Product Test Report-Cold Heat Soldering Iron

As I suspected, you can't get enough watts out of 4 AA alkaline cells to solder anything much heavier than a small printed circuit pad.

A friend's wife gave him one of those "Cold Heat" soldering irons as a birthday present last Sunday and we tried it out at his party.

With 4 fresh alkalines installed it couldn't tin the stripped end of a piece of No. 18 stranded wire copper wire.

Not a very practical tool for anything but very specialized lightweight work. Looking at some typical battery curves I'd estimate that it probably doesn't put out more than about 6 watts on fresh batteries.

The tip, about 3/16" diameter and cut on the bias, was made up out of two nearly half round pieces of what looked like carbon separated by an insulator which stopped short of the end.

It also was difficult to keep both sides of the tip in contact with the workpiece, which of course is needed to get any heat at all.

On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give it about 0.5.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia
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Reply to
JR North

The butane irons work great. Weller has them for about 50 bucks. I recomend the automatic igniton one unless you smoke.

John

Reply to
John

Yeah, my son just picked up one similar to this model and was showing it off to me yesterday:

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The part I found interesting is that exept when it's being used as a "torch" you squeeze the piezo sparker to light the flame, let it heat up a catalytic converter behind the iron tip, then "blow out" the flame and the butane releases heat when it hits the catalytic converter, with no visible flame.

The last time I encountered that principle was maybe 50 years ago when drive in movie theaters had gas powered heaters with dinner plate sized catalytic combustion disks inside them. You hung them inside the car off a nearly closed window glass and they kept you hot. (In case your date wouldn't.)

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

The best thing about the Weller is, that it has (as an add on) a very fine hot-air nozzle. Good for general fine heating (600°C) and hot-air-soldering.

Nick

Reply to
Nick Müller

Isn't it amazing what a marketing plan can do? For fine work I use my

2-stage Weller with a 12 ga. piece of copper wire about 2" long with one end wrapped around the weller's tip three or four times and the other end becomes my fine tip.
Reply to
Tom Gardner

Yes, I'll second that. The one I have is orange, if that helps, and has a lighter built into the cap. Catalytic convertor type thing to get the temperature up. Sufficient for nearly anything I've used it for.

I did find out, however, that the librarian at the college didn't appreciate me building my projects in her library. Odd, that.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

I've got an orange one that's made in Ireland (Portasol). Iron plated tip, works for whatever I need it for, refills easily, flint ignition. Good for quick jobs away from an extension cord, but I wouldn't use it if a plug-in type was available.

Almost identical to this one:

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I guess the design is good, my one is at least 15 or 20 years old.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

That's the one. Nice tool, couldn't come up with the name but you did.

Well, kind of like a cordless drill. If I'm in the shop, I'll use a "real" drill, but yeah.

Same here.

Well, I'm sure it made perfect sense to me at the time, but I can see her point now, mumble years later.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

And while I may be repeating myself in this exalted venue, the Weller soldering guns do a pretty good job of demagnetizing small tools like tweezers. Just pull the trigger and stick and rotate the magnetized item through the "loop" formed by the tip for a couple of seconds, withdrawing it before letting go of the trigger.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

No KIDDING.

I have to thank one of the posters here who suggested this several months ago: the idea of hot-air wave soldering SMD components. I forget who it was but I suspect several folks had the thought and many voiced it, so I'll just put out a general "thank you."

I recently had to design some specialized boards to test various configurations for pulse launching from miniature connectors. Long story short, the connectors work best if the center pin is surface mount, not through hole. And likewise, a couple of the ground pins as well.

So I wound up with a board with four of the modified connectors (those were SSMA, and not available in SMD so they were a custom mod) going into half though hole, half surface mount locations. Because the board was ground plane everywhere, and the connectors were gold-plated stainless, I couldn't just heat the connectors with a gun and flow them everywhere.

I tried hot-plating the assembly but it was tricky and I cooked one board trying that. :( Boy that FR4 stinks.

Then recalling the pyro-pen hot-air trick, I thought I didn't have much to lose.

Worked great. I was able to do one connector at a time, and get the heat right where I wanted it. Didn't cook anything and the tests worked out great. Thanks again.

Jim

Reply to
jim rozen

Same one Ive got in my tool box. One of the few things that didnt get stolen when they popped open my truck 4 yrs ago. I use it every couple weeks and have for at least 15 yrs

Getting to be needing a new tip though

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Reply to
Gunner

It wasn't me, but I would have told you so. :-) Yes, I (de)soldered some SMDs with hot air. And the Weller Pyropen is the _cheapest_ hot air soldering you can get.

Nick

Reply to
Nick Müller

Jeff I was eyeing those at HD last night. Thanks for saving me $20.

- - Rex Burkheimer WM Automotive Fort Worth TX

Jeff Wisnia wrote:

Reply to
Rex B

Those Weller Gun soldering irons ARE nice for power electrical circuits. I have had mine for 35 - 40 years, a present from my father. The fact that you can easily make replacement tips as stated in an earlier post is a big PLUS! It still works reasonably well; the two-stage switch is getting balky......can anyone suggest where I might obtain a replacement switch in south-western Ontario, Cambridge- Kitchener- Waterloo area ideally, but anywhere between Toronto and London would do. Thanks,

Wolfgang

Reply to
wfhabicher

You will have an easier time purchasing an entire near-new gun off ebay than purchasing the switch for one, by itself. Save the old gun housing as those are also nearly impossible to get.

Jim

Reply to
jim rozen

Jim,

Thanks for the pointer.....will keep my eyes open.

Regards,

Wolfgang

Reply to
wfhabicher

Be careful going the replacement route. I have one of the newer guns that looks like this (Model D550):

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Note: I believe the image supplied above is actually for the smaller 100/140 watt gun. The larger 200/260 watt gun uses a slightly different tip attachment.

The connection where the tips attach to the gun are some sort of aluminum. i.e. the loop through the guns transformer is aluminum and the old guns (20 years ago?) were steel. This is a BIG PAIN IN THE BUTT. It is next to impossible to keep a good electrical connection between the tip and gun. If I want this gun to work well I have to clean the tip/connection area every time I use it. I put up with it for several years and never could figure out a solution that worked for any length of time. Most any goop you add to the area is quickly cooked away...

If you can find an old gun that still has the steel coil that would be a worth while purchase. I can't say for sure what the material is on the Model 8200 (100/140 watt). Maybe someone else has bought one recently. Mine (D550) is ~10 years old, maybe Weller makes them different now. The old ones with the steel gun/coil worked well.

Parts were never a problem. I could get the case, switch, tips and tip hardware locally, usually in stock. If I recall correctly the switch was around $2.50. These guns (both models) are notorious for the solder connections coming loose on the switch. You might want to check this before condemning the switch if you haven't already ;-)

Newark has the switch for $12.22, which I think is high/too much. But here is the link (Weller Part number 7324 -Switch for Dual Heat Models) :

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Too bad Wen disappeared. Their old 250 watt gun could shoot and melt circles around the aluminum Weller D550...

Reply to
Leon Fisk

Mine isn't steel - it's chrome (nickel?) plated copper. I agree that aluminum would not be nearly as good. Bob

Reply to
Bob Engelhardt

46 years ago, I boarded in the home of a TV repair shop owner; he was forever replacing the tip on his Wen (unsure of the model) so I loaned him my Weller Junior (8100) which I still use regularly. Six months latter, when I changed job location, he returned it to me, along with the spare tips he had not needed, and went out and bought his own Weller and donated the Wen to a competitor shop. Gerry :-)} London, Canada
Reply to
Gerald Miller

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