Such a simple device - a flat iron. You plug it in, turn it on, it gets hot, right? Right. But wrong also.

My brother-in-law gave me one to fix for his daughter and not claiming to be an electronics repair man I said I’d look at it. So I open it up and to my supprise there is circuitry inside. Huh. Wasn’t expecting that! I used to tinker with eletronics all the time when I was younger, so I pulled out my multimeter, set it to ohms and put it to all the components. Resisters, diods, capasiters, transistors, even the fuse was good. What I did find was the thermal fuse under one of the heating elements was blown. There were 2 wires with clear insolation going into one side of the iron and 2 clear and 2 black going into the other side. I pulled out the black pair and there was the thermal fuse. That thermal fuse is rated to blow at 240ºC/464ºF. The maximum setting on the dial is 425ºF. Curious. I wonder how long it was left on for it to get that hot?

I ordered the part from DigiKey which arrived on the 2nd day. WOW. I was quit impressed. I will be ordering from DigiKey If ever I need more compoents. So I fixed the flat iron, and my niece will be happy.

Filed under: Appliances, electronics repair