Anybody remember the “heathkit” company? They sold kits: you couldactually build your own color TV set from a kit! (God knows why you would want to do it!)
I can remember building a lab test meter from a Heath kit, and it worked fine.
Does it make sense to build your own computers, stereo sets, radio anymore?
I’ve built my own computer before, but mainly for the exercise for doing it. I suspect most people who built Heathkits did so for the experience/training, not because they thought they would get a better/cheaper unit. (I actually built a shortwave receiver from them once long ago.)
They seem to be mainly aiming for the educational market now.
Google is your friend.
I own a workingn Heath VTVM. I used to have a Heath stereo which Someone forced me to throw out years ago. (Regrettably.)
I bought a little kit a couple years ago just for the fun of it. A $15 digital multimeter (can’t have too many meters) from RS’s TechAmerica/whatever/now-it’s-dead store. It had no expl. of how it worked or anything. Not at all educational. Turned out to be a cheap piece of junk. Since something better could be bought for $20 pre-built, I’m pretty much off the kit business.
But it depends on what you mean by “build”. I build my own computers, out of largish parts, not out of individual components. There are thousands of tiny parts in a computer, TV or VCR. It’s just not practical to hand solder such stuff. A hobbyist can’t even make the PCBs with their layers and fine lines.
But there are still people making their own audio amps, with tubes even.
Way back in the 70’s I built a HeathKit alarm clock, a ham radio receiver, and finally a color TV (fun to build, but a bitch to get adjusted properly).
Does anyone know, are there any other companies that currently make kits like that?
Last year, I was looking for an electronics kit to assemble. I used to do them in the '70s, and I thought it would be fun to do it again. The problem was, none of the kits I found for sale would have been much fun.
They all seem to say, in large, cheerful script, “No Soldering Required!” I ask you, what fun is a kit if it comes to you already put together? If all I have to do is plug in some quick-connects and screw down the board, it doesn’t really feel like I did much.
I guess if I want to build something, I’ll have to go one step further down the chain, and etch my own circuit boards. I’m not sure if I’m willing to go that far.
I loved the smaller HeathKits, but I have very bad memories of the shudder Hero robot.
I was doing work-study going for a BE/EE degree at our local technical college. Usually, the only “work” I did was go around and replace all the fuses on the bench equipment that the students had blown during the day. However, college tour season for the High-School season was coming up. One day the lab instructor called me over and opened what I thought was just a cleaning supply closet. Inside the closet was the HERO 1 with that damn arm. He had the speech synthesis module as well. The labbie handed me the programming manual and told me that he wanted the robot to move out of the storage room, make a circle, then stop, extend the arm and say “Welcome <insert name of High School here> Class of 1988”
“OK” I thought - “Cool”. Until I discovered that everything had to be entered in Hex, and if you made one mistake, you had to wipe the memory and start over again…
I still have nightmares to this day over that !@#!$% robot.
critter42
I have a nearly complete Heathkit SB-104 setup, Heathkits first solid state amateur radio. My Dad built it around the time I was born. My first computer was a Heathkit with a LED display and a numeric keypad for programming.
I can still remember my Dad out in his shop hunkered over a soldering iron, or up on the roof stringing a dipole for a new band he was interested in. Great stuff.
I would have killed for a Hero robot.
They went out of buisness. The heathkit that exists now is just the name that was baught by another company. A few years ago Popular Science had an article talking about the passing of an era. I am sorry that it was before mine.
Their color tv’s had a good reputation back in the 70’s, I guess it was. My friend built one. Big advantage was that you could troubleshoot and repair it yourself. They had excellent guides and manuals. And you learned what everything was for as you built it. TV’s back then, esp color, were very troublesome. Thank somebody, I forget who, for the demise of the click-click tuner. All their stuffwas pretty up to date.
Peace,
mangeorge
Ah, I remember Heathkit. I bot my Heathkit JR-01 computer kit from Edmund Scientific years ago.
Years ago, I had a friend whose father built a 27" color TV set , from a HEATHKIT kit. It took him over a year! Just opening up the kit, and checking to see that you had all the necessary parts was a big chore! An, as i recall, the kits werenot cheap-it cost him almost as much for the kit, as to buy a fully-assembled Zenith TV. If you add in his labor, it was clearly no bargain.
You may not need to etch PCB’s if you use prototyping boards. Yeah, sure, you are not supposed to make something permanent on these, but it doesn’t matter.
Speaking of etching PCB’s, that’s what I used to do when I was younger. We had nothing like Heathkits, but we did have books on DIY electronics projects with schematics, board layouts, and lists of components.
That was a lot of fun.