Remember Heathkit? They are getting back into the kit business

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

See: http://www.rwonline.com/article/heathkit-will-make-kits-again/24284

They want ideas for kits. See www.heathkit.com

They were either too expensive or I was too young to afford them. A GF and I did build a Heathkit clock. I had to settle for an EICHO kit, a FET TVM. I remember the price, $139 USD, probably 70's.

 

[ronsimpson]

Kits, amateur radio, education, it did not work in 1980. What has changed now? I want to see this work...but we have been here before.

 

[4pyros]

Thay made the 1st desk top computer.

 

[jpanhalt]

Let's see if I understand this. Someone is so inept they can't park a car in their own garage, but they are expected to be able to build and properly install an electronic kit that will help them do it via an LED display. Hmmm...why does the FAA have more stringent requirements for instrument flying than for visual? I think Heathkit needs to field test the product with likely customers. Nostalgia doesn't pay dividends to investors.

 

[squishy36]

I wait with highly unbated breath. Making good kits and user instructions (not to mention good technical designs) is an art form and the folks who did this for Heath 40+ years ago are probably pushing up daisies somewhere (i.e., they lost their skill set in this area). I'd assume there's next to nothing to connect the Heathkit name to what made them popular decades ago; all those people probably have right now is a name. But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and I wait to see what they produce. I'd hope they think about products like test equipment and stuff for hams. Consumer crap just ain't gonna cut it with me...

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

I think "Made in China" is being labeled as cheap junk just like "made in Japan" was decades ago. Back in the day, you could get higher quality stuff by buying a kit.

It's difficult to judge quality and reliability, but if you build it yourself, the quality is part designer and part you.

Now, we have other issues at play:
1) Manufacturer's won't supply service data
2) Once a manufacturer's window of support ends, it may be landfill time. This includes Agilent, Keithley and others.
3) Parts are not generic anymore. Just add a microcontroller and you have a custom, one of part.

The support ends when the warrant is up. With profressional instruments, it's not uncommon to have to pay 1/2 the cost of the instrument for a fixed repair and you get annoyed when it is something like a broken knob or battery door. Fluke wan't you to send in an instrument for the full repair price to replace a 9V battery door on the Intellitone LAN toner system. That males it like a $70 battery door. What's up with that?

Heck, I get annoyed when you want to replace a knocker, a door closer or something simple and the screws don't line up, so you end up replacing the door or painting a room etc. all because of a $2.00 part. One of the more recent ones, was a mirror clips for a plate mirror hanging on a door. I order for them to work on a hollow door, you have to use a wall anchor for at least the bottom two holders. The ones at the bottom worked fine. The side ones didn't. They are off by about 3/16" of an inch. Fortunately when installed, they caused the mirror to wiggle. A piece of stained Balsa wood worked wonders.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

jpan:

I guess the tennis ball hanging from a string won't cut it. Isn't there an app for that?

 

[jpanhalt]

I also get annoyed with the inability to get parts to repair things. I have even gone to extreme ends to repair some things, just because I can't stand to throw something away that is 99% OK.

As for frustration with "made in China," I bet dollars to donuts that most of the new Heathkit parts are also made in China.

I second the test equipment idea, but don't see that as a really successful business model on its own. In the last umpteen years, I have built only three kits, one was for doing electrochemistry (1970's), one was a PIC programmer from blueroomelectronics, and the most recent was an esr meter.

John

 

[4pyros]

the tennis ball hanging from a string

I was thinking of the same thing.
But only old farts need a parking aid. Can you see them making kits?
I would love to see it but I dont think its going to work. The market is gone with all the disposible electronics out there.
Andy

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

A guy my father worked with had an old house with an old garage and a modern car, a 1965 Ford at the time. The garage didn't even have a roll-up door and the house had skeleton keys and trangular shaped steps. The car was way too big or the garage, both width and length.

I think he used the tennis ball trick. If the car wasn't pulled up enough, the door would smack the car. The door was one o those large tilt things. Oh, and it was a 2 car garage with 2 of these doors. The other half was a workshop.

Actually, you have the kids make the kits.

 

[cr0sh]

I noticed that their HE-RObot was a White Box Robotics robot:

**broken link removed**
http://www.whiteboxrobotics.com/

I wonder if it is simply a rebranded version - or if White Box has something to do with this venture...? Probably the former, but it still makes me wonder...

 

[colin55]

The days of selling kits has long gone.

Here's a quick run-down:

I sold up to $3,000 worth of kits a week in 1980.
It has fallen to less than $100 per month.
Even the local electronics shops have stopped selling kits.
Electronics is totally DEAD.
We had 5 magazines in 1980. Only 1 has survived.
I went to Thailand to see FutureKit.
Even their sales of kits is miniscule and their prices are very low.
A local man has already lost his pants bringing in a bunch of their kits.
Heathkit has almost no future bringing kits onto the market.
Almost every kit is already available on the web at very low cost and the sales are not worth opening a shop.
Look at Electronics For You and Elektor. Look at the hits for their Forums. It is about 2-5% of the traffic for this forum.
You can extrapolate the figures to their kit sales.
I get $100 of sales per 250GB of traffic. That's 2,500 unique visitor per day. Elektor gets less than 100 visitors per day.
Heathkit sold many kits in the dim, dark, past because they had test equipment, CB and ham radios, stereos etc that were normally very expensive or unobtainable. Those days have long-gone. You can buy a digital multimeter for $6.00 at the local Chinese $2.00 shop and a 10watt guitar amplifier in a beautiful speaker box for $80.00
Heathkit prices were overly expensive and that will not wash these days.
Just look on eBay for anything you want and compare prices.
Heathkit will never get off the ground.

 

[ElectroMaster]

I agree with Colin in that Kits are pretty much dead, the only thing that will help is having creative ideas for kits like the Garage Parking Assistant and then they could work..

I personally believe the electronic hobbyist's future lies with open source hardware (arduino, etc)..

 

[Boncuk]

From my point of view kits are very useful if one selects one which can be used for own designs.

I purchased a Heathkit development system which contained a multiple output power supply with ±5VDC, ±12VDC and 15VAC.

There were eight LEDs meant as logic level indicators for "1", a DIL switch with eight inputs to generate logic levels, a logic probe and two pots of different resistance (10K and 47K)

It further featured a medium size breadboard which locked into the main board and could be removed and used as stand-alone device.

A function generator with sine, triangle and square wave output ranging from 1Hz to 100KHz was set up to generate any frequency stepped in decades and fine tuning via a pot.

The kit was a masterpiece of design and planning. The instruction book did not leave out any detail. For each part to locate and solder into the right place there was an extra drawing. Even the brass nuts fitting into the holes (for the mounting screws) of the enclosure were not left out and the procedure (heating and pressing) worked perfectly.

I did everything as prescribed and wired the huge transformer according to the step by step instructions.

Flipping the book for the next page I read "Now the 220V wiring".

I had it wired for 110V!

Unfortunately I had to leave it back in Germany when I left for Thailand.

Boncuk

 

[bryan]

Yes, don't see much of a market for kits anymore, since the advent of the internet one can literally research anything and build accordingly. I do recall when as a kid in the 70's just salivating over the stuff in the heathkit catalogues though. Perhaps they may stand a chance if they target schools, and develop the kits to be fun and practical in a niche market.

Look at the Arduino, stunning how it has exploded in popularity.

 

[colin55]

Perhaps they may stand a chance if they target schools

Schools buy absolutely nothing because the teachers cannot fix the projects when they do not work.

 

[bryan]

Schools buy absolutely nothing because the teachers cannot fix the projects when they do not work.

Sad isn't it...

 

[colin55]

It takes a special skill to understand electronics.
Isn't it a funny world. The most crucial and critical business in the world (the banking sector) require absolutely no credentials to operate and that's why they made the biggest mess in history. Any fool can be a banker, solicitor, politician etc.
You cannot "teach" electronics.
You have to be born with the capability to understand it. Most teachers take "IT" as a second subject and understand very little. I have had 30 years experience dealing with teachers and most of them know very little.
Maybe 1 in 20 could fix a simple project.
That's the reason they buy NOTHING.

 

[KMoffett]

It takes a special skill to understand electronics.
Isn't it a funny world. The most crucial and critical business in the world (the banking sector) require absolutely no credentials to operate and that's why they made the biggest mess in history. Any fool can be a banker, solicitor, politician etc.
You cannot "teach" electronics.
You have to be born with the capability to understand it. Most teachers take "IT" as a second subject and understand very little. I have had 30 years experience dealing with teachers and most of them know very little.
Maybe 1 in 20 could fix a simple project.
That's the reason they buy NOTHING.

You think that maybe qualified engineers and technicians don't go into teaching because of the pay? Also, good teaching requires very unique and practiced skills that most in the technical fields totally lack.


Anyway...


The thing I liked about Heathkits is that when you were done you had a device that not only worked, but looked professional.

Ken

 

[colin55]

The pay for teachers in Australia is quite good. They only work 30 hours per week and get 12 weeks holiday each year.