In this video, I will review for you the Metabo H1600 corded heat gun – here on my right. I will also review the Milwaukee M18 BHG cordless heat gun here on my left. I have had the Metabo for about 21 years. It has been very effective & very reliable. I bought the Milwaukee cordless heat gun a few months ago, solely for the reason of convenience because sometimes I do work in places where there is no AC power, or it's just troublesome to pull an AC extension power cord.
So join me in this review as I demonstrate how both heat guns perform doing simple things like heat shrinks on cables. Lt's start the review with the Metabo H1600 corded heat gun. I've had this for 21 years. It's very reliable, very hot. It's got a good design because you can stand it on the base. Just show you what it looks like. I think it's very well built. It has 3 power settings. A 0 for OFF, 1, 2, & 3. At setting 1, it gives you 120 degress Fahrenheit, & the airflow is 8.8 cubic feet per minute. At setting 2, it's 660 degrees Fahrenheit, & airflow is 12.4 cubic feet per minute.
At the highest setting 3, the temperature is 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, E airflow is 17.7 cubic feet per minute. The weight is 0.75 kg. So it's pretty light. Right, let's start the test with the Metabo. What I have here is a 3MM Auto cable. I've just cut the very short length of heat shrink. Slide it in there. We'll just see how fast it does it.
Turn the Metabo to setting number 1 – which is the lower setting. Not doing much at setting number 1. It hasn't shrunk noticeably. I'm gonna increase it to setting 2. At setting 2, you can see it shrunk. So that needed setting 2. I have here 6MM Automotive cable. I just have a little short length heat shrink there. We'll shrink it, & see how fast it shrinks. Ignore this solder joint here. I wasn't trying to join the cable properly. I was just testing a cordless Milwaukee soldering iron to see how fast it caused the solder to run & flow. Back to the heat gun. There's no point putting under the setting number 1 because we know that setting number 1 it takes a long time. So I'm putting on setting number 2 to start. Yep it shrunk. If I show you I can't move it. So setting 2 did the job. I have another piece of heat shrink here on the 6MM Automotive cable. I'll put it on setting number 3, & see how fast it does the job.
I think it's done. Yep. Let's now look at the Milwaukee heat gun. This is the Milwaukee M18 BHG heat gun. It has a belt or leather hook, so if you're up on the ladder, you can hook it there. This is the ON trigger, but if you squeeze it by itself, it does not turn ON because there's a safety catch. The safety catch needs to be pushed down before the trigger will engage completely. And the trigger can be used by left-handed as well. Because it's a short heat gun, makes it better to use in small tight confined spaces. The problem with this heat gun is that would have been better for this heat gun if it had a trigger lock mechanism, so that you can lock it in power ON mode. And leave it & then hold something in front of it where you need two hands. The Metabo has it because when you select any of the settings power 1, 2 or 3… it locks it into that power setting mode – so your hand's free.
The Milwaukee m18vhg cordless heat gun has only 1 power setting. At that 1 power setting, the maximum temperature is 875 degree Fahrenheit, & the airflow is 6 cubic feet per minute. The weight of the Milwaukee is 1.87 kg with the 6Ah battery. So it's much heavier than the Metabo H1600 at 0.75 kg. The kit I bought came with 2 nozzles. This is the Air Reduction nozzle. So you simply slip this on. Tt reduces the diameter of the nozzle, which means that you get faster airflow & more focused airflow. And I tend to use this more, especially for working on heat shrinks. The second nozzle I have is this. Tt's what's called the Hook nozzle. Where it's useful is if you have cable to do a heat shrink over, then it protects anything behind the cable. So that's the Skin. The heat gun consumes power very fast, so I tend to just use a 6Ah battery.
Right, let's now test the Milwaukee heat gun. I've got some 3MM Automotive cable, & I'll just slip some heat shrink there. So there's only 1 power setting, & you have to keep holding the trigger. Done! Shrunk. I like this Air Reduction nozzle. I think it focuses the heat better & you just don't damage other things around. Let's now do the 6MM Automotive cable with some heat shrink. All right, so it's loose. So let's turn on the power. Done! So it works great. I like the convenience of cordless because you don't have to drag out that extension cable. And it's not just dragging it but when you're working different orientation, the cable is a pain.
Ah! my egg laying hens have taken an interest in the work. I'm now gonna test the 2 heat guns at their maximum output temperature against concrete blocks at the fixed distance away from the blocks. And see how hot the blocks get. The ambient temperature at the moment is 76 degrees Fahrenheit, & I have a thermal camera. A FLIR E8. I've set the ambient temperature to 76 degrees Fahrenheit. So, as you can see the thermal image shows that the heat gun is hotter than the concrete block. Right, I'm going to start the 1 minute timer count down now.
And turn the Metabo heat gun on. And we use the thermal camera to monitor temperature. You can see the nozzle is about 450 degrees Fahrenheit, & the brick is about 210 degrees Fahrenheit. So the nozzle is much hotter – it's about double. Time's up. Take the temperature of the nozzle, & the brick. I've swapped over the brick. The brick heated by the Metabo is here. This is the fresh brick. Unfortunately, I have to hold the trigger on this. So that's gonna be a bit of a challenge. Start the timer now.
So the Milwaukee's got about 20 seconds left to run. Time's up. Take a snapshot. And measure the temperature of the nozzle. From my simple test, my FLIR thermal camera indicated that the Metabo heat gun was hotter at the nozzle, & the brick was hotter as well… compared to the Milwaukee cordless heat gun. But that makes sense because on specifications, the Metabo is specified as been hotter than the Milwaukee cordless heat gun. Nevertheless, I still think I'm gonna be pulling out the Milwaukee cordless heat gun a lot more mainly because of the convenience it offers being cordless. The only time I suspect I'll be pulling out my corded Metabo heat gun, will be where I need to have the ON trigger lock when operating. I hope you found this video useful & interesting. And do hit the LIKE button, & SUBSCRIBE to my channel for more & also to help the Channel grow – thank you so much.
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