cold heat soldering iron

[guitarmonky55]

ive read a ton of threads on this forum that say these things are crap and such and such and i havent heard much good around ehre about them.

well yesterday i went on hearsay from friends and bought one from radio shack, and i have to say i dont know what you guys dont like about this thing!  its the most amazing iron ive ever used.  it took a few minutes to get accustomed to holding the iron so that it engages properly, but after that i soldered up an entire distortion with extreme easy, and it made really pretty solder joints too    i wasnt too sure how healthy that little initial arc would be for my ic's and my tranny so i suck an aligator clip to ground around the legs before soldering and nothing seems to have been fried all is working fine so that seems a solution that prob.  

so why exactly are so many people saying these things arent great?  the only problem ive noticed so far is that the tips are brittle and someone with a heavy hand may go through them a bit fast, but its not been a prob for me so far as i work lightly.

[bwanasonic]

Other than a utility purpose like soldering speaker wires at a gig, I don't see much point in them. If you plan on spending much time soldering, a decent temperature controlled soldering station is more than worth the modest investment. After you use one, you will see that anything else is a waste of time.  And I still wouldn't trust anything that arcs near sensitive components.

Kerry M

[RLBJR65]

Biggest problem I had was that I never got one that actually WORKED! My wife bought one for me at Rat Shack. IMO, theirs are not made very well the battery springs and switch are crap. After trying 3 I gave up and exchanged it for some overpriced parts. Maybe their are some good ones out there, but after the experience I've had I wouldn't recommend getting one from Radio Shack.

[guitarmonky55]

well since posting ive been doing more soldering(i had been stuck with a 10 year old busted up 4.99 sears iron before) and still love this thing to death!  no problems still, i re-wired the electronics compartment of one of my busted up old axes and made some changes to the pcb of my fuzz face clone, also adding a dc jack.  i guess maybe i just got lucky by nto getting a lemon?