Cold Heat Soldering

[Juice Box]

I see the ads for that cold heat soldering iron, but wondered if it actually works? I dont get how it can get cold in a matter of seconds like it claims

 

[Beau]

Hey, if you saw it on TV, you better believe it works!!!

 

[Gothgar]

Originally posted by: digitalsnare
I see the ads for that cold heat soldering iron, but wondered if it actually works? I dont get how it can get cold in a matter of seconds like it claims

cold heat huh?

 

[dmcowen674]

I've been trying to get one to try out for 5 months.

Website is out.

Home Depot always out of them

and Pep Boys (under Coleman Brand) out of them.

 

[rickn]

stick your tongue to cold frozen metal pole. voila

 

[Skiguy411]

I had one, but then read more and more reviews of it and decided to return it. Never did open it up. Google it up and you will see it isnt too popular.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: rickn
stick your tongue to cold frozen metal pole. voila

LOL! That just made me laugh.

I've seen that thing on TV too; I'm really curious if/how it works.

<--owns three soldering irons and a butane torch

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
I've been trying to get one to try out for 5 months.

Website is out.

Home Depot always out of them

and Pep Boys (under Coleman Brand) out of them.

I had a few customers tell me that it was a very crappy bond...the HD one

 

[illustri]

the "cold heat" is obviously a misnomer

i thought it worked just like a regular soldering iron, just with a good heatsink so that very quickly after you turn it off the tip cools

doesn't mean you can lick it while its still on

 

[Beau]

Originally posted by: illustri
the "cold heat" is obviously a misnomer

i thought it worked just like a regular soldering iron, just with a good heatsink so that very quickly after you turn it off the tip cools

doesn't mean you can lick it while its still on

Probably has a ceramic tip, or some other material that dissapates heat very quickly.

 

[Skiguy411]

Here is one review

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: illustri
the "cold heat" is obviously a misnomer

i thought it worked just like a regular soldering iron, just with a good heatsink so that very quickly after you turn it off the tip cools

doesn't mean you can lick it while its still on

The ads claim it heats up almost instantly on contact with the solder and cools down almost instantly as well. So according to them, you could touch it to your finger, then immediately solder something, then touch it to your finger again and it would solder perfectly and not hurt you. It would have to function very differently from a regular soldering iron to do that.

 

[Beau]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: illustri
the "cold heat" is obviously a misnomer

i thought it worked just like a regular soldering iron, just with a good heatsink so that very quickly after you turn it off the tip cools

doesn't mean you can lick it while its still on

The ads claim it heats up almost instantly on contact with the solder and cools down almost instantly as well. So according to them, you could touch it to your finger, then immediately solder something, then touch it to your finger again and it would solder perfectly and not hurt you. It would have to function very differently from a regular soldering iron to do that.

If you read the review, you'll see that it passes a low-voltage current through the solder, creating high temps on the solder. The tip itself doesn't heat up.

 

[0]

But wait! There's MORE!

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Beau

If you read the review, you'll see that it passes a low-voltage current through the solder, creating high temps on the solder. The tip itself doesn't heat up.

Yeha I just read it. Seems the main disadvantages are that you could cause serious damage to whatever you're soldering with the electricity, and a poor bond according to Nitemare.

 

[richardycc]

the ads just came on while I am reading this thread..haha

 

[AnyMal]

Originally posted by: 0
But wait! There's MORE!

If you call within next 20 minutes....

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Beau

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: illustri
the "cold heat" is obviously a misnomer

i thought it worked just like a regular soldering iron, just with a good heatsink so that very quickly after you turn it off the tip cools

doesn't mean you can lick it while its still on

The ads claim it heats up almost instantly on contact with the solder and cools down almost instantly as well. So according to them, you could touch it to your finger, then immediately solder something, then touch it to your finger again and it would solder perfectly and not hurt you. It would have to function very differently from a regular soldering iron to do that.

If you read the review, you'll see that it passes a low-voltage current through the solder, creating high temps on the solder. The tip itself doesn't heat up.

Interesting, then it's more like a mini welder.

 

[MWink]

I thought this looked neat when I first saw it. My mom got one somewhere and I tried it out. What a piece of junk. It's worthless, I'll stick to my $20 conventional soldering kit from Radio Shack.

 

[flot]

Where is portable anandtech when you need it?

I wandered into a Radio Shack today b/c I needed a soldering iron and a y splitter. (I haven't seen the infomercial everyone is talking about) anyway, it was either $6 for a normal soldering iron or $20 for this cold heat thing. I buy a soldering iron about once a year, which is how often I need one, but I always end up throwing them away after about 8 months because they either get lost, or the cord gets all tangled around the rest of my tools, or whatever.

Anyway, I bought the cold heat iron for $20.

Worst piece of crap EVER. I was trying to solder 16 ga wire onto a speaker terminal. I couldn't even manage to tin the wire correctly with it. After about 5 minutes of trying, I managed to get one lead to stick, badly, and by that point although the TIP of the cold heat iron was cool, the base of the tip had actually melted the plastic of the unit itself.

Angry.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

They work, but poorly, it's still 1000x's better to use a high quality soldering iron.