Kevin:
I was given one for Christmas a year ago. It is pretty much as
advertised, however I have found that except for the tiniest of
soldering jobs, the amount of power it can deliver to a connection being
soldered is less than what I find acceptable. I really like to have 15+
watts for small electronic soldering, and there is no way you are going
to get 15 watts of power from a couple of penlight batteries. Even
allowing for the much greater efficiency of only heating the item to be
soldered, penlight cells just don't hack it.
I found it inadequate for soldering most automotive
applications, like Lucar connectors. With patience it would solder one,
but I got tired of fussing with it and went back to my 20 watt pencil
iron.
If you are going to do really fine surface mount electronics,
then it would probably be great as you would be much less likely to lift
a PC board trace, etc. But other than that limited use, I can't
recommend one.
Vance
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-6pack@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-6pack@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Dr L. Kevin McNelis
Sent: January 05, 2006 4:03 PM
To: 6pack@autox.team.net
Subject: electrical musing (not really LBC)
Saw an ad on TV today for a new type of soldering iron called "cold
heat". It almost looks like it maybe uses an arc to melt the solder.
Has anyone of you ever used one? It looks intriguing, but most $20
saw-it-on-TV stuff is crap, so I am unwilling to be a test case.
Any info welcome!
Kevin
|