Greetings,
I just saw an ad on TV for a soldering tool made by an outfit called “Cold Heat”. You can see this thing at www.coldheat.com. It supposedly heats to 800 degrees in a few seconds, cools to room temp in a few seconds, and is powered by a AA battery!
Sounds too good to be true - no more “always on” soldering iron to accidently put your hand on, or no more waiting 20 seconds for the big gun to heat up.
I wonder what wattage it really drives and how useful it is for anything more than electronics or other fine work. The web site describes “large parts” as 18-20 guage wire. Any of you have one of these?
I don;t have one, but when it “sounds too good to be true” it usually is. If they consider #18 wire to be ‘large’ then it’s not going to cut it except for very small jobs. And since it works on the resistence soldering principle, I would NOT use such a thing around electronic parts. If that tip touched two different leads on a semiconductor device it will more than likely just go ‘poof’ and the magic smoke will leak out and your assembled circuit will not work.
This topic has been brought up several times already – save your money. It is a resistance soldering tool that is good only for extremely light work. Batteries don’t produce enough current for soldering.
And anything bigger is a regular soldering gun anyway. I too have seen the advertisement on TV and have to laugh at them. Perhaps the technology is proven valid but there is not enough “Current” to be worth a damn when you get it out to solder something.
I want to illustrate something, I know I will go off topic but bear with me.
Recently there was a “shootout” between Radar Jammers and Police Speed Guns on my Di***V several years ago. The main thing is do these things JAM the police radar gun??
The exercises were conducted with different models at different ranges varying from 1/4 mile down to shap shooting from several yards away as the target went by.
Bottom line result put the police radar gun 4 inches from the Jammer and it will be Jammed. You would need military type jammers that the USAF uses on thier aircraft to defeat radars from up to miles away. Such Jammers are too big and consume too much power for your car to support it.
That is my illustration as to why you cannot use a Cold Solder tool.
Oh and please DO NOT apply electricity to anything inside your computer. There is no justification for it and will destroy or severely damage your machine. It is literally cheaper to replace that one bad componet than trying to purchase a replacement computer.
i bought one a few months back. one word can describe it, JUNK. save your money and buy this http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?MerchantID=RET01229&Action=Catalog&Type=Product&ID=50313 I have one of these and ma extremely happy with it, it doesnt claim to cool down quilckly, and it doesnt. So it must be treated with the same caution as a real soldering iron. Its a bit pricey but worth the money.
We have the same soldering iron that JPM335 is talking about at work. I hate those things mainly because they take what seems like forever to charge up and then they don’t last very long before they die. Also it stinks that you have to keep your thumb on the button to keep the power on.
If the one JPM335 linked to at Micro-Mark is the GENUINE Wahl Iso-Tip (and I don’t think it is, the color is wrong) then they are EXCELLENT. A knock-off, well, you typically get what you pay for. I’ve used the genuine Wahl cordless one at work years ago and it was great for fixing up our CNC and EDM machines - plenty of 480 volt outlets around the machine tools but not so may 110 outlets. The charge lasted a good long time, and the thing heated up very rapidly. Yeah, you have to hold the button, but I never found it to be a pain to use. One of these days I have to pick on up, but for now I do all my soldering at my workbench so plugging in a standard iron isn’t a problem.
Unlike that “Cold Heat” thing, these are ordinary solding irons that are powered by rechargable batteries. Unlike a AA alkaline battery, a ni-cad battery pack has PLENTY of power to make enough heat. And since these aren’t resistence soldering units, they are perfectly safe around delicate electronics.