GoRV - Digital Magazine Issue #53 | Page 60

TRADEFLAME 12V SOLDERING IRON

The soldering iron comes with a removable plastic cap that protects the screw-on soldering tip from being damaged when not in use . And the cap has a neat feature which prevents the sliding on / off button from being left on .
Talking about the sliding switch , it actually performs two functions . While it ’ s been designed to turn the soldering iron on when pushed forward , it also turns on a small LED work light that shines light to the end of the tip at the same time . It ’ s a great feature as it illuminates the soldering tip for the times when you ’ re working in dark areas , such as under a vehicle ’ s dashboard .
There ’ s a small port located in the soldering iron ’ s base to plug in the USB cable ( supplied ) for recharging the lithium 4.2V battery .
Out of the packet , we found the unit ’ s battery needed to be charged , which took about two hours . We thought it clever that the soldering iron could be used during the charging process , so there was no need to wait around for the charging to be completed before we got going .
While the manufacturer ’ s instructions state the soldering iron battery will last around 45 minutes with continual use before needing recharging , our soldering jobs were finished much sooner .
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