Cold Heat Soldering Iron?

Comments

• Jim McCorison Posts: 359

  2005-01-09 17:36 edited 2005-01-09 17:36

  This was covered in the thread:
  
  http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=516557
  
  and possible others.
  
  Jim
• Forrest Posts: 1,341

  2005-01-09 18:43 edited 2005-01-09 18:43

  I sure wouldn't use a soldering iron that produces a spark to solder IC's - unless I wanted to kill the IC.
  
  I've used a 15 watt soldering iron for years and it's worked well, and it only costs $8.39 - http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog_name=CTLG&category_name=CTLG_011_009_007_003&product_id=64-2051
  Replacement tips are available at Radio Shack for $1
• Pinky&Brain Posts: 2

  2005-01-09 22:16 edited 2005-01-09 22:16

  Thank you for the info Forrest.· And Jim, I did a search before posting and didn't find anything so sorry.
• Jim McCorison Posts: 359

  2005-01-09 23:43 edited 2005-01-09 23:43

  Yeah, I had to struggle to find the posting. Sorry, I should have commented about that in my reply. My bad.
  
  I then posted in the support forum about the brain dead search engine and was informed by the Jim The IT Guy that they are testing a new search engine for the forums and that it may installed next week. One can only hope!
  
  Jim
• Paul Baker Posts: 6,351

  2005-01-11 02:05 edited 2005-01-11 02:05

  I got one from thinkgeek.com before they started advertising it on TV. I find its too awkward for fine pitch work. I use Xytronic 137ESD with the mini-wave tip and I swear by it, I can do .65 pitch work without much hassle. Ive used the cold-heat only a couple times on some not so delicate work, It works as expected. The tip is roughly 1/4" wide with a millimeter or two spacing between the electrodes, just fine for DIP work. About the spark, its just an arc flowing to the path of least resistance (the other electrode) I wouldn't worry too much about it because its a low voltage/high current apparatus and ESD is typically measured in kV (which this thing doesn't even approach). This is evidenced by the fact that the circuit doesn't complete until the non touching electrode is a very small fraction of a millimeter (I can just barely see daylight between). Remember voltage is the potential for electrons to flow, current is the flow of electrons, its high voltage thats bad for chips not current (well current thats not flowing through the chip).