3 ms·
They had a good reputation early on. One of my uncles built a Heathkit color television in the late 60's and it spent more time broken than working. I cannot
by anonymousiam 5y ago
They had a good reputation early on. One of my uncles built a Heathkit color television in the late 60's and it spent more time broken than working. I cannot vouch for his soldering skills, and that was likely the problem with many of them.
In my case, I had about a year of professional soldering (electronic assembly) experience when I put the SW717 together. All the solder joints were shiny and perfect. I think I was about 17 when I built it. I sold it at 19 and got something much better a few years later -- a Kenwood TS-440S/AT.
- WalterBright 5y agoI worked my way through college as an electronics assembly technician. So I got very good at soldering, and had no trouble at all with the Heathkits. I expect if someone used a cheapo iron, and didn't have someone show them how to solder correctly, they'd have major maddening unreliability issues. P.S. one trick to save yourself lots of grief is, when done soldering the board, get a nice big magnifying glass. Before powering up the board, go over every joint with the glass. Look for any whiskers, bridges, crummy looking joints, wires too close together, etc. You'll be very glad you took the 5 minutes!