SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Electrical shock / short

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20181121-46946-2147384224. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Weller W100PG (Weller brand W100PG model electric soldering iron with Electri-Cord brand power cord with UL listing. Weller is ApexTool company product. They are located in Apex, North Carolina.). Incident: Electri-Cord brand power cord attached to a Weller W100PG solder iron that I just purchased with date stamp of (19/18). Removing it from the packaging and limbering the cord from it's twist-tied folding caused splits along the thin black jacket overwrap where it had been most tightly curved to fit in the blister card. This is an electric shock hazard, particularly if cord draped into conductive fluids. Cord is marked with white imprint "(UL) VW-1 E46194 (M) SVTO 3/C 18 AWG (0.824mm2) 105'C 300V FT1, FT2 LL90458 (M)" and with emboss "Made in Mexico" "E.S.Electri-Cord" "c(UL)us" on the plug head. The thin 'shrinkwrap' black electrical isolation jacket on cord is too thin and flimsy and seems to have a seam running the length of it, which is where these splits are occurring and from which the white fibrous contents is spilling out. With those splits, which I'm sure will extend in length and increase in number with time and any use, and gaps to the white fibrous interior, I'm sure this fails to meet UL rating because of electric shock hazard. My older, same model iron with date stamp (02/14) has a similar Electri-Cord power cord, except that the codes is DEBOSSED on the black jacket and it is "SVT", not "SVTO". I do not know the details of these different codings, but I've used this older one for years and it's cord jacket is thicker (you cannot see cord contents texture 'telegraph' through, like on this new one) and more rubbery and more pliable. It's what I'd expect in a cord for a handheld heating tool. Already communicated with Weller, Electri-Cord and UL about this problem