Cold heat soldering iron

[Crunch]

I was going to buy one, just for the sake of having one, but, I already have a portable one which was £35. It works well and is very effective, so, why buy another?

[ZeD]

What portable unit are you using?

[Guttenaffe]

I'd say waste of money; it is one of them "gimmick" things. I wouldn't give up my 20W EdSyn iron for nothing, well maybe a Pace PRC 2000... but that is because I'm an Electronics guy and do so much SMT work. 15W to 20W soldering iron is all you need for most things, if you want a good tip hook it into one of them lamp dimmers on a cord you can buy at home improvement centers and some department stores and you can vary the input voltage and thus control the heat.

[ZeD]

Great info there Guttenaffe, I was looking through the Edsyn website, their EB200 looks like a promising little portable. Sometimes ya need a quick 123 solder job and dont want to get out the big one, plug it in, set it up, wait for it to heat up. I think I'll pick one up.

[Rachel]

My boyfriend bought a mod chip for his Xbox and the iron Gordy picture was the one he was using to solder on the chip. It is VERY hard to solder on to small circuit boards with this. He ended up ruining the motherboard and he had to take the motherboard out of his other Xbox. He also got a normal iron and used it with ease. He's probably never going to use cold heat again. (I watched him use it and I thought it sucked)

[Frakk]

soldering chips and motherboards isn't a good idea with any soldering iron either this cold heat is good for specific situations and not for others but it doesnt mean it sucks.

[Malatory]

Since the cold heat is not the best thing to use on IC's. It does give off a static charge (Could be a reason Rachel's slave fried the mobo). I bought one as was given one as a gift. I found it to be usefull when working on wiring in a car. When using it on some led's when I 1st got one.. I did notic that it would light them up while I was soldering. Again not good for IC's.

[Rachel]

Originally Posted by Malatory

(Could be a reason Rachel's slave fried the mobo).

Hahaha. He is no slave.

[Malatory]

Originally Posted by Rachel

Hahaha. He is no slave.

So says you :p :p

[ludothegreat]

I bought one of these jsut to give it a try. I had the feeling it wasn't going to be anything special and I was right. This thing is big and awkward. My fist tip actully broke in the package on the way home from the store. Really not worth my money. I tried to tin some wires with it first thing and that was a totaly mess. It either would not make the connection that it needed or it jsut didnt get hot enough to tin the tips of the wires. I have never picked it up since.