BUT WAIT! – THERE’S MORE! Cold Heat Product Review

By Ron Lucier
ITC Course Moderator
ASNT NDT Level III TIR

While traveling the world for FLIR I spend over 150 nights each year in hotels. That’s a lot of time and I have picked up the nasty habit of spending it mostly watching television. Several months ago I was intrigued by a cordless soldering tool with the very neat name of “Cold Heat” ( http://www.coldheat.com ). The company claims, and demonstrates, that the soldering tip heats up very rapidly, does it’s soldering job, then cools so rapidly that you can touch the tip nearly immediately. Given that many infomercials make somewhat dubious claims, I invested $30 and bought one. Yes, dear reader, here is Ron’s first product review!

 
Coldheat soldering tool

I ordered the Cold heat directly from the company’s website and it arrived well packaged and included a “free” wire stripper. I read the manual, installed the batteries, and turned it on. Nothing happened. The little white light that was supposed to come on didn’t. Given that this is a solid state device and with my 34 years of Ham Radio operator experience, I rapped it on the table. Yup! That did it, the unit does work! I think the battery connection inside wasn’t perfect.

         
Thermograms of Coldheat soldering tip (arrow) at <140°F and 632°F respectively.

The instructions say to place the split electrode tip across the surface you want to solder. As soon as you do, the tip heats. Rapidly! The tip went from 80°F to 632°F (26.6°C to 333°C) in 4.17 seconds. Pretty impressive! Cold Heat claims you can touch the tip fairly quickly after soldering. I have a pain threshold of about 140°F (60°C) so rather than get a first degree burn, I let the data do the talking. It took about 9 seconds to cool below my desired temperature. It was still warm but OK to touch. My whole test was about 40 seconds long and the tip was at 94.5°F (34.7°C) at the end of the test.

Coldheat tip temperature vs. time

Here’s the More!

Read the instructions carefully. This tool does work as advertised but it is limited to wires of 18 gauge or less – pretty small. You won’t be sweating ¾” copper pipe fittings with the Cold Heat. I did several tests and the longer I used the tool the longer it took to cool the tip. I don’t know anyone who really tests the tip while they’re soldering so this shouldn’t be of concern.

What is of great concern was pointed out by our Service Department when I brought it to them for their comments. As soon as you place the tip on a component a very small electric arc is generated. This may be a very bad thing for static sensitive components such as CMOS circuits. Use this tool at your own discretion.

Summary

Like all products sold it is prudent to know what you are buying. There is certainly no deception on the part of the Cold Heat folks and the tool does it’s job as it is intended to do. If you are repairing jewelry you may not have to worry about the arcing but I will not use this on my own ham radio equipment.