Soldering pencil dead

[Mr. Kite]

Need help please,
I was working on a wah and dipped the tip of my iron into the wet sponge. I think I put too much of the shaft into the sponge and my iron died. It wont get hot at all. The fuse is good on the unit and the light comes on but no heat. It's a Weller WTCPT and the pencil is a TC201T. Do you think I just need a new pencil?
Thanks,
Max

[PRNDL]

Check to see if the tip is on tight. They usually have a screw near the base that needs to bring the tip and base into solid contact.

[Mr. Kite]

Check to see if the tip is on tight. They usually have a screw near the base that needs to bring the tip and base into solid contact.
Thanks, It's tight.

[SatelliteAmps]

It's possible. There is a magnetic contact in the iron that could have gone bad.

[ClinchFX]

I don't think the wet sponge would be responsible for the failure, however, I now use the "brass wool" type of tip cleaner instead of the wet sponge, because tips seem to last longer.

Things that have gone wrong with my Weller WTCP irons over the past 20 years:

Heating element open circuit - can be an isolated failure, but can also be the result of a faulty magnetically operated switch. I believe that this can also happen if the barrel that holds the tip in place is loose.

Faulty magnetically operated switch - can fail either open or short. If shorted, can cause element failure as mentioned above.

Cable from the power unit to the pencil - I've had a few of these break internally where the cable enters the pencil. When this happens, I just dismantle the pencil and shorten and re-terminate the cable.

These parts are all available as spares, or you can buy a replacement pencil.

The other failure I've seen is a power transformer with an open circuit primary. I didn't bother to repair that one.

Peter.