Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

[Number Of The Priest]

I just saw an infomercial on TV advertising a Cold Heat soldering iron that looked SO easy to use. Anyone have one or at least have experience with it? I am still procrastinating when it comes to buying a soldering iron and learning how to use it, but this might be the kick-start that I so sorely need!

By the way, I am fairly positive that this doesn't quite belong in the Tech Q&A sub-forum, so I put it here instead. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Jim Shine]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

I saw that infomercial too and its the only thing I ever have seen that really caught my interest.

[YetAnotherOne]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

Never tried one but I can't imagine that it works well. Just buy a regular iron, they're not difficult to use at all. The only real trick to avoiding bad solder joints is to use the iron to heat the materials to be soldered until the materials are hot enough to melt the solder and allow it to flow. OTOH if you melt the solder using the iron & try to use it like glue to stick (relatively) cold surfaces together you won't get good electrical connections. Not much to it really.

[Infernal Death]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

Yes i wouldn't bother with it. Just use a old-fashioned heat solder iron. It really is easy to work once you get going.
Just a tip: Never ever try to catch a solder iron falling from the table. No matter how fast you are you always catch it at the "wrong" side, believe me [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Flo

[Ninja Guitar]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

Regular soldering irons are easy to use. Just don't touch the metal and you'll be fine.

[Mr White]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

Nothing to do with this Cold Heat soldering iron but a friend of mine was de-soldering some components sat in a lounge chair and the iron got stuck. So he bent over the circuit board to have a see and it came un-stuck, but the action of him pulling carried on and the iron came towards him and burnt him on the end of his nose [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
Looked like Rudolph for a fortnight [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Jamesy

[pro-fusion]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

cold heat soldering iron. Hmmm, sounds about as likely as 'cold fusion'... [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

[ QUOTE ]
cold heat soldering iron. Hmmm, sounds about as likely as 'cold fusion'... [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

...Or "Icy Hot Stuntas". [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Let's see how many people remember what that was. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Evol]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

The name is sort of misleading...they call it cold heat because it heats up and cools down in seconds....it should still work the same way a regular iron does without having to wait.I HATE wating for mine to warm up so this caught my interest right away.
I still might get one just to try it but there are a couple of things that bother me;
1.It doesn't seem to be adjustable temperature wise.
2.It's not rechargable.

It might not seem like something I would use on my fiddles,but on other little **** it might be worth it not to have to wait so long for my iron to heat up.

[YetAnotherOne]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

If you hate waiting for yours to warm up, pick up one of those mini-butane torches (one with a soldering tip included) at your local hardware store. They're like $10-15 and the solder tip heats up almost instantly.

[Newc]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

Or plan your soldering activities so that you plug in the iron first, then wet your sponge, then open the control cavities and round up your other tools (spools of wire, replacement pickups and knobs as needed, etc etc). That way, when you get everything ready to work on, the iron's hot.

I use a switchable 15/30Watt iron, plug it in, flip it to 30, and then do all the prep stuff [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Newc

[YetAnotherOne]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

Planning? We don't need no steekin' planning. (I do the same thing w/my 15/30 W iron).

[Newc]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

Well, most of the time if I just sit down with everything first and THEN plug in the iron, by the time it gets hot I have to go to the can anyway [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Newc

[Infernal Death]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

Yeah i also do what Newc said. Switch on the iron first and then prepare the solder and other tools. If you have a decent solder iron it should be ready to go when you finished.
At my part time work we have pretty cool temperature controlled weller solder irons. They are on working temperature really fast and you can monitor the temperature on the display. But i think those are overkill for home use.

Flo

[Subvamp]

Re: Anyone try the COLD HEAT soldering iron?

Actually, I bought one! It hasn't shown up yet though. I figured it was only $20 bucks, and I piss that much away on a 12 pack and a pizza, so even if it doesn't work well, I didn't lose much. As soon as it shows up I'll letcha know if it works well or not. :-)