I would agree with you, Mark. I bought one of these early last year when the
Seattle Times newspaper featured this local manufacturer in their
"Technology" section. Cold Heat had just begun to market their product at
the time, and there was a backorder list. It turns out it wasn't worth the
wait-- keeping the device's tip in proper contact with the joint is tricky,
and the tip (electrodes?) wear down and/or chip easily. It *is* pretty
amazing how fast the Cold Heat soldering iron cools off after use, and the
battery life is surprisingly long.

I've known how to solder properly for years, but the Cold Heat iron seems
designed to do one thing: make cold solder joints! The solder does not flow
well into the heated work piece as with traditional methods. The solder
wants to ball up even a short distance away from the point of contact. I
finally gave up and went back to a propane-powered soldering torch with a
catalytic element soldering tip. With care, I can easily solder anything "in
the field" that I need to, from Beverage antenna terminating resistors to
wires on ground rods.

Guy Atkins
Puyallup, WA USA


--------------------------------------------
"Mark S. Holden" wrote in message
...

I looked into this when I first saw them advertised. The reviews I saw
all said
it was worthless. Here's a link to the Amazon review page for it:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/B00067GK7Y/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/104-4327252-1271913?%5Fencoding=UTF8&me=A2WEFPOFEIM91H&s=hi