Last year, in my Thanks, Dad post, I mentioned how much Heathkits had meant to me growing up, and how I missed the combination of detailed instructions and how-things-work of their manuals in more recent kits.
Heathkit is now back in the kit business. They have started with only one kit, a Garage Parking Assistant,which is of little use to me as I have no car (nor any room in my garage if I had one).
They plan to add more kits in four categories:
The kits will almost certainly be more expensive than buying already built versions of the products, since it is much cheaper to integrate and assemble things in a factory than to count and package parts that can be hand assembled. The value of electronic kit building nowadays is more in learning and sense of accomplishment than it is in saving money.
I understand that the audio and amateur radio kits will be based around vacuum-tube technology, which is not so easy to get commercially, and for which kit building is competitive with commercial assembly.
I welcome Heathkit back to the kit-making business, and I hope that they do well.
(I found out about Heathkit’s return to kits from the special kit issue of Make Magazine—an issue with many fine kits in it, though some of the most attractive ones are beyond what I’m willing to spend on a toy at the moment.)
Related articles
- The Soul of an Old Heathkit (kits.makezine.com)
- Top Ten Things To Do In 2012 (adafruit.com)
- What’s the nerdiest car mod project ever? [Video] (jalopnik.com)
- Why Are We Crazy for Kits? (makezine.com)
- MAKE Magazine Releases Awesome “Ultimate Kit Guide” (treehugger.com)
[...] kits when I was growing up (Thanks, Dad!) and about how I was glad to see that they were finally back in the kit business. The kit issue of Make has a number of cool things in it ranging from the $3 Learn-to-Solder badge [...]
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