Hello again,
On that web site they are saying that the main reason that the heat comes about is because the tip itself heats up. That's interesting in itself i guess. But that's not the only way to do it. As we all know, anything with resistance will heat up and do the same thing as proved by replacing the tip with wires. The soldering guns do the same thing, although for the Cold Heat they state that it's mostly the tip itself. No big deal though.
But i think i am starting to see the whole picture here now. The original company came out with a new MATERIAL first, and needed a way to get it to market. Then later they came up with the idea for the "soldering iron". so they were able to use their product in something marketable.
As other web sites note however, the solder joint produced with the Cold Heat is almost always of questionable quality. Usually looks bad although it may still conduct ok for many applications. I cant recommend it however, as other irons even much cheaper ones work much, much better even for a beginner. I know this for a fact because i've watched other people solder with both types.
So does it work at all then? The answer is sometimes, but it's hard to get the tip to heat up sometimes due to work piece contact issues, and the joint is never as good as a regular iron. In it's defense however, i have used it to solder speaker wires. I didnt feel like pulling out the *real* soldering iron when the wires would break off so i would sometimes pull out the Cold Heat *thing*. After some practice i was able to solder the wires, which were always #22 gauge or lighter. Anything too heavy wont heat up, like even some smaller solder lugs.
My suggestion is to buy a regular iron and practice with that. If you are still curious about the Cold Heat thing, borrow one from someone else and see how much you dont like it
I have one sitting on a shelf somewhere that i havent used for many years now. I used it less than 10 times altogether because i dont like the joint it produces. I originally thought it might be good for the car, but most wires in the car are too heavy for the Cold Heat thing and sometimes it is cooler outside so it takes more heat to begin with to heat up a joint. I bought a regular iron that runs on 12vdc and that works great. I also have an inverter that i use with a soldering gun for the real heavy stuff.
If you get a storm and the electric goes out, you can solder small wires with this thing, but that's it. Cant use it for circuit boards period, cant use it for wires over about #22 gauge. So it's only good when there is absolutely no other way to solder in an emergency and then you have to hope it works ok.
So they use a 'chip' in the iron too? If so, that would probably be as a buck converter to get high current at low voltage, but from what the web site says it doesnt sound like they use a converter chip. All the money goes into the production of that specialized tip. Oh yeah, the tip is very fragile too so it can break quite easily.