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ERSA TC40 chip tool

Published 28.09.2024 by Tibor Truong

Object ERSA TC40 desoldering tweezers / Chip tool
Failure Broken heating element
Repair type Replace heating element
Repair time 1 week
Repair cost ~70 CHF
Difficulty MEDIUM-HARD
Tools needed Pliers, tweezers, wrench
Repair service available? NO
Rating 5/10
TC40-1

Problem, what happened?

One of the two heating elements was broken in two pieces. Therefore only one side of the chip tool was getting hot.

How to fix it, solution

Contact ERSA support and ask for 42100J heating elements or simply order them online.
ERSA has support in a variety of countries but those are small companies who act as intermediaries. They don't work directly for ERSA and therefore it's not always in their interest to sell you spare parts.
The swiss ERSA representative only wanted to sell me brand new soldering stations costing thousands and told me that repair was impossible and that spare parts were not available.
This turned out to be a lie as i contacted ERSA-Germany directly through their website and they confirmed me that i can replace the elements with the 42100J who were broadly available.
What do we learn? Well you better off avoiding intermediaries and should contact the brands directly for repairs and spare parts.

Here's now the procedure for the repair
  1. Ensure that tool is cold and unplugged and be careful, the tips might be contaminated with lead and other dirty soldering residues
  2. Unscrew both toolholders with a wrench or big pliers. To do so, you must hold the tool firmly with one hand and apply torque to the hexagonal nut profile at the base of the soldering tips (at the junction between the soldering tips and the black plastic grip)
  3. Hold pliers in a closed position and take off the steel bracket for aperture limiting. Be careful not to brake the heating elements while doing this
  4. If only one element is damaged, screw back toolholder on working element for protection
  5. With fine tweezers, pliers or scissors catch the grooves of the brass bushing embedded in the black plastic grip and unscrew it carefully. This is very tricky and sadly requires special tooling but i have found out that it works pretty well with an old pair of scissors although barbarian
  6. Once the brass bushing is removed, carefully pull back the rubber around the cable at the base of the tool
  7. Carefully take the cables out of their pull protection until they are totally free to slide inside the plastic tool case
  8. Carefully pull the broken heat element out of the plastic hole. Pushing with the cables at the other end might help
  9. Once you've completely pulled out the heating element (cables are so damn short that you'll need to pull it out to the max) carefully disconnect the cables from it preferably with pliers or tweezers
  10. Take new heating element and plug the cables back on. Polarity isn't important because it's just a simple resistance.
  11. Once ensured that the new element is securely connected without chances for shorts to happen, gently put it back into the tool casing. It might be helpful to gently pull on the cables on the other side.
  12. Screw back brass bushing without damaging the heating element
  13. Screw back toolholder without damaging the element and tighten it with a wrench or pliers
  14. before putting a tool into the holder, it might be a good thing to compare if both heating elements are at the same distance just to be sure that it got pushed all the way into position
  15. Reroute the cables into their pull protection and push back rubber cover
  16. REPAIR DONE, New heating element might smoke a bit on first use but will work perfectly after that
You can find this repair as a video guide HERE.

Evaluation of the repair

I had issues with the swiss ERSA representative and the repair was pretty risky. The heating elements are expensive and break easily so you really gotta be careful when handling them
Nevertheless i am very satisfied with the repair. ERSA-Germany did their job well in the end and my tool works like new. A new tool would have cost me more than 300 CHF so it's totally worth it.
But only if you are experienced enough and dare to handle fragile components. Definetely not a thing that i would suggest to a beginner.
Also take in count that because you have to order the replacement parts, it will take a week or two.

Here is an image of the tweezers and their heating element
TC40-1
TC40-2