40 Year Old Heathkit Clock Hack!

My biggest electronics regret, from childhood, was giving away a malfunctioning Heathkit SB-104. Got my ham license at age 11 and really wasn’t equipped to troubleshoot a failing receiver section. Love seeing this clock still learning new tricks 40 years later!

Carissa Vixen

Another approach to adding threads is to glue a nut to the back of the switch flange.

For me as well... just the yearly 'fix' of a small kit to hold me over.

Fran Blanche

The one I went to was in Malvern - Now it's a pizza joint!

Fran Blanche

I modified the dimmer circuit to keep it at about a quarter of its default brightness to save the phosphors, but it has burn in on the more used segments as you'd expect.

Fran Blanche

I've taken in enough lead for one lifetime, so it is part of some basic measures I take to improve my exposure level, along with fume extraction and a HEPA filter on the table when soldering.

Fran Blanche

Thanks for the peek inside a HeathKit. I never had the pleasure myself, but always wanted to build one of their kits. They were always too expensive for me.

Same here. I seem to remember the cool kits were way out of my league and I wasn't particularly interested in the ones I could afford. On the other hand, I went to high school in Sunnyvale CA, right in the middle of silicon valley and my school had an electronics shop (as in wood shop, metal shop, remember those?) with a super cool teacher. That's where I learned basic circuit theory and how to solder.

Ellen

Excellent video Fran. Visited the HeathKit store on Roosevelt Blvd in Philly many times and then the Radio Shack in Woodhaven Mall! Lots of good memories!

Hi Fran, Great Video. I noticed that the VTFD was still very bright after 40 years. I work on a particular model of radio that uses almost the exact same display (it also has kHz and MHz plus a decimal point) and often times the display will be very dim. Is this a normal aging of the actual display? Thanks - Christopher

Northside Service Company

I built a Heathkit O-Scope - it worked without the help of the grumpy folks..lol Love the level of detail in the videos & getting them early is fun too!

I remember drooling over the Heathkit catalogue as a child. Knowing I'd never be able to afford, or convince my parents to buy, any of the expensive toys. Oh- and I like the day early videos. Jeph Jaques does that with his comic for Patreons, and it feels great to jump the line every time. Never gets old :-)

Al Hunt

Fran, I noticed that you always wear black (nitrile?) gloves when soldering. Is this something I should be doing, too? I think we're about the same age. Our Heathkit store closed shortly after the computer stores starting opening in our area. Your next hack should be syncing with WWV automatically :) There's an Arduino project (of course): <a href="http://www.cwtd.org/Precision_Arduino_Clock.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.cwtd.org/Precision_Arduino_Clock.html</a>

Rob Clark