cold heat soldering iron

[Timothy Rasch]

A friend of mine bought the Radio Shack cold heat soldering Iron . We took it apart to find out what parts are in it. There is a surface mount IC 16 pins or more,diodes ,and a surface mount transistor. We can't identify the parts numbers [ground off]. All this circuitry is on a half inch square approx. circuit board operating on 4 aa alkaline cells. The electrodes put out 6v but at a high current I think when shorted across. Does any one have an Idea what these circuits do and what the part numbers are? I could duplicate the circuit then for experimenting. Tim Rasch
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[jollyrgr]

Tim,<p>I have been trying to find out how this works for some time now but have not seen anything available except for the one available as AVAILABLE ONLY ON THIS SPECIAL TV OFFER. Your reference to the Radio Shack version is the first time I've seen it available from stores. <p>There is this information available from the "as see on TV" website:<p>https://www.asseenontvnetwork.com/vcc/c ... aq/115790/<p>It gives a brief description of what this device does but does not give a detailed description. In fact they call their technology "magic". See here:
https://www.asseenontvnetwork.com/vcc/c ... gy/115790/<p>Since you have one of these, I have a few questions.
Does it really work as shown on TV? In other words no cold solder joints?<p> They claim thousands of solder connections on a single set of batteries. What have you seen in reality?<p> Do you have the patent number(s) and, if so, would you post them so this product can be researched at the USPO website?<p>
This looks like a decent and useful tool for all electronics hobbyist. But my experience with the automatic stripper device advertized along side this soldering iron still has me using my diagonal cutters and utility knife for wire stripping.

[wd5gnr]

I looked at these awhile back (would be great for antenna work). I have read they "spark" near the work and their site suggests you do not solder "sensitive" components with it. This makes me think it is a resistance welder. That is, it generates current through the metal to be welded and that is what generates the heat. I'm surprised there is no inductor on the board (or in the shaft) and this is little more than a switching regulator that can deliver a good bit of current through the working metal. <p>As for the wire strippers, I have a pair like that. They work very good on certain wires. Of course, we also have a thermal stripper, so that gets the most use as it will strip absolutely anything. That's another example of a device that will glow red hot in about 3 seconds and then 2 or 3 seconds later it is cool again.

[rshayes]

The patents that the article refers to are probably US patents 6,646,228 and 6,797,924. There may be other foreign or provisional patents. The patents are available at the patent office web site (www.uspto.gov).<p>The heat is generated by passing current between two electrodes. The electrodes may be carbon and are probably brought to a fine point to localize the heating at the tip. The patent does not describe any transistor or integrated circuits. These might be a switching controller to control the temperature.<p>The patent refers to several previous patents. The oldest was issued in 1891.<p>[ October 17, 2004: Message edited by: stephen ]</p>

[Enzo]

I have a plain old vanilla Weller soldering gun - the 100/140 watt one. The tip is really a glorified piece of heavy wire that eventually burns through. What was once a continuous loop of wire is not two straight pieces. I discovered early on that I could make contact on a solder joint with both wires, and the current flowed through the work and heated it. At the time it allowed me to finish a job without finding a new tip. But that was resistance soldering. it works, but does require the heating current flow through the work.

[Chris Smith]

My guess would be its a conductive ceramic tip that gets a burst of energy just hot enough to do the joint, and like the space shuttle tile, they also cool down extreamly quick and are not hot to the touch just seconds after glowing.

[jwax]

Chris- "conductive ceramic"? I'm curious about that material. Any more info?
John

[jollyrgr]

Jwax,<p>If you are interested in conductive ceramics then you might be interested in TRANSPARENT ALUMINUM (ALUMINIUM). Yes I'm talking about the stuff Scotty referred to in Star Trek IV when he wanted to make a whale tank. A group of researchers in Germany came up with a way to make transparent aluminium in the first place. Then some 3M engineers in the US came up with a process to make the material in bulk quanties. The material is really aluminium oxide (and other materials) that has been turned into glass. Even so it is still three times stronger than steel. Go here to see a picture:<p>http://beverlytang.com/archives/materia ... minum.html<p>Want a scientific description of the process? Go here:<p>http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/8/8/9<p>You will note that I have included two spellings for aluminum because Europe and the US spell it differently. Thus you will find different articles by searching on the different spellings.

[Chris Smith]

From What I read at the web site for this product, what they mention is the same selling points used for the space shuttle tiles back in the 70s, with one twist, conductivity? <p>Again my guess is impregnated glass or ceramic of 100% purity and mostly made of Air, but a metal mixed in to form a current path while still retaining the general tile qualities of cooling down as well as heat bearing property.

[russlk]

It might be an exothermic process; welding can be done with a mixture of aluminium powder and iron oxide plus a match.