Paid for itself after 2 usages. Repaired 2 garden carts with broken plastic polyethylene buckets. to replace the carts I would have paid $150 or more. Took less than an hour to do both projects. Practiced on a plastic plant container for 5 minutes before starting. There is a learning curve here. The device is reasonably well made and fortunately the instructions are self explanatory. Don't expect much from the package instructions. Interestingly, although they are different materials, metal welding and plastic welding are somewhat similar in that by going slow and studying your materials in advance you can achieve a good union. As I have practiced on other projects the quality and strength is getting better as you would expect with any learning curve. I found the criticism of inconsistent heat irrelevant. The machine takes 30-60 secs to heat up to its final temp. After that if its too hot or too cold adjust the dial accordingly. I use the 7 setting most often. Read more
Great for working in tight places to repair plastic items. I use it to repair whitewater kayaks. Lighter in the hand than the other style. Read more
Works okay but the air flow is a bit high for doing close quarters and detailed work and tends to blow away the hot plastic at times. It needs a variable air flow control on top of the variable heat control. Read more
It makes for a very hot heat gun and seems well built. It comes with an extra heating element, which is nice. The heat adjustment doesn't work. it's either cold or hot. But It does not get hot enough to weld HDPE. The hottest I could get the tip was 400 degrees - 200 degrees less than what I need so it melts the boards and binder but not enough to weld. Two stars because I bought it to weld HDPE and it can't. Five stars for peeling paint or heat shrink tubing :( Read more
Used to weld 1/4 Polypropylene tanks. PRO: The blower is separate from the hand held gun with the heating element. This makes the gun more maneuverable in tighter spaces that some other models. CON: One downside is that the white plastic air hose can get in the way and is not very sturdy so if it slips off or you accidentally step on it and cut off the air flow, the gun will get super hot very fast! I duct taped the hose to the gun & blower. Just make sure you have a safe work space with a brick or something heat resistant to set this on because the active end gets VERY hot. Also might be worth buying some of the speed tips available online, however I ended up just using the standard tip for most purpose when I had plenty of access. Does take some practice to avoid splatter, burning holes, or incomplete penetration, but the tanks are holding nicely. Did some test pieces of scrap plastic and was able to pull apart some of my early welds with difficulty, but I suspect that was due to user error and inexperience more than anything. Grateful that it comes with a spare ceramic cartridge because allegedly it is very fragile (DO NOT DROP). However, I have been lucky and the original ceramic heating element is still working fine. Read more
Product came in a timely manner, well packaged. However, the product did not perform as advertised! It would not hold a consistent temperature, fluctuating wildly from whatever the setting was! To make matters worse the "instructions- user guide" was so poorly written, as to be essentially USELESS! After trying to decipher the manufacturer's code; I decided that any further attempts to obtain any other form of customer service would most likely be fruitless. They may have the world's best online or phone CS, but the initial interaction (ie: the "user-guide") was so off-putting; that it guided me to simply return the item, post haste. Read more
As others have said this needs air control as it blows too hard in many cases. There is a definite learning curve as to proper plastic rod to use and not overheating the plastic you are repairing. I used old storage tube and a bucket to practice on. Glad I did or I would probably made a mess out of the kayak I needed to repair. I am going to modify my welder so I can control, the air pressure. Once done I think this unit will be at least 4 star, maybe 5. I use an old oven mitt to lay it on as it does not come with a stand. Being a very basic unit, it lacks guards so be aware and concentrate using it or you can get burnt. Give it time to heat fully then adjust down to needed temp. Turn heat control all the way down and realize it will take a full minute or two to fully cool before turning off blower. Read more
Worked very, very well. Temp seemed consistent. I bought a speed weld nozzle which by luck fit perfectly and was a great addition. Wish they told you the tip diameter is 0.325" OD at the smaller end and that it expands to ~0.383" at the area that screws into the heating element. (Sorry US is not Metric...) Not having "Hair Dryer" unit attached to heat coil allowed me access to a much greater range of access to broken bumper points under the car without removing all the plastic. What's not to like? (Well the horrible English skills of all the people involved in creating the Ad, Manual, and Box. A total joke of Chinglish! But, it is entertaining to try and figure out what they actually were trying to say.) Some high school kid who is a relative of the owners and was shipped out of China to get a real education must have been back from the US at some point and should have done an edit for free just to have an internship... Seriously though, I could not imagine being able to plastic weld what I have already done if I had to hold the weight and size of the fan unit at the point of weld. This design (sold by ~20 people on Amazon, Ebay, and AliExpress) is great. Unit came with spare heater coil, and seems to be totally adapted to 120V USA AC power. Too bad the horrible Chinglish; Amazon Ad, and instruction manual ( its very basic, not a welding instruction manual ) and box graphics were so adorably TERRIBLY WRITTEN. One would think there was a true English speaking copy editor somewhere in greater China... Read more
