Speaking in Defense of Heath[via LSMTP - see www.lsoft.com]

[Bill Coleman AA4LR]

On 7/12/00 6:47 AM, john at johnmb at mindspring.com wrote:

>A quick perusal through Chuck Pensons fine book on the subject
>outlines the rise and fall of Heath through the years. Complex, integrated
>digitial circuitry added to the complexity to such and
>extent at the kit level, that the business wasnt viable any longer.

It's a simple matter of the manner of electronics construction, not the
digital aspects.

When Heath started creating electronic kits in the late 40's, most
electronics equipment was assembled by hand. By substituting the
nominally free labor of the kit builder, a lot of cost of the equipment
could be saved.

Things changed in the 60's, mainly with the advent of the transistor.
Since components became smaller, lighter and used much less power,
mounting them in a big heavy chassis no longer made sense. The power
factor was probably the biggest. Since the heat disappation was so much
lower, components could be packed more tightly together.

The simple way of mounting these components was the printed-circuit
board. Sure, PC boards were around for tube technology as well. But with
transistors, they could be made much smaller. PC boards did away with
much of the labor involved in constructing a piece of electronic
equipment.

Then came the coup de grace: Automated Manufacturing. With components on
PC boards, originally teams of technicians were hired to stuff boards by
hand. Some boards were soldered by hand, but many were wave soldered. One
pass through a wave solder machine could save hours of labor, with better
quality connections as well. Automation came to component placement as
well. Robotic machines could fill boards with components much faster than
humans, and much less expensive.

With transistors, PC boards and automated manufacturing, virtually all of
the labor costs of creating a piece of electronic equipment had been
eliminated. Indeed, creating boards full of components was so inexpensive
at this point that component-level repair work was no longer
cost-effective. Instead, entire boards would be swapped out.

With little labor costs involved, there's little economic incentive to
build electronics from a kit, and there haven't been for many years.
Integrated circuits exacerbated the problem.

Indeed, the industry has swung so strongly in favor of automated
electronics assembly, I fear that we may see the end of components
manufactured in human-buildable sizes. SMT is already half-way there, and
an increasing number of electronic components are only available in SMT
form.






Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr at radio.org
Quote: "Boot, you transistorized tormentor! Boot!"
            -- Archibald Asparagus, VeggieTales

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