Heathkit arising again?

Allow me to join you on your trip down Memory Lane. There's a Vacuum Tube Voltmeter Model IM-5228 keepsake that still sits on my shelf (boxed up). My need to de-clutter my life by removing ancient floobydust forced me to dispose of my boat anchor Heathkit TV set a while ago.

Heathkit was fine for radios and other RF-related, but was fondly known as HeapShit otherwise ;-)

For audio I generally did Dynaco, like the PAT-4 preamp.

There was some other kit manufacturer, whose name I can't remember, built a very nice VOM (tube, of course :-) ...Jim Thompson

EICO

I have a 232 here, works fine. Uses a 12AU7.

The plastic red/black probe is finally starting to decay ;(

Cheers

Aha! Indeed! Wonder if the probe is replaceable? ...Jim Thompson

Or else Knight.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Tried to answer, put hitting Next returned to the first question page, even after selecting some answers :-).

Building equipment from kits made sense in the days of point to point wiring (tube sockets and soldering posts). Making equipment commercially, required a huge amount of manual labor, making equipment extremely costly, at least when measuring how many hours a radio assembly line worker had to work in order to buy the radio he/she had assembled.

By shifting this assembly cost to the "free" hobbyist, made it possible to sell kits much cheaper than ready made products.

In the days of point to point wiring, making modifications/improvements was pretty easy.

With PCBs and especially surface mounted components, commercial assembly costs dropped significantly.

However, in order to let an average hobbyist solder components to a PCB, larger than necessary tracks are needed. Handling a large number of unmarked SMDs is error prone. Hand soldering a multipin SOIC is demanding for a hobbyist.

IMHO, there is no point of hand soldering individual components, it is much more reliable and cost efficient to use industrial wave soldering for that.

A kit producer might survive if it provides some factory made building blocks that can be combined into various devices. I am thinking about something between Mini-Circuits and Elecraft.

When people with wildly different skills are building kits, a support organization is required and this costs a lot, even if some peer-to-per support groups will handle most of the work. Still supplying replacement parts is going to be costly.

Anyway, "kit building" in the future is more about connecting software and firmware components together rather than joining resistors, capacitors and transistors.

I spend some summer time working in a Heath retail store in downtown Smog Angeles during the late 1960's. It was a bizarre experience and probably my initial realization that people really do not read or follow instructions. I still have quite a bit of Heathkit hardware, some built, some bought, mostly test equipment.

I filled out the survey to the bitter end. It took about 30 minutes. Judging by the questions, the plan seems to be very ham radio centric. The problem is that before about 1975, it was possible to save money building a kit. After the components shrank, robotic assembly arrived, and the complexity increased, the situation was reversed, where the added cost of handling, documentation, and support priced the kits above those of completed units. There are small companies, such as Elecraft, that apparently are able to offer a price benefit to kit building. However, were they to outsource the product assembly to China, the finished unit would probably be cheaper than the kit. There were also questions about social media, gatherings, user groups, and meeting the management, which suggests that Heathkit is trying to capitalize on its cult following. I hope they are successful, but I'm not very optimistic. Just about anything they design from scratch, will be easily cloned by China, and sold on eBay at a substantial discounts.

Knight-kits were by Allied.

I had a Knight-kit DC coupled, triggered-sweep, calibrated X and Y, flat-screen scope, built from a kit. All tubes, 5 MHz, regulated HV with DC blanking. It was a junior Tek scope back when most scopes were sloppy repetitive-sweep, AC coupled, fuzzy things.

I still got mine. Heathkit had a FET meter but that was one of the not so great kits they sold, was never very accurate.

I wish I'd built that instead if the lesser performing FET multimeter. But they didn't offer the tube meter anymore when I grew up. So I got a used Eico.

There seems to be something fishy with the survey, it does not work.

I still have a SB-220 of 1972 (a linear amplifier with two bottles, 3-500Z).

I think it needs Javascript turned on.

I strongly believe there is a point. Nothing beats the feeling of accomplishment in a kid or young student after they complete a kit and it all works. When it doesn't work it provides a really good opportunity to hone troubleshooting skills. That pays off on the first real job, big time.

I learned the most not from building Heathkit gear but from helping others salvage their capsized Heathkit projects. "I heard a sharp *POP* from where those 6164 tubes are and then there was smoke, but I can't find where that came from ...", stuff like that.

Well, it did work in the 60's and 70's, so why can't it work again? I just believe they place too much emphasis on ham radio (and I am a licensed ham myself), and there will probably not be enough market for kits in that. So I suggested they concentrate on robotic and home automation.

You may be right. Unfortunately that's one reason why many young engineers these days run aground easily when facing a hardware problem.

Heathkits helped a generation of kids to really understand electronics. That model, build working instruments from parts, may not work any more. I wonder where the next generation of electronic circuit designers (not chip designers) will come from.

There's not much point to classic ham radio any more, either, what with cell phones, ipads, internet, and Skype type things.

Absolutely, too ham-centric. And I say that as a guy with a ham radio license.

There are still areas. Home automation, for example. Because that industry is sound asleep, tons of opportunity including lots of follow-up business.

After the components shrank, robotic assembly

That's the major danger they are facing. I believe it is nearly impossible to have all kits made in America. At least not right now.

The only way to succeed and thwart pilfering is to include at least one part that must be bought at the company store. For example, a pre-programmed uC. With home automation that would be no problem.

Worked for me.

I wanted bigger, so built two of my own back then. The 2nd one with two QB5/1750 with around 5kV on the plates.

I have a VTVM that I still use frequently; amazingly the AC bandwidth is far in excess of any DMM (up to 7MHz or so). The impedance (and clip leads!) up there isn't guaranteed to be useful, of course.

Tim

-- Deep Friar: a very philos>> Joerg wrote:

It does in robotics, and might in home automation. Both markets are seriously underserved.

Right now I don't have much of an idea. Maybe they'll have to drag us out of nursing homes :-)

Well, there are always those who will whip out the credits card and buy a painting. And then there are those who will whip out the brushes and paint. The ratio has been skewed towards the non-innovative folks but hope is not lost.

It seems to me like there's way too much silly robotics. I guess it does get some kids into real electronics, like motors and sensors and control theory and actual bare-metal realtime programming. But most robots are toys.

Meanwhile, the demand for what we do keeps increasing. Everything is electronic now, and there is *so* much bad electronics out there.