heathkit assembly horror stories

[mike bryce]

Hola boys and girls...

I am working on a project and would like to hear any and all assembly horror
stories about heathkits.

I guess I should point this question to those that were "hams at heath"
working the repair bench.

I'll throw out one of my favorites.

A local ham brought over his HW-1680 for me to look at. He did an
outstanding job in its assembly, but alas it did not work.

Checking over the parts on the pc board, he even had all the resistor color
codes going the same direction, really nice workmanship.

but when he asked me about the extra wire he had left over caused my ears to
perk right up.

"What extra wire? You might have a few inches left over but that's about all
you should have"

Well it turned out he had several COILS of wire left.

To condense the story down, when the manual called for a six inch piece of
white  wire, he cut it out of the wiring harness! He did this for all the
wires needed.


It took me almost a week to check and splice in all the cut wires from the
harness.

To this day, when I read about something being idiot proof, I just smile
because idiots are so ingenious!!


Ok, who's next?
--
Mike Bryce WB8VGE
SunLight Energy Systems
"Electricity at the speed of light"

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