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ColdHeat - anyone use it?

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shmokes:

I agree with Randy and Ken.  With that said, it does seem like it would be pretty handy for the newbie as well as the professional who is working on something that is not sensitive.  It clearly brings something to the table in terms of safety and the lack of a cord is convenient.

The right tool for the job is what it comes down to.  For many jobs this soldering iron is probably not appropriate.  But for a job that does not require much finess it doesn't make sense to pull out the soldering station if you've got this thing handy and it'll do the job.

...and so on.

1UP:


--- Quote ---How about will damage it.  Any current strong enough to instantly heat a pad up to 800 degrees F will vaporize the tiny traces in a CPU.  If you are talking about 5watt ceramic resistor, that will probably be fine.  But you won't find those in  this hobby.

--- End quote ---

How many people are soldering CPUs on this board?  Like I said, for something like that, you might want to use a soldering pencil, since that requires a much finer tip than what's available for the cold heat anyway.  Actually, for something like that, you'd need surface mount equipment anyway, not a soldering pencil.

Also, My experience with this thing is that the heat is very localized.  I don't know why, but I do know that I can solder on wires that I am holding with my bare hands, without getting burned like I would with my regular iron.  Also, it dissipates very quickly from the joint compared to using a regular iron.  If heat is a problem, you can always use a clip-on heatsink.


--- Quote ---Merely touching multiple leads at the same time with a normal iron is not "bad news."
--- End quote ---

If it's hot, it can easily melt the solder on the leads together.  I'm very careful with my soldering, but I've had times when I was dealing with pretty tight PCBs where pins of a chip were soldered together, or a surface mount component came off the board because of the proximity to what I was soldering.  That's a situation where I probably wouldn't use the cold heat anyway, but you can still have trouble with a regular iron too.

Gunstar Hero:

Seems neat, but I'll stick with the old standby.  :)

1UP:


--- Quote ---The right tool for the job is what it comes down to.  For many jobs this soldering iron is probably not appropriate.  But for a job that does not require much finess it doesn't make sense to pull out the soldering station if you've got this thing handy and it'll do the job.
--- End quote ---

Exactly.  It's great to have a socket set, but sometimes a crescent wrench comes in mighty handy.

Look, I'm not trying to force everyone to buy this thing.  I'm not a shareholder in the company.  I just think it works pretty well for its intended purpose.  I just don't understand why it' s being dismissed as being not only useless, but dangerous, no matter what kind of soldering you're doing.  I think the fact that they keep selling out is a testament to the fact that it's not just a piece of junk.

If it sounds good, get one.  I got mine and I don't regret it.

RandyT:


--- Quote from: 1UP on November 20, 2004, 03:35:48 pm ---
--- Quote ---How about will damage it.  Any current strong enough to instantly heat a pad up to 800 degrees F will vaporize the tiny traces in a CPU.  If you are talking about 5watt ceramic resistor, that will probably be fine.  But you won't find those in  this hobby.

--- End quote ---

How many people are soldering CPUs on this board?  Like I said, for something like that, you might want to use a soldering pencil, since that requires a much finer tip than what's available for the cold heat anyway.  Actually, for something like that, you'd need surface mount equipment anyway, not a soldering pencil.

--- End quote ---

You don't have to be directly soldering on a CPU for the current to destroy it.  The pads for the input connections on the Eco 2 are .100" apart, both vertically and horizontally.  These are connected directly to the CPU (which, BTW, we solder to the board with a grounded pencil soldering iron, albeit a high-end one)  Given the theory of operation the tool is built on,  I'd speculate that touching two of those pads together, one on each side of your "iron's" tip will, at minimum blow through the protection diodes inside the processor and kill those two inputs.  It could even kill the entire chip if you happen to hit the right combination.


--- Quote ---
--- Quote ---Merely touching multiple leads at the same time with a normal iron is not "bad news."
--- End quote ---

If it's hot, it can easily melt the solder on the leads together.  I'm very careful with my soldering, but I've had times when I was dealing with pretty tight PCBs where pins of a chip were soldered together, or a surface mount component came off the board because of the proximity to what I was soldering.  That's a situation where I probably wouldn't use the cold heat anyway, but you can still have trouble with a regular iron too.

--- End quote ---

This is a given, but that's not merely touching adjacent leads.  In one case you have a mess that can be cleaned up with a little solder wick, and you might even be able to re-attach the surface-mount component , with a little patience.  In the other case, you would have lost the project, or crippled it permanently.  I'd prefer the first scenario.

When I see a picture of one of these aimed at the center of a group of surface mount components as part of their marketing materials, I'd have to say that, based on my experience, the "intended purpose" is over stated.  

Also, there are lots of reasons for an item being "unavailable", not the least of them being limited production capability and the need to get available stock to the store chains where they will get the most exposure.  I have seen these branded with both the RadioShack and Coleman names and can fully understand  the value seen by both of these companies.  If you are camping and a wire breaks on your flashlight or other camping gear, it'd come in handy.  Just as it would when repairing a connection to an antenna on your roof.  But that doesn't imply suitability for other things.

I have a bit of a vested interest in this discussion from a customer service standpoint and I strongly discourage anyone from using this device on our encoder products.  There will probably even be an addition to the FAQ about this one.

RandyT

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