Soldering Iron with Built-in Multimeter? Review of Two Zotek Soldering Irons: ZT-N1 and ZT-N2

[@ovalwingnut]

Fear not. We've all had -disastrous- awkward soldering moments (we kid because we love:). Seriously, new iron, fReAky tip, on camera stress, A-lister groupies to placate.. We get it. And we appreciate you doing the testing and "taking one" for the team. The iron/meter/thing is actually COoLer than I would have guessed. So to speak. Thank you for the video. Cheers from So.Ca.USA 3rd house on the left.

[@zotekmultimeters4774]

Thanks for the wonderful review!

[@TradieTrev]

Interesting design of the ZT-N2! I couldn't see a practical use for these in my profession; Maybe suitable for DIYers given the meters ballpark precision.

[@voice4voicelessKrzysiek]

It might be worthwhile to have this gadget in your toolbox if it is cheap enough. However, it will probably be useless if you try to solder a component to a larger plane such as a ground or power plane without creating a cold soldering joint or, worse yet, try to desolder a component from such a plane. Thanks for this review.

[@Peter_S_]

I do like the simple user interface and aesthetic design of these irons. It is unfortunate they don't include a chisel tip by default. The ability to unplug the power of the N2 for a minute to lift the ground is useful for work on powered items, but the meter function is too limited for me to find it useful. Mr. Wong, for holding boards while you work on them one option which works well in many cases is to use a blob of Loctite Fun-Tak Mounting Putty.

[@KerryWongBlog]

"Mr. Wong, for holding boards while you work on them one option which works well in many cases is to use a blob of Loctite Fun-Tak Mounting Putty." Yep, thanks for the suggestion. It's an old habit. I have tried all sorts of things to hold the board over the last 30+ years and somehow still prefer using my hand 😁

[@andymouse]

Great review! But I'm not sold on the idea.

[@pchunter168]

[@leaftye]

That voltage range makes the multimeter feature useless to me. Lower DC range makes it useless on single cell batteries unless it's lithium ion and nearly fully charged. AC is even worse. I like the idea of a battery, but this needs way more juice. I do like the metal cap though, but I'd probably get something else. Looks like this uses T12 tips. Not sure why they ship it with knife tips instead of conical, chisel or beveled. If I wanted a knife tip, I'd go all the way and get a tip that uses a hobby knife blade or one of those super long foam cutting tips.

[@KerryWongBlog]

Yeah, for electronics use, I seldom needed to use a knife tip (the only situation it could come in handy I suppose is you need to desolder multiple pins at once). My favorite is chisel or beveled.