Milwaukee Soldering Iron Quit and How to repair

[mrclubike]

My Milwaukee soldering Iron  quit  heating and I figured i would throw up a thread on what I did to repair it
It turned out to be a thermal fuse in the base of the heating section
We are going to Bypass it

DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK 
YOU SHOULD NEVER LEAVE A SOLDERING IRON  ON AND UNATTENDED ANYWAY

First thing you need to do is take it apart
Take out all the screws including the one under the label using a TORX T10
Unscrew the tip and the tip base
Remove the clip inside the battery compartment
Then pry the red lower  and the black upper shells apart


Milwaukee soldering iron not heating
Problem with Milwaukee soldering iron
Milwaukee soldering iron repair

[mrclubike]

Carefully remove the guts
Cut the wire ties holding the wires together
Under the heat shielding near the base of the heating element lives the fuse
You can check it with a volt meter if you like. It will have 12volts positive on the lower end  and 12 volts negative on the upper side if it is bad

[mrclubike]

Now comes the tricky part 
Take a pair of side cutters and carefully cut away the fuse case   to expose the leads inside the fuse
DO NOT JUST CUT THE LEADS FROM THE FUSE
You will need the length to prevent the leads from getting short when you crimp them together 

[mrclubike]

Next you need to crimp and splice the leads back together
I had the open splice type  but I think you could strip the insulation off of the closed barrel type you get from the auto parts store and use it 

[mrclubike]

Install the battery onto the plug and close the micro switch for a few seconds
It should get hot  very quickly
If it does your good
Slide the heat shielding back up and reassemble in the reverse order

[dogshome]

You can buy the thermal fuses. They have come inside all sorts of electronic kit for several years. One failed in the fan heater at work (loose connection which burned it). I was tempted to short it out, but then thought it would probably be me that tipped it over and burned the factory down anyway!

Have I sown a seed of doubt? 

[mrclubike]

Ya I figured you could get them but cutting the crimp connectors off of the leads would be a pain
You and me both have been using soldering irons for a long time with absolutely no thermal fuses and they never caused any problems 

If you look at the small PC board next to it
You will see where they originally wanted to mount it there with  solder
But the lead from the element was cut to short to reach the board so i could not relocate it to the board 

[Justin B.]

I am starting to wonder about Milwaukee's designs.  It used to be that their stuff lasted forever but I have had several recent products that have me re-thinking any more Milwaukee purchases.  I have an electric screwdriver which the charger quit working right after warranty so I bought another charger then the screwdriver quit working!  These two items cost more than the kit did.    The replacement screwdriver worked for about 15 minutes and quit so I sent it in for warranty repair and they replaced it.  I then sent the original in and they replaced it for $66 (I think) so I now have a spare.  I just sent the original charger off and for $44 I now have a spare for that as well.
\
But, it is a really nice electric screwdriver - when it works!

OK, I feel better now...

[Bob_Roller]

'Made with pride in China" 

[Justin B.]

No doubt...  Now, I have a 30 year old Milwaukee electric screwdriver that takes a little wimpy NiCad pack and other than having to "rebuild" the battery pack on occasion it's still going strong!

[mrclubike]

I have around 15 Milwaukee tools and this is the only one I have been disappointed in
I use them hard and give them no mercy 
The older V18 and V14 tools were better  but they just have so many different tools its hard to go with any thing else.
If Makita made everything  that Mill. did I would use them 

[Justin B.]

After we bought our off-grid "cabin land" in OK I have bought several Ryobi cordless tools to use while building up the place.  So far I have had zero issues and am very pleased with them.  It is really nice to have several tools that all use the same battery.

[mrclubike]

Milwaukee Ryobi and Rigid power tolls are now all made By TTI  of china

[Burt]

My father bought one of those Milwaukee 18V value deals where you get a big carry case, a few different tools, a couple of batteries and a charger.  As an electrician he is always fiddling with something and found the Chinese knock off version for minimal dollars.  He probably had something replaced under warranty and I ended up with a cordless drill, two batteries and a charger.  Flagpower seems to be the copy version name and no doubt they are made in the same factory under a different contract. 

Later I ended up buying a Ryobi cordless vacuum cleaner and instead of buying a battery and charger, we bought the Milwaukee adaptor online.  I now have a "Milyobi" vacuum cleaner and a great tool it is.