heathkit assembly horror stories

[Mike Souhrada]

Well Mike I have at least two!
One had to do with a HW 16 - one of my favorites. I have at least
5 now mostly parts units or waiting for some TLC.
One I did a few years ago didn't work - what else?
Found that the neutralizing capacitor was GROUNDED dead to
the chassis. Makes a big difference!

Another - HW 101- (I've had at least 5 of those)worked
intermittently. After a cursory examination I found at least
3 connections that never were soldered, just wrapped.
Worked fine after a bit of hot melt.

The last was my own fault but more later. First kit the SB 401
went together nicely but took me double the assembly time to
find my solder error on one of the multiple connector boards.

Heath error- all those kits say "Assemble N/S"-N/S=no solder.
Well that's ok if you only have a few items but they tended
to stack item after item on a terminal. Guess what happens-
the bottom item after 5 wires + are attached - never gets any solder.
They should have said "tack solder" or something like that. That's what
happened on
the 401. I think it took me 30 hours to find my stupid error.
Mike (Also)
Iowa

mike bryce wrote:
>
> 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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