Hot Glue may be one of the most under appreciated tools of doing electronics (or any) repair, building. It’s extremely versatile, water resistant, and generally, non-conductive. Can’t figure out how to repair/insulate something? Give hot glue a go. I, for years, have used tiny hobby glue guns, and never been overly happy with their performance. Plus, with my desk wiring, I like to keep all my tools plugged into a single “hot” power bar, so that I can turn them all off with a single, separate, switch (basically, so I don’t forget to turn off the soldering iron). But, I don’t really want them all on when not in use, either. So, a glue gun with it’s own on/off switch was something I’d been wanting for a while.
Amazon reviews all seemed to point to the same gun, the Surebonder Pro2-100. But, $30 for a hot glue gun was a bit much. Then, on a video by Applied Science, he mentioned this gun as well, so I just bit the bullet and bought it. And boy, am I glad I did.
The “gun” came from Amazon in a couple days, and first off, it’s big. It’s physically larger than my desoldering gun (and, really, uses almost as much power). But, it feels great, and the full length handle gives very good control over the amount of glue dispensed. Heat up take a while, largely because the glue chamber seems to be on the large side. I say that because the gun takes almost a whole 10″ 1.2″ glue stick before it dispenses anything (so, the glue chamber is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 18in^3) ((Half inch gluestick has a volume of .25*π^2 * 10 (24.67in^3), and figure 3/4 of that is filling the chamber)). Because of this, I really suggest getting the 10″ (or 15″ if you can get them) sticks if possible. 4″ sticks would be brutal. Especially since the gun CAN dispense a LOT of glue at a time (they rate it at 2.5lbs per hour).
The gun, though, works great. While I also purchased some black glue sticks, I actually purchased a separate gun for those so I wouldn’t have to waste glue switching between black and clear glue.
So, that all said, the glue gun is awesome. I really do like it. My only problem has been the added size has made it hard to get glue into small spaces, but there are some replacement tips you can get to alleviate this. Not sure when/if I’ll bother buying those. I also wish the on/off switch was a little bigger, and that there was an LED to show power/heating status. Small quibbles, but would be nice for a future revision.
[xrr rating=4/5]