KFVS12 News & Weather Cape Girardeau, Carbondale, Poplar BluffCold Heat Soldering Iron

Cold Heat Soldering Iron
By: Amy Jacquin

Rich Meinke is one of the engineers here at KFVS. Repairing small electrical connections is a frequent part of his job.

"See and the solder is complete," he demonstrates how quickly a traditional soldering iron works. The tip is over 700 degrees, and it burns anything it touches.

"I've had some mishaps," Meinke laughs. "I've dropped solder on my pants! My hands are pock-marked from where I dropped the iron. It just comes with the trade."

So a soldering iron that gets hot enough to melt, yet stays cool to the touch sounds like a great idea. A hand-held, battery operated tool is a Cold Heat Soldering Iron. Makers of the $40 product promise it creates the heat you need to solder within seconds, and cools off almost instantly. The key is the two-pronged soldering tip... And both prongs must be touching metal to spark heat.

Meinke tests it, and is quickly disappointed. It's difficult to keep both prongs sparks, and the iron just tends to make the solder ball-up.

Another engineer, Mike McGuire, tests it and gets the same results.

"I can't get it to melt from underneath, and it won't make this connection," McGuire shakes his head.

Between the two engineers, the pronged tip gets metal gunk stuck inside. Directions say it'll most likely eventually melt out of there... Or you have to pick it out without scratching the head. Rich says cleaning a traditional soldering iron is much easier.

Now it's time to see how the Cold Heat Soldering iron works for some hobbies. We head to Charmful Creations in Cape Girardeau where owner Dana Rowland and her friend Dawn Gribler work on fixing a broken bracelet.

"It hard to hold all three things in place," says Dawn. "You have to have both prongs touching the solder and the jewelry."

Having a vice or something to hold the jewelry might help... But even at that it's almost impossible to hold the Cold Heat iron steady enough to spark heat between both prongs.

"I think the info-mercial is very misleading," says Amy Jacquin as she watches the tests. They all agree!

So the crafty women will continue their creations without a Cold Heat iron. And our engineers, who were thinking about buying it, decided against it.

"This would disappoint me," says Rich.

The Cold Heat iron disappoints all of us. It does get hot when you manage to make the right connections, and it cools quickly... But it's cumbersome. So the $40 Cold Heat Soldering Iron earns a D .