Mini ductor ii

[JOURNEYMAN1955]

SAVE YOUR MONEY. THIS TOOL IS A GIMMICK. i PURCHASED ONE & WAS ATTEMPTING TO REMOVE THE EXHAUST MANIFOLD NUTS ON A FORD 5.4L. TOTAL JOKE. WOULD NOT GET THE NUTS THE LEAST BIT HOT ENOUGH TO LOOSEN. sTICK WITH YOUR TORCH & AVOID THIS WASTE OF MONEY. BOGUS TOOL.

 

[Hiball]

Try plugging it in... Btw your caps key might be broke.



After about 10 sec of juice.

 

[Professur]

Funny ... everyone else's works just fine. Maybe you have plastic exhaust nuts.

 

[JOURNEYMAN1955]

Maybe have a defective one. Certainly not impressed with it. Just saying. Any tips or hints on operating it would be appreciated.

 

[Professur]

Make sure the coil is tight, your extension cords aren't long, and there's actually iron left to work with. It heats the iron in the bolts ... more rust than iron and it won't do anything.

 

[JOURNEYMAN1955]

Doesn't seem to produce enough heat to to get the nuts hot enough as the manifold absorbs much of it unlike a torch's faster & more concentrated heat. Yes, it will heat a blot/nut as long as they are not connected or in contact with another object. Just not enough heat fast enough to avoid losing all the heat to the manifold.(similar to a heat sink)

 

[JOURNEYMAN1955]

I will try wire brushing the nuts/bolts & see if that helps. Thanks for the hint.

 

[[email protected]]

If your not happy with it PM me I'd be willing to buy it off you n

 

[JOURNEYMAN1955]

Make me an offer. It is 2 weeks old.

 

[Buckgnarly]

Never had an issue with mine.... post up a pic of what you are working on.

 

[dogdog]

I used mine a few times, it's fine...IF you can get the nut in the middle of the coil... Otherwise would take a long time or never gets heated. It's ok if you have access to the nut and bolt.... Not perform to my expectation if you can't get the nut to the center of the coil due to space limitations, but it does work in a gimmick sort of way....

Just test it by sticking a long metal (must attracts to magnetic) rod into the middle of the coil and see if it goes red hot or heats up at least... This way you would know at least if the unit is defective or just needed some operator training....

 

[dogdog]

I will try wire brushing the nuts/bolts & see if that helps. Thanks for the hint.

you don't needed to do that (brush rust off), if the nut is attract to a magnetic it would work. But you do have to get the nut in the middle of the coil for it to be effective or it might take a long long long time to work or never work....

Some situations I found out last Summer that no matter what I do, I just can't seems to get the coil wrap around enough on some nuts.... because it was too close to the wall of the exhaust and it won't fit the coil in..... so it won't work just resting on top of the nut trying to heat it with the inductor.

 

[JOURNEYMAN1955]

Will heat a stand alone bolt. Not enough heat generated to offset the heat sink effect of the manifold. Just got off phone with mfgr. They admitted it is not a good fit for the application I am trying, therefore making it a useless tool especially for the price. Very limited uses.

 

[dogdog]

did you get the nut in the center of the coil??
think if you have the MiniDuctor 710 it comes with few coils and a flexible wire. Choose the smallest coil that fits the nut to the center but the coil does not touch the nut for it to be effective. It won't work if you have those low profile nuts that won't go to the center of the coil...


you can always use that for PDR maybe. with a special coil pad....and dry ice (just saw that on utube).

 

[JOURNEYMAN1955]

Bottom line is it will do pretty much what a heat gun will do at 7 times the money.

 

[GTA Matt]

If 5.4 manifold bolts are that rusty, it's best to just cut the nut off with a torch leaving yourself a stud to work with when you remove the manifold. Miniductor works great for its intended application, unfortunately those studs aren't one of them.

 

[Hiball]

Bottom line is it will do pretty much what a heat gun will do at 7 times the money.

Curious? Did you join up today with the sole intentions of bad mouthing the mini ductor? I get it... Your mad, we have all seen it before here at GJ, it makes people feel better to come in, Hammer down on the Caps Lock and mash on the keyboard. Where the mini ductor shines is the ability to heat things up in locations that otherwise wouldn't be kind to the blue wrench, it's not a 100% replacement. I'm not sure what type of heat gun you have, but there is no comparison between the two when used properly.

Btw.. We do have a Classifieds, but there are also rules in regards to selling, you must ascertain certain requirements to be able to utilize the section.

Good Luck.

 

[JOURNEYMAN1955]

After reading the reviews & researching the tool, given it's cost & the belief you get what you are paying for, I gues I just expected more. Inductive has given my Snap On dealer the ok to give me a full refund. Lesson learned. Thanks for all the input.

 

[ironmutt]

i never had an issue with bolts flat against manifolds but bent mine in to a half horse shoe shape it kinda looks like a pincher going straight down over the bolt . the thing i found was if i use it a lot it will trip the over load protection then have to wait a few unplug then will work again . its the best tool i have ever used for bleeders especially rusted nub bleeders . i wish they made a larger one that still ran on 120 with a longer duty cycle . i would buy in heart beat would be great for fab work.

 

[JOURNEYMAN1955]

I guess I could see where it would work for smaller things such as brake bleeders. I certain that it does have it's place & uses, however I was lead to believe it was the tool to use for removing stubborn exhaust bolts which I found not to be the case. Perhaps I expected more than the tool is capable of.

 

[billford]

I was thinking of buying a mini ductor. When I read the inline instructions it says to hold the trigger for 2 seconds, if its not hot enough then hold the trigger another 2 seconds, thats 4 seconds maximum, then allow the tool to cool down for 30 minutes.

When I watch the videos, guys are holding the trigger for almost 1 minute.

If you follow the instructions and use it for 4 seconds maximum, will it actually heat up the bolt/nut??

 

[dogdog]

I hold it for 50 to 60 on mine.... not sure what instructions, I have never read. The problem is not the gadget or the concept of using the eddy current...It is not able to get the coil wrap around the bolt of nut sometimes in tight spaces.... that is when the thing is useless... also the coils are made of 12 gauge nickle plated bare wires , insulation is fiberglass sleeves... those fiberglass sleeves gets radiant heat and breaks down sometimes.... especially field uses in a non-ideal condition.... otherwise it is great... red hot in 10 secs-ish most of the time.

The company also sells a more powerful version for other specific applications like bending glass or body panel repair stuff if you go to their website... but priced at $2k-ish

 

[mautotech]

It's funny how different people can have entirely different experiences with the same tool.
I've got a mini ductor II and I literally just used it on Sunday to remove the broken exhaust manifold studs on a Ford 5.4 F-150.
The thing works great! I held the button down for about 30 seconds on each stud, vise gripped them and turned them out. Easy.
However, I have the accessory coil kit that has more coil sizes so I used a smaller coil for the studs. And its funny how in all the times i've used it, i've never tripped the thermal protection on it. And I am not shy about holding the button down till the bolt turns red. I dont know.

 

[NeubCont]

Nothing but great tool
Not sure what bumped this thread up from 2016 BUT:
I Used this tool in multiple situations
Exhaust bolts
O2 sensors
Lug nuts
You name it for frozen/rusted tight quarters where a torch would be iffy
GREAT tool

 

[Skin]

I was thinking of buying a mini ductor. When I read the inline instructions it says to hold the trigger for 2 seconds, if its not hot enough then hold the trigger another 2 seconds, thats 4 seconds maximum, then allow the tool to cool down for 30 minutes.

When I watch the videos, guys are holding the trigger for almost 1 minute.

If you follow the instructions and use it for 4 seconds maximum, will it actually heat up the bolt/nut??

It will warm it up. Also depends on the fastener size. I never read the instructions before either so I looked up what you were referring to and the important tidbit is in the end which states "There is usually no reason to heat a nut to a red-hot condition in order to free it from the corrosion holding it to the bolt.". I suspect they're just trying to save the coils which will burn up over time if you heat things up cherry red. There is no adverse effect on the tool and if you scroll down to the bearing buddy section they even tell you to hold the button down as long as necessary to expand the race. I prefer to do 1 shot and make everything glow before removal especially with all the rust. As stated you do lose life on the coils but they arent super expensive so its well worth it to me.

For what its worth they've had these things at Sema in demo boxes heating up nuts to glowing all day every day.

 

[GypsyR]

Shop bought a Mini-Ductor II about three years ago that wouldn't really do squat like the original poster of this thread was complaining about. We tried it on lots of stuff and it would just get things hot. If you stood on it it would turn a nut or bolt blackish and smoking but that wasn't helpful. We sent it back.

About six months ago a tool truck had a single Venom which he swore he would take back if I didn't like it. With misgivings, I took a shot. Sucker's a torch. Does all that good stuff like they say, we use the heck out of it. A co-worker decided he wanted to put a 90 degree bend in a 7/16" wrench for some reason. Decided to try the Venom. He said the little wrench got cherry red in the middle in about 30 seconds. So quick he wasn't quite prepared and (the jackass) grabbed the end of the wrench with his fingers and bent it down how he wanted. Said that end of the wrench was barely hot.

Some things it will NOT work on. We've found that some vehicles have stainless manifold studs and nuts that it is useless for. We've figured out that if we are using the coils properly and all and it still isn't heating up as usual then it means the material we are working simply isn't one that is responsive to induction heating. Pocket magnets are great for checking that out.

I (alone) read the manual. I tried various timings and figure they way underestimate the time it takes to put enough heat into rusty fasteners to accomplish something. With clean steel parts (that you would normally have no need to heat up) their timings seem right on. Like my ditzy co-worker's wrench. The "Bearing Buddy" is pretty slow. When you use the longer coils sometimes they have issues heating things enough. We always go for the shortest coil we can.

A very capable tool but you do kind of have to learn how to work with it. The first one we had evidently was a lemon. The Venom is a much nicer and more professional looking design than the II.