POS: Ad Tech Hi Temp Pro 100
I am in the middle of building my 8th airplane and my second Ad Tech Pro 100 had an internal meltdown. I would NOT recommend this model. I hear others have great success but I’ve had two of them crap out, both from Harbor Freight.
The first one started leaking through the shell near the tip and then the trigger began to jam up. That was within the 90 day return so I got an equivalent exchange.
The 2nd unit ran for 8 months and 5-1/2 airplanes. But early-on the shell began to leak again near the tip. Then I’d see globs of glue coming backwards out of the tube that the glue stick feeds into, and then dropping off down into the trigger area. Again the trigger and feed mechanism started jamming up. I should have tried to return it right away.
I have loads of screwdrivers in my tool box but do I have one that fits the phillips screws on this gun? Heck no. Had to go buy one. I’ve had it apart 5 times to clear out solid globs, and melted glue near the tip, but getting the screws out was not easy.
It bit the dust yesterday and when I took it apart the equivalent of an entire glue stick dripped out from the shell onto my workbench. Turns out the feed tube had broken away from the melt chamber so there was nothing to keep the glue from squeezing back out. The feed tube just ripped away.
The jamming of the trigger was from glue seeping through the innards and glueing the trigger solid in its slide track.
I'd bought a pack of 50 glue sticks when getting into this hobby, each is 4 inches long. There are still 9 sticks left. 41 sticks has broken two guns.
Less than a pound of glue breaks 2 guns that Ad Tech says; “Adhesive Technologies Entry Industrial Hot Melt Glue Gun can out put to 2lbs of Glue
Per Hour”
http://www.adhesivetech.com/create/full-size-glue-guns/product/32-0104-pro100
I think that is a low-quality/defective design. Perhaps the heavy spring they assemble around the feed tube to help reinforce it is evidence of how they are TRYING to fix (or just band-aide) the defective tube design.