, and body, for ESD protection, but that’s a different matter, and something that I note the irritating shouty man pays no attention to. Certainly no wrist-straps in view.
Yea these items i bought have metal outer surfaces so they need to be grounded legally here. Funnily enough wired inside to have a earth but no earth cable installed.
“Oh no, I put my phone in a glass of water and it turns out it died!”
“I guess if I had read the specs I would have figured out it wasn’t waterproof!”
“How shameful of this phone not being waterproof!
“This is totally the manufacturer’s fault!”
Did they put a UL waterproof listing on your phone? 
We all do know what the purpose of a fuse sever’s right. Why do they make them if it wasn’t of value.
Dave is a completely different subject, I don’t see it as dave done something stupid and it almost caught fire blame manufacture.
I see it as dave found that they cheaped out while doing something stupid that almost caught fire.
Weller knows exactly what a fuse is for and the many different types.
The Cat II isolation thing is important.
If you use a soldering iron in a professional environment, everything will be bonded to ground for ESD precautions.
The iron, every other bit of manufacturing and test equipment, work surfaces, workers’ bodies (wrist straps), even the floor, via heel straps (any idea how much conductive floor tiles or carpet costs, and how carefully they must be maintained ? I do)
But once you start bonding things together, you introduce a mode where a failure can, basically electrocute the operators, through their ESD protection stuff.
That’s why good kit is at least Cat II, and the ESD bonding point is not a direct connection to “ground” through the power cord, which should not exist. Rather through a high value resistor, such that any fault condition cannot pass a lethal current to the operator, who is hard-wired to it.
The standards applying to bathrooms, or medical devices, should be the bare minimum.
Weller know their stuff, and I trust them to make professional kit properly.
A copper and steel wound transformer is the perfect isolating device, nothing better. Switch mode PSUs are now very much cheaper, but have so many failure possibilities, even if the designer has any clue about the subtleties.
However stuffing 240V into one wound for 110V is never going to end well.
At least the man recognised that the polyfuse and PTC on the secondary saved the electronics from the over-load. I’d say that was robust engineering.
The man ’effed up, then chose to make a drama out of his mistake. Maybe some additional fuse might have shut it down sooner, but if his workshop was wired up properly it would have tripped that out in milliseconds.
I would not want to work there.
This is scary stuff; I’m sticking to wire nuts
And most of my T&M equipment is battery powered. No worries there, total isolation, and the results are better (no noise from the mains supply to contend with, or weird bonding issues).
I went out of my way to thumbs down this guy
Why we need protected equipment if all follow safety procedure?, every one makes mistakes, no one can’t deny
If you make mistake, do you want to burn your entire house down, or just blowing a cheap fuse ?
And in addition, the cheap chinnese unit that cost 1/5, has a fuse.
When i buy an expensive product( car, phone, charger,etc), i am expecting more safety than cheap one.
It is totally different thing, safety is one of the most necessary, not like water proof
Now imagine they make quick charge charger that will output 20V at USB port, and you accident plug your 5V only phone into that usb port, and kaboom, your hand is gone , for your entire life
That’s why they have to make all usb port output 5V and only 20V when the phone asking.
- The weller station starts smoking, there is no explosion, it does not catch fire when you’re away from home to burn down your house, it does not leak radioactive waste.
It simply dies.
2) 20V would not cause a phone to explode. Quick charge already outputs 20V over USB, and if you plug a 5V phone into it then it will only output 5V.
Even if you did manage to hardwire 20V into a USB plug and plug your phone in it would just fry the circuit, just like with this soldering station.
Nothing explodes or is dangerous in any way.
3) You can plug 200V into a phone and it will not explode or blow your hand off. I think you have a severe misunderstanding of how electricity and electronics work.
People have died from using faulty chargers that output 240v many cases of this happening. I doubt metal phones have the isolation to protect from mains what isolation it has will break down after a bit of time. If you input 240v into a phone and it turns into a short good chance it will explode.