DIY Cold Heat soldering iron

Step 9 A little more to the left...

Yes honey.. erm.. YES!.. Ok.. back to business.

First, some warnings.

1. You should not use this on anything that could be damaged by stray current or RF. You're using electricity to heat the components and it could cause the same problems as a static charge.

2. Don't press down. Pressing harder won't do anything but break the leads off. All you have to do is get both leads to touch the piece at the same time. This will heat up the work and melt the solder.

3. Careful how long you touch the piece. If the leads start glowing like light bulbs... too long dude... too long.

4. Be careful of stray voltage. I was holding the coil of solder and had my arm resting on the power supply. There was enough current passing into the solder to make a little buzz in my arm. Lets not do that again, shall we?

5. Practice.. Practice...Practice...and DON"T PRESS HARD!

I tested by soldering two wires together. I placed the two leads of the iron on either side of the joint, both touching bare metal. the leads started to glow and the metal heated up quite quickly. I touched a little solder in there and it flowed quite easily.

Success!

Now.. on to cure cancer.. but first.. conclusions and ideas..

Comments

[xiro93]

Oh my god thankyou sir. I just finished mine a lol it ago and it works fine. I did it a lil different but I still got the same results still. Once again thank you.

[GamerM]

its more like welding

[eric m]

not exactly useful for electronics then

[Amireallyhere]

this idea is good, i did find some places for improvement for the smaller projects.

what i did was: 
split the two tips into two smaller parts so that i could solder small chip circuits.
it works well but burns the solder leaving it black and non-conductive, im using a Delta Electronics AC adapter for a printer with an output of 30v .83A(too lazy to find a proper adapter) am i using too much current or am i leaving it on there too long?

thanks for the great instructable and any feedback would be great!

[turbojet]

I advise you to be very careful with that. Stray current (just like static charge) can damage chips. Although it is relatively rare in practice, it is still not the best idea to risk ruining parts of your application.

[turbojet]

Not bad at all. However it's unfortunatelly useless for practical soldering. When soldering, we do not only want to mount capacitors, wires and such, but we also use lots of semiconductors which aren't resistant to the drawbacks of this technique. Maybe adding a push-switch and connecting the leads with some metal that warms quickly and can hold heat for a few seconds to do the work will do some in our favor. Doesn't it?

[tiny hay]

I have some old laptop battery's lying around, After I make this using the power supply, i think ill power it off those. A rechargeable, portable, soldering iron. My friends will never again have to fix there headphones using tweezers and a lighter.

My only question is how close can i get the tips before causing an arc? I only ask because I do soldering in some tight places sometimes.

Thanks for the Instructable!

[rocketman221]

Don't worry about getting them too close. It takes about 1KV to arc 1 mm. At 5 volts it isn't possible to make an arc.

[cdousley]

ive had little arks with a 9 volt battery

[cd41]

Congratulations Your Dark Cold Heat Soldering Iron(+3) is now the first plug in taser I have ever seen you win... a Yellow Strip of Wire (-3) and now is auto equipped to you Dark Cold Heat Soldering Iron making it (+0) Now the Orges are attacking you base and you have a useless weapon! But do not fret buying buy this Magic Jar of Dill You may raise you Dark Cold Heat Soldering Iron from (+0) to (+12) all for just 100 Enchanted Unicorn Skulls. Wow that "story" took alot out of me i feel like some switch in me has flipped to geek better go watch some awesome porn to flip it back!

[photozz]

The Cold heat iron is -2 against leather armor, but does have +3 as a ranged weapon if you throw it. Now.. If only it could actually taze..

[mmould03]

+9 if it and target are submerged in water...

[photozz]

3d6 damage in a 5 foot radius.

[cd41]

make the same thing but with copper wire instead of graphite might not solder but probably tase if you stab them with it

[photozz]

At this amperage and voltage it would be more likely to burn you. Just go get an old disposable camera flash unit and modify that to give a jolt. Much higher voltage and lower amperage. No burning, just your hair standing on end.

[cd41]

Just lick i got electrocuted last night it sure did stop me from unplugging that party light

[junkfactory886]

Or, bypass the power supply and bring the current out from the wall to some sort of handle, with the power wires soldered to two electrodes, possibly launched by compressed air and made from sewing needles. Or just buy a taser.