ColdHeat Cordless Soldering Irons and Glue Guns
By Chuck Cage
When it comes to soldering irons, cutting the cord is definitely a great thing. Not only do you sometimes (ok, often) have to solder in remote places, but it’s so easy to catch the cable and pull the iron out of its “safe” place (read: the thing you balanced it precariously upon).
ColdHeat takes cordless one better: it heats instantly and cools in seconds, meaning that you probably won’t burn yourself (or the table). Details after the jump.
The ColdHeat Classic (at $19.95 direct) uses 4 standard AA batteries and reportedly delivers over 700 joints per battery pack. The tip’s only hot during active soldering (indicated by a red tip heat indicator light), and the kit includes a carrying case and a replaceable tip. (Other tip shapes are available at additional charge.)
The new ColdHeat Pro (for $10 more) adds a high-low power switch (and one more AA for a total of 5 to support it) as well as an uprated polycarbonate shell.
FWIW, we used a one of these pretty extensively on the job a while back repairing restaurant equipment (stereos, computers, etc.) which had pulled-out power cords and so on and had a good experience. What we didn’t realize is that ColdHeat now also makes a glue gun, currently available for $29.95 direct. While not as groundbreaking featurewise as the soldering irons, it does look like a pretty competent cordless glue gun (if you have a need for such).
Street pricing seems to run at or a little higher than direct, so unless shipping’s going to kill you, you might want to order from the site.
ColdHeat Classic [ColdHeat]
ColdHeat Pro [ColdHeat]
ColdHeat Cordless Glue Gun [ColdHeat]
August 31st, 2006 at 4:30 pm
[...] The ColdHeat concept is great: it heats up and cools down instantly so a) you don’t burn yourself or the things around you, and b) it can run on batteries for quite a while. We have one, but we’ve always been a little bit wary of the tool’s quality as the only place you could find them was at Harbor Freight and on late-night infomercials. [...]