Soldering Iron Woes

[whitebread47]

So I accidentally fell asleep earlier with the iron plugged in.  I woke up, noticed, and immediately unplugged it.  It was still good and hot when I did this.  It had probably been on for at least 5 hours.  Later, I decided to solder in some caps that just came in on one of my project boards.  Well, just as I had feared, the iron doesn't heat up at all.     I guess I burned something out (not sure what, but I don't rightly know the parts that comprise one; seems simple enough).

It was a 40-watt Weller I bought from Home Depot.  So, my question is:  Is there a certain length of time that one should avoid using a soldering iron?  Like, for example, "unplug it once it's been on and used for X amount of hours." 

I'll be buying another one tomorrow I suppose, but would like to avoid burning out any more if I can help it.

[slimtriggers]

If it's the heating element that burned out, I'm pretty sure you can replace that for quite a bit less than the cost of a new iron. 

[jkokura]

It may be as well that you just need to clean or retip your iron.

Jacob

[TNblueshawk]

I'm guessing it depends on the iron.

After a year and a half almost of working on pedals for the very first time I left mine on last week....overnight  I only noticed when I went to fire it up to work on a build and thought WTF! A sudden onset of heat rash came over me. I turned it off. Waited 5 minutes (have no idea why; I guess I was just bummed) and then said oh well, either this Hakko fires up or it doesn't. If fired right back up and all is well. I estimated it was left on for 10 hours more or less.

Don't tell me wife. She doesn't know. She worries all the time about that thing catching fire if left on when I'm not there.

[GermanCdn]

I don't think leaving your iron on for five hours would be the end of the world, I've done build days where my irons been on the whole time (8 - 10 hours) and no problems.  That being said, I've gone away from Wellers as I haven't been completely impressed with them, although that's primarily due to tip life and the replacement cost on the tips.

"Don't tell me wife".  Yup, +1 on that.  I've actually gone to running my soldering iron on a dedicated switchable power bar, and making sure that the power bar light is off when I turn the lights off in the man cave to ensure the overnight leave on doesn't happen.  I'm not sure which one would be worse, starting a fire with an unattended soldering iron, or having my wife find an unattended soldering iron, but either way, I don't intend to find out.

[whitebread47]

I'm kinda glad I don't have a significant other at the moment.   

I've already replaced the iron with one just like it.  I should probably buy a nicer one with variable temp at some point, though.  Anything beats my first two irons.  The first one I had I snagged on ebay for like $7 shipped from China.  Well, I knew better when I clicked "Buy It Now."  The cord on it was only about 1.5 feet long and it had a gigantic, blunt irreplaceable tip.  The next was a step up, but again, it came with a huge tip.  The set screw snapped when loosening it to switch to a more suitable tip.  I'm not very proud of the aesthetics on the business side of those first couple of PCBs, to say the very least. 

[gtr2]

I've left my Hakko on a few times, but those things are like tanks.

[bigmufffuzzwizz]

I've left my Hakko on a few times, but those things are like tanks.

Love my Hakko, it's never done me wrong!