Heathkit. Am I the only one who used to build this stuff?

[Joeaksa]

Just wandering around the internet and found some interesting things from the old Heathkit company. They are the ones who made electronic kits in the 50's until closing down in the mid 1980's.

They were an electronics nut dream, making almost anything you wanted if it had sparks flying around inside. I built a short wave radio, several test rigs and ended up building a 21 inch color television. Amazingly all of them worked!

Take a stroll down memory lane and remember the days when we had vacuum tubes and no internet...

http://www.heathkit-museum.com/hvmhistory.shtml

[gchappel]

I built the shortwave radio. A neighbor built their color TV- and for the time I think it was rated as a GREAT set. It certainly beat the rca we had. I miss the build it yourself electronics- my kids don't understand why.
Gary

[Hugh R]

I built the flip out record player when I was about 12 or 13, the night I got it working, we had the New England blackout of much of the eastern seaboard and Canada. I plugged it in and a minute or two later the lights went out and my mom yelled "Hugh, what did you do!" I'm kind of vague on the year, but I think it was 1967.

[K.B.]

I built a tachometer for my first car - a fiberglass body VW dune buggy, circa 1969.

[Joeaksa]

KB-10 shortwave radio I made back in the late 1960's while in High School. Listened to the world on this puppy.

KB,

You made me remember that I made one of their Delta electronic ignitions for my Father's car. When I got the car back after returning to the states the ignition was still on the car, still working.

Spent a lot of enjoyable hours with a soldering iron, reading the manuals and plugging in more resistors, diodes and transistors in the circuit boards. Wish they were still around...

[Joe Bob]

I built a met station.....fun stuff.

Megasquirt is kinda like the Heath Kit of the Automotive World....

[slodave]

I built one of those light beam alarms that go across doors and A huge multimeter. I actually wish I still had the multimeter, as it was never used after being built and would like to try t out.

Dave

[Joeaksa]

Dave,

Just looked and there are a lot of the old kits on Ebay right now. Most of them from the midwest and many of them not assembled.

May be buying one for my Christmas present!

Joe

[slakjaw]

I am too young to remember the company but my father used to talk about them when I was a kid. I was (still am) interested in ham radio as a kid. He even got an unbuilt radio recever that we built together one time. There are other kits coming available lately for the ham radio crowd, shorwave receivers and whatnot. IMO if Heathkit were to come back today they would be popular as long as they did it right.

[azasadny]

I got a kit from Radio Shack back in 1970 or so that had a bunch of electrical projects in a wooden box that looked like a briefcase. There were coiled springs connected to a circuit board and a bunch of short wires that you connected to make each project work. It was cool and got me interested in this type of work. I had chemistry sets back when they included sulfuric acid, nitric acid, etc... and were capable of doing some great experiments. My basement looked like a mad scientist's place!

[rouxroux]

I used to build Heaths and Dynakits for folks when I was very young to finance my audio/amateur radio gear habits. What workhorses! Still have some old Dynaco Stereo 70's (although heavily modded) in various stereo systems. Great bang for the buck...(also built some of the old Allied and Knight kits as well).

[Wrecked944]

Electronics kits are still available. In fact, the past few years have seen a revival of the DIY spirit and so you can probably find more kits and such today than ever before. For an introduction to this subculture, surf over to Make Magazine...

http://makezine.com/

The magazine is awesome. But the blog is a zillion times better. Make should be required reading for every mad scientist. I strongly recommend every one of you gives it a try. I think you'll be shocked.

[Tim Hancock]

Originally posted by azasadny
I got a kit from Radio Shack back in 1970 or so that had a bunch of electrical projects in a wooden box that looked like a briefcase. There were coiled springs connected to a circuit board and a bunch of short wires that you connected to make each project work. It was cool and got me interested in this type of work. I had chemistry sets back when they included sulfuric acid, nitric acid, etc... and were capable of doing some great experiments. My basement looked like a mad scientist's place!

Radio Shack kit for me too along with the cheapo chemistry sets and erector sets.

Joe is showing his age me thinks

[Grady Clay]

I built this MK1 VOM about 50 years ago. Still works great.



Somewhere around here is a VTVM, ocilliscope, signal generators and more. I built that color TV also. I think my first kit was around 1953, with help from my dad (now 90).

I too built them to finance my purchases.

My big treats were to go shopping in lower Manhattin’s electronics area. WWII surplice heven. That area was eventually bulldozed to build the World Trade Center.

Today Radio Shack still has (I think) a series of small books on electronics and projects. A good way to play with electronics is with the little “mock-up” boards that allow easy temporary connections to ICs. Vernier Software sells a great PC based analog-to-digital converter that turns an old PC into a voltmeter or storage ocilliscope. I have a 20-yo MPLI. An old PC can be salvaged for a power supply.

Best,
Grady

[Groesbeck Hurricane]

Yep Heathkit. One way to blow yourself up while paying lots of money to the people who designed it. The KB-10 was WONDERFUL!!! My dad and I used to turn it on in the garage. My mom gave it away after his death...

Now the HUGE 19" Colour (our first!) TV was another story... A bomb waiting to happen... The B/W TV was great! I don't remember the model numbers and I'm not 100% the B/W was a Heathkit, but I think it was.

[targa911S]

Originally posted by mikez
Megasquirt is kinda like the Heath Kit of the Automotive World....

I thought that was a porn site.

[stevepaa]

I built a transistorized radio and voltmeter in 1960, and my dad had built a signal generator he used to repair TVs. Great stuff.

[RPKESQ]

I've built many electronic kits from them, but I have also built a Heath Bullit airplane from when they were an aircraft company before going into electronics!

[Grady Clay]

RPKESQ

WOW, was that contemporary in the ‘30s?

Pictures please.

Best,
Grady

[RPKESQ]

After the crash of '29 Heath decided that they could not survive as an aircraft company and reorganized as an radio (all the electronics there were) company. I built models and one full size flying Heath Bullit, I have to try and find pictures for you.