Comments on: Making a cold heat soldering iron

By: GarageScientist

GarageScientist — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 06:27:42 +0000

Ahh, now that’s a good idea ashton (.7mm mechanical pencils) If you could get two mechanical pencils with metal tips, then I’m sure you could modify them to minimize the gap near the tip. (On each one, taper one side flat on a belt sander or something.) So that they fit closely together like: \/ but at a VERY acute angle.

By: heretic

heretic — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:39:10 +0000

i got myself one of those a few months ago.
didn’t expect much, but it’s better than i expected.
takes some time until you get used to it, but that’s just the same with “normal” soldering irons.

since it’s an entirely different technology, you can’t expect it to work just like the soldering irons you’re used to. if you’ve broken a tip, you’ve clearly not read the manual.

that said, the cold heat is not suitable for anything smaller than e.g. a DIL IC.
it’s OK if you need something that runs on batteries, but by far no match for a decent soldering station.

By: Ashton

Ashton — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:25:36 +0000

I’ve been saving up to buy a Weller, but this idea beats the hell out of my crappy radio-shack iron. I built two of these last night, and it works pretty well. I used two cotter pins, screwed into a small piece of wood, one flat and the other angled down to wards the other to form a triangle once the lead is inserted. The cotter pin triangle works better than my first attempt at duplicating his design (I used a piece of tile to separate the lead) I tried to use a large diameter piece from a wooden pencil but it didn’t get hot enough, but 0.7mm mechanical pencil lead worked great. I also mounted a push switch so that the lead pieces could be directly touching, instead of using the solder to bridge the connection.

By: GJG

GJG — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 09:20:54 +0000

yeah my cold heat melted the day i got it too, only i got it at home depot, i ran back there as fast i could and told them it was a piece of crap. Funny thing is the solid solder i was using never melted but the plastic on the cold heat did! I ran back to home depot as fast i could and told them it was crap. Seriously a soldering iron that melts before the solder?! The thing was also very hot to the touch the only time i buy its on tv garbage is if a cheap chinese nock off is at the dollar store and if it actually doesnt break itself or does what it says. I bought a soldering iron for a dollar and havent replaced it yet, the cold heat garbage was like 30 or 25 if i remember.

By: Roly

Roly — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:48:35 +0000

Nothing new under the sun. From the valve era…

http://ozvalveamps.elands.com/scopeirons.htm

“An iron with high AC current flowing through the tip was not suited to solid-state, and the emergence of CMOS was the last nail in the Scope coffin.”

All the moreso in this case because one side of the tip will be connected to mains ground.

By: fartface

fartface — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:47:16 +0000

Cold heat irons suck. You cant solder anything decently with them and they have a very small working range.

Spend your money on a real soldering station and you get the 15 second heat up time. My Weller station heats up faster than I can get a part ready for soldering.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 06:16:56 +0000

Cold heat things are junk. Give me a baby metcal iron any day.

By: hmmmm

hmmmm — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 05:23:29 +0000

and its not a cold heat

By: hmmmm

hmmmm — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 05:18:58 +0000

hmmm i had a cold heat iron it broke the day i got it i replaced it with a radio shack 4-batterie iron.the odd thing bout my iron is if u un screw the tip it looks like a light bulb.i had to mod the switch other wise you have 2 keep presure on the switch.stock up on batteries for it though

By: Man On Fire

Man On Fire — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 02:34:20 +0000

it also means you’re putting voltage across a potentially voltage sensitive joint. not a good idea. and the cold heat irons they sell suck.

By: Jay

Jay — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 02:13:24 +0000

Tried the cold heat deal a few years ago and couldn’t get it to work for the life of me. I replaced it with a simple butane iron. Works like a champ. As far as a “good” soldering iron I prefer a Metcal station. If you haven’t had the pleasure of using one it makes surface mount cake to solder.

By: Haku

Haku — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:04:42 +0000

I bought a 4-AA ColdHeat portable iron last year because it was on sale and it looked like it could be useful, found it annoying trying to make both halves of the tip make contact with what I was soldering and it didn’t last me very long as when I tried to use it like a conventional iron it got too hot and the plastic holding the tip melted and the internal contacts shorted the batteries out – rendering the whole thing completely useless.

I haven’t bothered looking at them ever again, though a few weeks ago I picked up a couple of 3-AA portable Antex irons very cheap which work very well for quick soldering jobs as they aren’t coldheat irons.

By: arthur92710

arthur92710 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:50:25 +0000

The only part from the coldheat thing that I liked was the solder. Does anyone know what kind it was?

By: ehrichweiss

ehrichweiss — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:24:40 +0000

I loved how easy the commercial version worked UNTIL the tip broke and I couldn’t just go out to buy a replacement. I may try this project though.

By: steve

steve — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:10:31 +0000

Give me an old fashioned adjustable Weller any day. this sounds like a cool project and I admire the work and thought that went into it, but I do enough soldering that I really do need a pro soldering station.