Heathkit is Back! Or, is it?

[mediatechnology]

Got an IG-18 John?

[JR.]

I am long past the Kelly Bundy threshold, where remembering new information over writes old memory... but thanks to context and google I could find out what a IG-18 is. Yes, back far enough I HAD one of them, and one of the other signal generator with all the pushbuttons on the front for selecting frequency. Don't ask me the model # or where they are now. Back in the early '80s I was selling my own test equipment designs so generally rolled my own very low distortion sine sources, and used a TS-1 for GP testing of everything else.

I had many heathkits... one transistor curve tracer I rarely used and gave away, even built a big color TV kit, back when they were expensive and that was worth doing. Since I was in the kit business I had an affinity for kits, and am almost tempted to mess around again.. I could probably sell some meter kits, but nowadays with SMD technology being so sensible, and not very DIY friendly, I am almost tempted to sell kits that aren't really unassembled... i.e. meter boards that people can customize for their application and drop into something else...

But I have other engineering tasks to spend my time on, associated with my day job.. I am in the latter stages of a 250 pc first production run for my next generation product, so lots of detail work to finish, before I can turn all that inventory expense into sellable products.

JR

[mediatechnology]

Looks like they're gone again....

http://electronicdesign.com/blog/commun ... good-73884

[JR.]

I'm shocked....

That article seems to miss the point that consumers bought kits to save money... Contrary to his observation the kit industry is not booming.

Disposable consumer products are booming... It's all about the Benjamins

JR

[mediatechnology]

I know that when I was very young that I bought Heathkit test equipment to save money in addition to the fact that they offered credit.

Now, neither are a reason to build kits. Credit is available anywhere (at least to those credit-worthy) and some of the very low-cost test equipment is pretty good. Protek, Tenma, Rigol are all pretty decent.

DIY for hams (linears, antenna, antenna accessories and outboard gear) makes some sense since they are notoriously cheap. But I don't see hams building transceivers either since they are a good value.

DIY for ProAudio: Why do you suppose they do it?

(I say "they" not "we" because I don't use this stuff. I've sorta always viewed myself as a tool-maker for people who are a lot better at it than I.)

There's a company called ShopSmith for DIY woodworking. Their history is about like Heathkit's: in and out of owners and money.

http://www.shopsmith.com/

[JR.]

As the old joke goes, the chicken who laid the egg for the ham and eggs breakfast participated, but the pig was 'involved" . I used to be 'involved" in the kit business and saw the progression of automation in electronics manufacturing and the decline of kit price/value attractiveness.

It was a little amusing near the end of heathkits days, to see them supply the resistors and small axial components for their kits on the exact same sequencing tapes that the insertion machines used.

Some kit makers experimented with hybrid kits, where the PCBs were machine assembled and the kit builder just did final assembly, but that didn't fly either.

From time to time I am tempted to revisit the old kit business with some specialty kit, like perhaps my microprocessor based Peak.vu meter but then I think about it and wake up. I would love to revisit my old TS-1 but someone can probably get free software to make an Iphone cover that.

JR

[mediatechnology]

So why do you suppose has DIY continued in ProAudio?

I doubt I could by a garage opener kit but when it comes to DIY Mic Preamps I still have lots of choices.

What makes audio different?

[JR.]

Depends on what you mean by "pro" audio... large touring or professional installed sound is dominantly commercial manufactured.

There has always been a bleeding edge mainly in studios of techs/engineers who rolled their own gear because they couldn't buy something that did the exact job. There has also been a desire by studios to differentiate themselves with some edge over other studios by being able to claim some unique semi-custom or modified gear.

One fashion trend in recording is knock offs or clones of classic gear. This seems to be driven by the increasing cost of a finite pool of legacy gear that is no longer being made.

I remember kit calculators back in the early days .... I don't recall seeing any kit Iphones.

There are still niches... DIY high performance gaming computers, and things like that, but not enough of a market share to get a big dog interested.

Of course I could be wrong...

JR

[mediatechnology]

There has always been a bleeding edge mainly in studios of techs/engineers who rolled their own gear because they couldn't buy something that did the exact job. There has also been a desire by studios to differentiate themselves with some edge over other studios by being able to claim some unique semi-custom or modified gear.

I agree with that. The customized tool. I also think the desire to own or exhibit craftsmanship.

One fashion trend in recording is knock offs or clones of classic gear. This seems to be driven by the increasing cost of a finite pool of legacy gear that is no longer being made.

That too, though there seems to be an ever-expanding universe of re-released quasi mass-produced stuff.

I don't recall seeing any kit Iphones

I did recently see someone who did a DIY kit cell phone. (EDN Fun Friday?) It's only feature other than making calls was an LCD screen displaying the number. IIRC the designer was making a kit available with a Lucite case. The original Motorola brick looked pretty svelte in comparison but I suppose some guy could pickup a Geek chick with it. "Wow you built you own cell phone? That's amazing."

[mediatechnology]

It appears that someone took over the Heathkit.com Web domain recently. I don’t know who it is, but it seems to be someone in Michigan, possibly with ties to the original company. Their (long) survey asks a lot of questions about what kind of kits you might buy if Heathkit were to offer them—things from home entertainment to ham gear to educational products and all manner of things in between. Personally, I’d like to see a solid-state HF-6M legal-limit amplifier for $2000 or less. I think it is do-able. Power tubes are getting too expensive. A handful of 300W solid-state pallet amplifiers, clean 50V switching supply, and output combiner/filter is all it takes. I’d wind the toroids.

I’d like to see Heathkit get up and running again. When my kids reached the age where they were curious about how things work, I tried to find a kit for them to build. With Heathkit gone, the available kits were just not quite up to the same level—the instructions were photocopied, not printed, and the drawings of how things should fit were pretty poor quality. But both kids built their own little FM radios from these kits, learned to solder, and got the thrill of turning an inanimate jumble of little pieces into something that performed a useful “living” function. Alas, this did not lead either one to a career in electronics or engineering. Maybe it would have been different if the kits were Heathkits.

http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/a- ... hkit-back-

Take the Heathkit survey:

http://heathkit.com/survey/index.php/278489/lang-en