any use for a broken hair shaver!

[Nigel Goodwin]

Well the heat did travel fast enough for it to blow the fuse when I soldered it, perhaps I was doing something wrong?

The leads were pretty thick so I don't see how it could be done.

A large hot iron, I have a 100w weller iron at work for any large tasks.

I wish I'd bought more of them, one of the reps came round and he was selling them off for £5 each - and I only bought one

 

[Hero999]

I used a cheap 25W iron with a phase control temperature controller. I found that if the temperature lower, the iron would have to be held on too long which made matters worse.

 

[ericgibbs]

In the good old days, no such thing a temperature controlled soldering iron, I expect some of you remember.

Using that type of iron, either heated on the gas ring or a 'modern' electric iron, you really had to know how to solder.

These 'modern new fangled' temp controlled irons are a breeze.

 

[Hero999]

The thing is I'm reasonably good at soldering. I don't bother to use IC sockets on all but the most expensive of chips and I can't remember how long it was since I damaged one. I can can solder 805 resistors, capacitors and SOIC8 with no problems.

I don't know how they managed to fit the thermal fuse in the factory, perhaps they used low temperature melting point solder or cooled the fuse to -30 before fitting it.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

The thing is I'm reasonably good at soldering. I don't bother to use IC sockets on all but the most expensive of chips and I can't remember how long it was since I damaged one. I can can solder 805 resistors, capacitors and SOIC8 with no problems.

I don't know how they managed to fit the thermal fuse in the factory, perhaps they used low temperature melting point solder or cooled the fuse to -30 before fitting it.

Like I said above, use a large hot iron, and do it quickly - if your iron and bit are too small it takes time to transfer enough heat - a nice big hot bit with lots of thermal mass will do it near enough instantly.

 

[Sceadwian]

I didn't replace the thermal fuse, I removed it completely. That's why I said I wouldn't recommend it. Aside from just using a large hot iron make sure the tip is freshly cleaned and if possible whetted with solder beforehand. You can solder incredibly fast if the tip is fully prepped. I take responsibility for using my heating tool without the saftey trip, mainly because the device is fully insulated and any failure of either fan or heater will cause it to self fuse though if the motor goes it may arc a bit first. I don't use it frequently because of possible over heating issues, I'm thinking about making it a project, removing the fan from the heater circuit which will give the heater coil a little bit more power and use a separate power supply for the fan making the fan on all the time and the heater coil controllable so I can adjust the temperature.

 

[Wond3rboy]

how can u device work on 120v and 220 v.nowadays a lot of gadgets are said(its written on the cover) to work on 120 and 220v both. how can one device be doing that?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

how can u device work on 120v and 220 v.nowadays a lot of gadgets are said(its written on the cover) to work on 120 and 220v both. how can one device be doing that?

Switchmode power supply!.

 

[Roff]

I tripped the thermal fuse on a hair dryer once. I took it apart to see if the fuse was replaceable, measured the resistance, and it was not blown! It put it back together and it worked. It just took a while for the "fuse" to cool and reset. I'm not saying that all hair dryers have self-resetting fuses, but if I hadn't been a geek engineer, I probably would have thrown it away before it had a chance to reset.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I tripped the thermal fuse on a hair dryer once. I took it apart to see if the fuse was replaceable, measured the resistance, and it was not blown! It put it back together and it worked. It just took a while for the "fuse" to cool and reset. I'm not saying that all hair dryers have self-resetting fuses, but if I hadn't been a geek engineer, I probably would have thrown it away before it had a chance to reset.

Many hairdryers do, and you often hear a 'click' as they trip out, and as they reset.

 

[Hero999]

Yes it's a bimetal switch, they're very common in heating appliances and I've seen them in wallwarts too.

 

[Sceadwian]

I thought the same thing myself, even looked up the part that was in my unit, it was a one time fuse, it specifically warns you in the instructions to not block the air flow (which I did) as it will cause the device to overheat and fail, which it did. But not to an electrical fault, just the thermal fuse tripped no damage was done to anything else, didn't even really overheat that much. I think I need a better concentrator on it.

 

[Roff]

I thought the same thing myself, even looked up the part that was in my unit, it was a one time fuse, it specifically warns you in the instructions to not block the air flow (which I did) as it will cause the device to overheat and fail, which it did.

I guess they sell more hair dryers that way.

 

[astronomerroyal]

Don't know if anyone's mentioned this, but you can make good tattoo guns from these clippers. Scoff.