Battery operated soldering iron

EDC Gear for Flashlight Carriers
1

Anyone has any experience with a battery operated soldering iron?
I thought it would be nice to have one for quick repairs around the house or in my car’s toolkit (so that when I visit my parents or my girlfriend’s parents I’d always have a tool for small soldering tasks).
Do they really work or is it more of a gimmick?

HobbyKing has a really cheap 8W one for 3.49$ ( Radio Control Planes, Drones, Cars, FPV, Quadcopters and more - Hobbyking ). About 7$ including shipping costs.
I saw a Pro’sKit 9W one at a local shop for about 22$.
Hakko and Weller have their own options, but they’re expensive, not available locally and shipping costs would make them way too expensive for me.

2

I just don't think they would be powerful enough. I would personally just use a 12 volt model along with the car battery. :)

3

Get yourself a butane iron if you need portability.

4

I remember seeing these "Cold Heat" comercials on TV. Whatever happened to them?

amazon cold heat: www.amazon.com/dp/B000RWCRAM
15watt 4AA $15: www.amazon.com/dp/B002GQCYUK
this one is 15watt, maybe good to pop a pimple :)

5

I want a portable soldering iron, so connecting to the car battery isn’t an option, and I would like to avoid those butane irons since working with batteries is so much easier.
I’ll just order this one and see how it fares…

6

Would be cool to see an 18650 powered iron. Could it be possible to use a driver to run a heater instead of an led ?

7

I use the above model for all my mods and I have not had any issues. I liked it so much I bought a second just in case it is ever discontinued. It is 6 watts @ 4.5 volts.
It uses 3 AA’s. I suspect you will really like the model you quoted. It feels good in the hand, very portable and without the cord getting in the way. Warm up time to MAX is approximately 15 seconds.

8

I've used the "Cold Heat" iron in the past, and it works well (with fresh cells !) for a handful of solders.

The tips are not what you would call 'precision,' but are decent for automotive work (wire-to-wire) where a butane-powered iron would be unsafe - e.g. under the hood of a car, with fuel everywhere.

9

This is also what I use more often than not. For connecting leads to an emitter or driver, this is all i use. Works like a champ with the NiZn's. Think I paid ~$7 for mine.

10

I picked mine up from the local Canadian Tire store on special for around $12 at the time.

11

On a whim, I bought the Weller version - and was really disappointed with the performance. It takes FOREVER to heat a connection enough to flow the solder. IMO, it’s essentially useless.

I also have several cheap 12 volt soldering irons that work great with a small 12 volt gell-cell battery.

For supplying a lot of heat in a compact package, it’s hard to beat the little butane torches. Harbor Freight has one that goes on sale for under 7 bucks just about every other week.

It’s powerful enough to solder copper lugs on thick battery cables - easily handles 2 gauge wire.

12

I have proskit version, it can heat and solder small contacts and wires.
But is not powerfull enough for good soldering.
I do not recommend.

13

18650-powered iron would indeed be cool - considering that IMR 18650’s can output well over 50W of power (and ~35W with sensible runtime (10-15 minutes)).