Wrong soldering iron tips - is there a way to make them fit?

[LFS19]

I bought a weller soldering iron from a car boot sale for a really good price.
After going to eBay to buy some tips for it, I realised I stupidly hadn't asked the seller what the model number way.

Consequentially I bought the wrong tips after making a guess on eBay,, and they're much too small to fit into the soldering iron I posses.
They were only £4, but I'd obviously rather avoid making another purchase, so I was wondering weather there would be a way to make these smaller tips fit and conduct heat into my soldering iron.

I was wondering if anyone knew weather you can get any attatchment or possible make one?
I figured so long as everything is touching, heat would be conducted.

Any ideas?


Thanks

 

[chipmunk]

I seem to remember that some of the Weller tips are retained by a magnet and so this might require some more thought.

...but in principle you could just make a conductive adaptor (brass, copper) to change the effective diameter of the tips to fit your iron. Some of it will depend how the tips are retained in your iron. If there's a set-screw you could use a sleeve with a split to act like a simple collet.

HTH
Jon

 

[John Brown]

I believe the Weller magnetic tips are not simply "retained" by a magnet, but use the magnet and the curie(sp?) temperature as the regulating method. If you have that type of Weller, then you must use the proper bits.

This page explains it better than I.

http://www.staze.org/weller-wtcpt-soldering-iron/

 

[LFS19]

Sorry for he late response and thanks for your replies.

The tips on my iron screw in, they're not retained magnetically.
Not sure about the other thing, I'll have a read through the link.

I believe I have one of the irons dubbed as "crap" by the article, haha.
It doesn't have temperature control, it just plugs into the wall and starts to heat.
It's blue like the one in the picture but I'm not sure what model.

 

[LFS19]

Mine is like this one, though it has no model number under the logo.

 

[chaoticbob]

I had a very similar, tho not identical, Weller iron many moons ago. It too was just a plug in the wall- socket job, with screw fitting tips, but it had a selection of tips for different temperatures. Somehow the tips regulated a temperature control mechanism in the iron - I don't think I ever figured out how, but it was something to do with magnetism as John Brown suggested. If that somewhat hazy recollection is right, I agree with JB that you need to source proper Weller tips for your iron - any sort of adaptor would stuff the temperature control.
Robin

 

[LFS19]

I had a very similar, tho not identical, Weller iron many moons ago. It too was just a plug in the wall- socket job, with screw fitting tips, but it had a selection of tips for different temperatures. Somehow the tips regulated a temperature control mechanism in the iron - I don't think I ever figured out how, but it was something to do with magnetism as John Brown suggested. If that somewhat hazy recollection is right, I agree with JB that you need to source proper Weller tips for your iron - any sort of adaptor would stuff the temperature control.
Robin

Ahh, so my model likely is magnetised.
It's a shame if that's the case that there isn't another way to heat the tip...

On top of that I don't even know the model, so I wouldn't know which tips to buy,