#heathkit

Moon 31.8: Forced socialization be upon ye angry child

Fun old tech on display or for sale at the Winter 2026 Dallas/Fort Worth area Retrocomputing Meeup on the 17th of January, 2026.

Heathkit H89 and 3D Printed H8 case - Darrell Pelan, Joe Travis, Glenn Roberts, Evelyn Pelan

Heathkit catalog illustration

That's it. 3+ years of work into 8 photos.

Project Purple Heart is FINALLY done! This is 2 Heathkit mono amplifiers that I bought 9 years ago at an antique radio swap meet. One of them I misdiagnosed as having a bad power transformer. In my overzealous and undereducated state, I threw it away.

This left me with 2 amps... but one power transformer. The stock transformer wasn't capable of driving both amplifiers, so I designed a custom power supply using a military 5R4 rectifier tube (pictures 7&8 sticking out of the top) that I had on hand. This essentially functions as a stereo amp now. Each Heathkit carries one channel.

The enclosure is made of cedar and cut in a waterfall style where the grain follows the 90deg angle of the wood. I used a red jewel light as the power indicator. This project stretched me in every aspect of my creative building. From woodworking, to 3D printing, to electrical design and troubleshooting, this was a beast.

I called it Purple Heart for the exotic wood which looks beautiful but is PAINFUL to work with. This project fought me the whole way, but I'm very proud of how it turned out!