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Picked it up today. It's in good shape, just dirty. One slight mar in the case paint. Front feet missing.
After a good cleaning. Overall condition VG.
Under the covers. Excellent build quality. No drunken monkeys or Gorillas here. That's a relief. Heathkit construction can be a crap shoot. But those crapacitors have to go. BOM written up and order submitted.
After I do some resistance checks for shorts I'll attempt a power up.
An old gray beard with an attitude. I don't bite.....sometimes
That is certainly not a factory build, but it is built to a good standard just the same, I expect that it will power up just fine and be in good working order, but those crapacitors I would eviscerate ASAP though.
Zenith wrote: ↑Thu Nov 17, 2022 1:19 pm
Obviously one put together by a follower of the metal gluing school of soldering. I wouldn't be surprised if you found the odd dry joint.
I'm sure it will be fine after some TLC.
Are you and I looking at the same thing? I see well wetted connections with excess flux so typical of amateur work in the days before we got religion to clean the excess flux with IPA. Hell, looks exactly the same as the many Heathkits I built way back when and never a dry joint. Yes, it looks somewhat sloppy but it is secure. But if I do find a dry joint I'll eat my words and post it.
An old gray beard with an attitude. I don't bite.....sometimes
Continuing check out. Replacement capacitors will arrive Friday. Checked for shorts on the power supply and it's OK. Powered up and PSU should read +43V. Actual +41.8V. A little low but should be OK. But all is not well. The entire unit is oscillating at a fairly slow rate. Meter swinging back and forth in time with the oscillation. Both sine and square turn on then off in time with the oscillation. So we have a serious defect. But until I get the replacement capacitors and install them I see no sense in continuing until that's done. That won't happen until early next week. Stay tuned.
An old gray beard with an attitude. I don't bite.....sometimes
bd139 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 18, 2022 7:33 pm
Wow a Heathkit which wasn't assembled by a bona fide retard. Nice catch!
I've just repossessed the Heathkit AR2000 I built with my father in '71. I ought to have a look inside.
I stuffed the boards during the Christmas Holiday, he checked them when he came home. ISTR buying a decent 25W Antex soldering iron to do it.
I don't recall the AR2000 so did some researching. What an unusual stereo receiver. AM/FM plus SW bands. I built my first Heathkit in 1970 but I don't have any catalogs from that time frame. But I do have an extensive collection of catalogs starting at around 1975 and I don't ever recall seeing it. I'll have to pull them out to be sure. All references and vintage adverts that I found reference Heathkit UK only which made me suspect that it wasn't available on this side of the pond. I did find the schematic so I looked at the power supply and it could be wired for either 120V/240V so I guess at one point it was available here.
An old gray beard with an attitude. I don't bite.....sometimes
bd139 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 18, 2022 7:33 pm
Wow a Heathkit which wasn't assembled by a bona fide retard. Nice catch!
I've just repossessed the Heathkit AR2000 I built with my father in '71. I ought to have a look inside.
I stuffed the boards during the Christmas Holiday, he checked them when he came home. ISTR buying a decent 25W Antex soldering iron to do it.
I don't recall the AR2000 so did some researching. What an unusual stereo receiver. AM/FM plus SW bands. I built my first Heathkit in 1970 but I don't have any catalogs from that time frame. But I do have an extensive collection of catalogs starting at around 1975 and I don't ever recall seeing it. I'll have to pull them out to be sure. All references and vintage adverts that I found reference Heathkit UK only which made me suspect that it wasn't available on this side of the pond. I did find the schematic so I looked at the power supply and it could be wired for either 120V/240V so I guess at one point it was available here.
Likewise, I had to look it up and my first reaction was that I thought it very reminiscent of some of B&O gear of the time and looked elegant in my view, and hopefully it performed well as to match its good looks.
What B&O were very good at was innovation and styling, the latter sometimes did miss the mark though as in the pursuit of styling they made user interface and usability at a distinct disadvantage.
In the early 70s I don't recall the B&O stuff being regarded as rubbish, but it seemed to appeal to those who put styling over performance, and it wasn't cheap.
I've heard the B&Q stuff tended to be unreliable, e.g. unnecessarily routing signal paths through too many switches.
The AR2000 had good specs for its time.
I don't remember using its SW radio, but then I had other decrepit valve SW radios. I did string up a 200ft piece of wire as an aerial, but never had the patience to receive anything interesting. Didn't help that the alleged station markings on the dial never seemed to match up with anything in the æther.
Later I got - and still have - a Sony ICL7600D, which ISTR Arthur C Clarke referred to as "his spy radio". That may need to be pressed back into service this winter if the "reasonable worst case" gas shortages materialise. If so, apparently the BBC output will be limited to analogue Radio 2 and Radio 4. (They couldn't chop Radio4 LW, since it is part of the UK's "launch nuke missiles" protocol!)
B&O made some groundbreaking designs in speaker tech... their electronics were more style over substance. Particularly well-known for very good PA speakers which delivered clear, well-dispersed sound from very discrete enclosures, many of which were designed to not look like speakers but more like fine furniture.
They do have their place in the world... just not in most ordinary homes.
Replacements. I also replaced 43V Zener diode D7 in the power supply. And after powering up the there was still a low frequency oscillation of the entire circuit. In order to rule out the power supply I applied an external supply and still had the oscillation. Turns out our famous Gorilla was playing around again. Reset the Meter Cal, Symmetry, Feedback, and Bias controls to initial settings as per manual and no more oscillation.
Now have decent square/sine. I need to do a complete calibration. Stay tuned.
An old gray beard with an attitude. I don't bite.....sometimes
Fits in nicely with his other Heathkit items and dead handy for sending low frequency test signals into his scopes.
