Customer Reviews

Cold Heat Soldering tool - THE ORIGINAL

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(56)

 

 

I've had this soldering iron for several months now. It does its job. Simply turn it on and go to work. There's no waiting. Being able to instantly turn it off is also great for those times where timing is very essential. However, it does have some glaring flaws.

The first is it is weak on heating. If you plan on doing something like an XLR connector, go with a traditional iron. My second complaint is the shape. It's not circular. It's more like a flattened oval. It's slightly awkward.

My final complaint is a design flaw. The positive battery contacts are rather small, shallow, and right next to some plastic. During normal use, it's not unusual for the power to die while moving the iron or holding it at some angles because one of the batteries is no longer making contact. I was able to correct this by disassembling the iron and carefully bending the contacts. I can now shake it violently and it stays powered. Just one note to those that want to take it apart. The gray section where the power swith is is glued down plus has a screw underneath holding the rest together. Be careful not to break the thing.

Gimmick through and through

As you would think with most As Seen on TV products, this one is no different, a complete piece of garbage. I am an electrical happiest and wanted to check this thing out and see how it compared to a regular soldering iron. Doesn't even come close.

The way this thing works, from what I observed, is there is 2 parts to the tip. The 2 parts act like an anode and cathode, and the way the tool is "activated" is when you short the anode and cathode with a piece of conductive metal, which is supposed be your solder. When this happens the tool sends high current though the solder causing it to heat up and melt. It's very similar to welding; you can even see a spark when you short the 2 parts of the tip out.

Problem is that the normal way of soldering circuitry to a board, where you put the tip to the parts you want joined and feed solder to them doesn't work with this tool. And when you work it the way they want its shotty at best. It doesn't live up to its name of COLD HEAT ether, the tip is a hot as a normal iron after a bit of soldering.

I guess this would come in useful if you are in a situation where you have no access to a wall outlet and/or can't use a conventional soldering iron. But even then I would use a butane soldering iron. This thing is useless.

I should have realized that this was not a good item. This Cold Heat Soldering unit is just that--COLD. It will not even melt solder which melts at 750 to 800 degrees. I went through four brand new batteries trying to solder a small piece to a jewelry item, as shown on TV. The batteries got hotter than to work! Bad, bad to buy and I am sorry I did. I want a full refund, or should I say a refund for a FOOL?

I was so hoping this did what it promised. It didn't.

It couldn't heat up enough to even melt the solder well. I tried the thinest gauge solder and it wouldn't melt unless you held the tip on it (which they don't suggest). The other option is to heat up the area you want to solder to rub the solder on it. The COld Heat couldn't warm up the smallest of areas. I tried it on a silver ring (silver solder should melt easier) didn't work at all. Tried it on a speaker wire to a speaker- didn;t work. Tried an xbox mod chip, didn't work.
I am returning this fancy hunk of poop and getting a plug in that shows the actual rating on the box.

The directions say it is only for small low heat uses. I can't see how they made the commercial without pure fraud.

As a customer from England, these things aren't quite so easy to get hold of. When I went to Maplin earlier (the UK equivalent of Radio Shack) I saw one for £15 and thought I *had* to get one.

The tip cracked within 15 seconds of using it, and I know full well how to solder properly.

Even better, within 20 minutes of usage on a hard drive case, it exploded. Anyone that's looked down the "barrel" of one of these knows it has 2 metal contacts, and plastic doodad between them. The plastic in mine is touching both contacts, and therefore melts as soon as you turn it on. Smoke started pouring out of every hole on the damn thing, so it's been promptly chucked in the bin.

Save the hassle and just buy a normal iron.

What we have here is a very cool technology with a reasonably good implementation. The problem is that the technology and implementation do not combine to produce a very useful tool.

I wanted to like this tool very much but after using it on some actual projects and doing some test soldering I will wait for something better and keep my $20. (maybe the yet-to-be-released Cold Heat Pro?)

I'm predicting this tool will produce some initial excitement for just about every user but the majority of the tools sold will probably end up in the bottom of a drawer and eventually forgotten.

PROS:
- tip cools off within 3 seconds
- battery powered
- comfortable to hold
- illumination light
- "heating" indicator light
- nice storage case
- protective cover for tips
- multiple tips available

CONS:
- tips are fragile and expensive ($10)
- difficult to apply steady current to stranded wire
- disabled by oxidation more easily than standard iron
- only recommended for wire gauges from 18 to 24
- overpowered when heating 20 or 18 gauge wires twisted together
- sometimes sparks while making contact
- only recommended for desoldering with a wick
- heating indicator light not visible when holding iron upside down

In defense of the manufacturer, they do inform the customer of the limit on wire gauges and the fragility of the tips on a sticker inside the storage case. They also mention the hazards from sparking and the desoldering limitations, but only on their website. It would be nice if these things were plainly shown on the product packaging but it's obvious as to why they are not.

The "tip" is actually two tips (i.e. electrodes). It looks like two pieces of what might be a carbon compound separated by about a millimeter of insulating material. The iron generates heat by passing 6V from tip to tip through the metal you are trying to heat. It's a resistance soldering iron. More powerful versions of these irons seem to be popular with the model making crowd, particularly model train enthusiasts.

In theory this sounds great but in practice I found it very difficult to heat anything but small solid-core wires and small metal contacts. I could tin most of the recommended gauges of stranded wire but I found the iron to be finicky if the strands had begun to separate at all.

This make sense since the electrodes only directly heat what is between them. The rest of the material is only heated if it is in contact with the material being heated by the electrodes. If the strands separate then it's diffult to heat the entire tip of the wire. A traditional soldering iron works better because it can heat multiple strands at once.

In a resistance soldering iron the tips are not the heat source. The material being heated is the heat source.

This makes it even more important NOT to solder by touching the solder to the tip of the iron. You shouldn't solder this way with a traditional iron and you definitely shouldn't solder this way with a resistance soldering iron. You will make nice little solder droplets but unless they land on a heated piece of metal they won't do much good.

Oxidation seems to cripple the Cold Heat iron more than a standard iron. I'm guessing this is because a standard iron can "melt through" the oxidation. Granted, oxidation is bad and you should be using a clean tip and clean metal but you can get away with a reasonable amount of oxidation. If the resistance soldering irons can't make contact they can't generate heat. Simple as that.

Basically, oxidation gets annoying much faster with a Cold Heat iron than a traditional iron.

And finally, the heating indicator light is a nice touch but when you are contorted under something like a car dashboard you don't always have the top of the iron facing you. Often, it's the only way to tell you have made sufficient contact with the metal. It gets very frustrating when you THINK you have been heating a wire only to find out you really didn't make good contact. This iron needs some kind of indicator that is visible (or audible) from any angle.

In closing, if you plan to stick to small, clean, easily reachable parts the Cold Heat soldering tool may be useful for you. If you plan to use it as a portable, multi-purpose iron, it fails.

Perhaps the Cold Heat Original may be a good supplement to the Cold Heat Pro? I don't know anything about the Pro except that it's supposed to be more powerful. I'm assuming it will be rechargeable. Let's hope it has an audible contact alarm.

I don't think the product needs ANOTHER bad review, but I thought it might help if I provided a different example from the uses I've seen so far.

First, I didn't read the reviews on Amazon before purchasing. Big mistake. I would never have bought the thing if I had.

However, my intent for using this tool was a little different from the other reviewers. I don't really understand much about the electrical, wiring or motherboard soldering that most of the other reviews reference.

I wanted this tool to solder my silver charms to my charm bracelet. I collect charms and unfortunately, every time I need a new charm added, my jeweler charges $15.00 per charm to solder.

I thought this neat gadget would be perfect to solder little sterling silver solder rings to the bracelet. WRONG. While the tool did get hot, and did make the metal soft, it NEVER would actually solder the ring together. I tried everything. I left the tool on the metal for LONG periods of time thinking that it just needed a long heat transfer to work. I even tried different angles, different amounts of pressure, and two different tips. Nothing. I spent two hours trying to solder one ring! I guess it just doesn't get hot enough to make a solid joint.

So, for any ladies out there who thought this tool might work for jewelry making or jewelry repairs, I can tell you first hand, this thing STINKS.

got this at Home Depot for doing some things on my computer. I got it and the very, very thin solder that they did not say you needed and I had to go to 4 different places. Then as I got home I sat down and started soldering and it would not give me a good joint. Then as i put the soldering iron into it's case furious that i only made a half decent joint the tip broke as I was puting into the section just for it.

Go get a normal soldering iron. It may be less safe but at least it works.

After more use I would like to change my rating to a ZERO, but it won't let me. Unless you are one of the top income earners in the world this is probably not going to be a viable way for most to solder things. And if you truly are a person who can afford to buy the ten dollar tips after fifteen uses you would find it less frustrating and just as cost effective to hire someone else or have your butler to solder it for you. You will literally watch the tip chip away with each soldering job that you do. There is some heat generated from how the iron works and that leads to the tip chipping slowly. However it will chip when it is cold too when enough force is applied to it which isn't much. About the pressure from its own weight will do.

Most of the disatisfaction is that slimey marketing people got a hold of this. If they were more honest and did some research on its application it would not deserve to get such bad reviews. I am the type of person that would buy the more expensive model, but with what was represented on their first model I find it hard to believe that the PRO will solve any of my soldering problems that the base model didn't. It was marketed on the theory of how it should work without looking at reality. Unfortunately none of this has gotten my fourty dollars back. Twenty for the iron, and ten for the two extra tips now worn out too.

I had the trash can ceremony and dance for it today.

Just say no.

does not work as advertised. insufficient heat to melt solder