I have been looking for one of these for a while and found this one on Craiglist for $75. It's as new with all the manuals and cables. My 64 was sitting for a few months and when I started it up, it barely ran. Put it on the scope and ruled out ignition. Went right to the carb and found a stuck float. Back in the 60's I had an Eico I used all the time. Life is good!

 

Wow I've not heard the name Heathkit in years. I used to build their amp kits 30 years ago. Can you briefly describe how the scope is used and what I could shop for if I were to buy one, ie model #?

Greg

 

We had a Heathkit store 2 blocks from my house growing up. Was one of my favorite stores. A Radio Shack for pros.

 

My Grandfather gave me a Heath kit trail bike when I was a little kid. To this day I have never ridden it. It has been assembled but never run.

oWEN

 

Wow, that's a great find. Heathkit made great kits back in the day. Even if you put it together yourself, and it didn't work, they would fix it for a nominal fee. I still have my AR 1500 Stereo Reciever since 1971. Dare anyone to find a modern receiver that has better sound with a pair of AR 3A speakers.

 

As a High School electronics student I got paid to sit in the new Miami Heathkit store and build a few kits. Everyone that came in was jealous!

 

Yeah Heath and Zenith joined forces for a while decades back and you could even get a kit to build a home computer (Z-100 I believe); it ran off 8" floppys. I built one and sold it...you could even do this as part of your educational requirement for the old GI Bill to become an electronics technician.

 

Several Heathkits still in regular use here. On my workbench is a 35 MHz dual channel O-scope. Two 50+ year old DX-100s get frequent work outs. Then there is the RX-1, a Marauder, couple of SB-620s..... the list is actually pretty long.

Heath set the standard for kits. No one else was even close.

Jim

 

Hello Greg,

Back in the 60's I had a part time job building display kits for Harman Kardon, Scott, Fisher, Marantz, Heath, Eico, and other audio component manufactures.

This is a model CO1015 ignition analyzer. It is basically an oscilloscope set for auto ignitions. It consists of the scope and the inductive cable setup. You attache one inductive pickup to spark plug lead number 1 and one to the coil wire. You also have a ground and a lead to the primary wire on the coil. This machine works with HEI and MSDS type ignitions as well as standard point types.

It will display a parade of the plugs firing. You can compare the trace of each plug to the others and easily see if any are misfiring. It will also display the coil pulse out put and engine rpm. The unit originally came with two manuals, an assembly manual and an operation manual. You really want the assembly manual because it has more info and more pictures. There are many photos do different traces showing what to look for.

The key to buying one of these is the condition. Some of these things have been in use for decades and show the wear. Also some are incomplete and lack the cables and/or the manuals. Stay away from them as the cables and manuals can cost as much as the machine. I looked for months to find the one I got. The beauty of these is they are repairable. The assembly manual also has a troubleshooting section and a complete parts list.

Hope this helps,

JW

 

Thank you for taking the time to explain the scope! Now I'm on the hunt too.

Greg

 

Ignition analyzers are the best way to actually see and troubleshoot problems on both the primary and secondary side of the coil. This model will also run off of DC so you can hook it up and take it in the car for a test ride. You can verify coil and ignition wire problems at speed and under load. A great tool to have at your disposal.

 

I built my first color TV from a Heath Kit. Was great and lasted a long time.

 

I still have several Heathkit toys that I built.

I have a 60W guitar amp with 2-12's... and one of the speakers is original.
Also their dwell/tach/analyzer.

Good stuff.

Too bad our entire country has gone non-self-reliant.

Gotta go now.
Gotta hire somebody to wipe my ....

 

I built my first timing light back in the early 70's from a Heathkit. It was one of the first timing lights available back then with an inductive pick-up. No more unhooking a plug wire and inserting the old mechanical pick-up's for me!!! Worked great for years.

One day I went to use it and the transformer inside started smoking and that was the end of the timing light. Unfortunately Heathkit went out of business by then and I've never been able to find a transformer for it to fit inside.

Anyone have an old one laying around that still has a good transformer inside... I can't bring myself to throw this thing away.

GUSTO

 

Gusto,

Google the part number or a description, there are outfits that sell Heathkit replacement parts.

 

Thanks, I will give that a try...

GUSTO

 

Always wondered if a standard "O" scope could not be setup to see the same thing. Have not tried it, but don't see why not (with an inductive pickup to trigger off of #1 ignition wire, and another off the coil wire to see the individual plug firings).

Comments?

That and a good manual to tell what the traces should look like, and what a poor trace may indicate.

Plasticman

 

I used to do the scope training for Allen Test products in the late 70's and early 80's.
I now own a Mac portable scope and I use a Mac cylinder balance tester.
With these two testers I can determine if my problem is electrical and what are the weak cylinder or cylinders and most of the time I can pinpoint the problem before touching the engine.
When you become proficient at interpreting the patterns here are some of things you can tell:
• plug firing voltage
• point dwell angle
• bad points
• bad condenser
• primary voltage
• plug firing time
• lean or rich mixtures
• high or low resistance in secondary circuit
• turbulence in the cylinder, carbon/ bad valve
• worn spark plugs
• fouled spark plugs
• worn distributor bushing
• worn timing chain
• maximum coil output
If used in conjunction with a cylinder balance tester you can:
• tell which cylinders are working weaker compared to the others
• check carburetor balance, if using a 180 degree manifold
• find dead cylinders
The best part of using a scope is if you don’t see anything wrong with the patterns it just told you to look elsewhere.
Joe

 

That would be an interesting exercise John....I used to have a garage full of old electronics equipment and several Tektronics 515 O-scopes among others. After I quit repairing TV sets on the side to make ends meet I tossed all of it.

FTF

 

Frank,

I have a nice Tektronix 2225 50 mhz. dual trace scope, but have never tried it as an ignition analyzer. Also have a few "spare" inductive pickups, so be an interesting thing to try.

We need Joe (Plaidside) to teach us some more on good and bad waveforms!

John