Anyone using Heathkit equipment, ID 5001, 4001 etc?

[Braditude]

Just wondering how the Heathkit WX station compare to the new units from other manufactures.
I have more questions if I can find users.
Did a search on them and came up with little info.

BH

[Weather Display]

comparing to new units of what station exactly?
of a heathkit you mean, or like compared to say a rainwise station, or ?

[Braditude]

comparing to new units of what station exactly?
of a heathkit you mean, or like compared to say a rainwise station, or ?

Any other manufacture in general.
Maybe that's a too broad of a question.
Since Heathkit isn't available anymore, just wondering if there users out there.
I have seen some around, Mt Jacinto in Palm Springs comes to mind, although that was a long time ago, and it was a 4001 model.

[DaleReid]

I can give my perspective.

I remember seeing my first ID-5001 at a Heathkit booth at the Dayton Hamvention decades ago, and knowing I had to have one of those gorgeous stations, even though it meant saving for over a year to get the kit.  My son and I built it and was impressed, but also a little dismayed at how many advanced things for the time it used, and how crappy some of the engineering was (the method to dim the display, etc.).  The phrase 'what were they thinking' had not come into being yet, but a couple buddies who are amateur radio guys and a couple professional electrical engineers and computer designers (worked with CRAY and SSI) who knew so much more about electronics than I do said so too, so I feel they could comment as peers.  Nonetheless, the station was my pride a joy in the family room for years.  The humidity and barometric pressure sensors were the stations Achille's heel but the newer and more stable and robust sensors hadn't been discovered or designed yet.  I eagerly got the 'improved' humidity sensor kit and firmware upgrade to make it work, since by then both my indoor and outdoor units had failed after a few year's use.  My two friends who locally were enthusiasts were about to junk theirs, but did upgrade.  I have their stations in my store room right now.  A local energy company found a commercially built station was the only affordable solution to monitoring a hydroelectric dam's weather, and I helped modify some code so they could use a primitive 1200 baud dial up modem to check things out.  One of the amateurs had a previous ID-4001 station which lacked the humidity and some of the fancy outputs but his original station is still chugging away in his ham shack, 30+ years and only being off if the power was down. 

I loved my 5001 so much I spent a year coding my perfect weather display software in QBasic and it ran for many years before my station was failing in the humidity and temperature sensors and then finally the barometer that I shut things down, bought a Davis Vantage and hooked the station up to Weather Display software which looked a lot like what had written and went way beyond plus it would offer the ability to publish the station to the internet. 

There are some enthusiasts who make add on kits for the 4001 to give it an RS232 interface, and some upgrades with LED illumination for the display and some more robust brains to make it work a bit better. 

If you watch the ebay weather division on Heathkit weather there are some of these kits in built and occasionally unbuilt (rare) auctions, but the outdoor sensor units are hard to come by and complete working stations are rare.  Some of the custom cpus are no longer available, but almost everything else on the boards can be found, and a few of those cpus have been cloned and improved and still offered.

As for tracking with precision and accuracy, I think they were pretty good.  Not as good as the Peet Bro, the Davis Vantage Pro, Texas Weather Instruments or the Rainwise that I use now, which follow with barometric pressure within 0.02" and the temp within a degree or so.  Humidity obviously is a bit varied, but while three of the stations at my place have sensor clusters within a few feet of each other on a tower, the other one is some distance away and I think local lawn evaporation and shade are a major factor in humidity. 

One thing I do note is that the Weather Display software has an input selection for the ID-5001, so you might visit their forum and ask if there are current users out there.  I did a look for ID-5001 a few years ago and found only a few stations that were using any sort of commercial or home grown software to publish their readings.

You can't beat the looks of the impressive blue display, easily visible across the room and such a neat nightlight or TV light and I've often wondered why some of the leaders of today haven't grabbed on to the wow factor to make it part of their features.  The LED displays are large enough and easy enough to read that they really are an alternative.  The worst station I have to see is the Vantage Pro, of course.  Really a dog and I have to get up close to see anything.

I've not found the perfect station with display, at any price.  I have some RM Young stuff and Campbell Scientific and Met One pieces to make a Arduino or 1-wire data capture for and then write the software to archive and plot the data, but that is a bit off for awhile.  I'm going to be anxious to see how the top of the line, research grade stuff does in a head to head, same location, comparison for accuracy and precision, but it is getting tougher to find an absolute standard for the temp and humidity.  Once mounted on the tower, it is tough to get the sensors down to put them in a controlled humidity environment for calibration, while the temp is relatively easy to do with an accurate hand held device.

So, if that is of any help, have at it.  I think that if Heathkit were still in business they'd have continued to roll out their kits and improved as sensors evolved.  But that didn't happen and it left a market for low entry end stuff, middle of the road stuff that still becomes pretty costly to get all up and running, and then the commercial/research grade stuff that takes a hurricane, but may not be much better than the Davis/Peet/TWI/Rainwise which are pretty darned nice and nearly plug and play.

I'd be interested in your or other's comments.
Dale

[Braditude]

Wow, thanks Dale.
I never thought I would get a response out of this since most people here are interested in other devices and maybe I was on the wrong forum, which I still might be!
I've had the ID 5001 since they came out. I didn't know if or what problems they were having since I knew of no one else who owned one, still have not seen any others.
But I did purchase one from eBay several months ago, suppose to be almost new as more of the sensors show no weather related use or damage, but I have not even taken it out of its boxes to try as it went right to storage, waiting to be used when we get the house rebuilt.
I'll have one on each floor.
I have looked at the other brands but like you said, really never seen something that looked as good as the Heathkit or as large of a display, which I count as +5 more points since my eyes are not that good and that large display is soooo good looking, not to mention its really bright!
I use to change out fluorescent lamps every month to every year depending on the bulb. I finally after 15+ year converted to LED's. Oh, I thought the dimming circuit was great, worked well and had no problems, but only with the bulbs burning out, not to mention it made things inside a little warm.
So after changing to a LED array, something I bought for incandescent replacement bulbs (3 watts) they didn't last very long, maybe a couple of years before getting dimmer and dimmer, which was hard to notice until I noticed I couldn't see the display anymore. Huh. So I finally opened it and saw that the 36 discrete LED's on each of the bulbs were burned or no lit at all.
I bought 10 (1) watt LED modules from Deal Extreme in China along with 3 power supplies. I put 9 of them in (trying to duplicate the 8 or so watts that was there before, and went for about a week before taking out 6 of the LED's and only using 3. Its still so bright that it lights up the room I think even more than the original bulb, not to mention using less power and not getting as hot.
I did send in this unit once, can't remember what for, but its been working ever since 1987ish and has been plugged in ever since then, probably only being off for a week or 2 total since.
I have not re-calibrated since the early 90's that I can think of. Seems to be working just fine. Humidity to me is just a reading, not having to be super accurate, although the temp is fairly close. Pressure is just a relative reading and all I care about is if it goes up or down.
I did repair the rain gauge cup since the plastic on the surface cracked, so I used fiberglass plates cut into pie shapes and epoxied together since the only important part is that stainless rim.
I have 3 of these now. The other one was given to me with only 2 temp sensors. I don't know if it works but figured I can use it for parts just in case.
I also have a 4001 which I got from the same person, no sensors. I really have no use for it, but I think it does work, at least when I plug it in, the display comes on. But the overlay is warped.
I really thank you for replying and giving me much information.
You talked about the RS232 output, which mine has, as I am using the logging software from ......... and have a computer on 24/7 doing that process, which works great.
But I was wondering what I could do to get this info out on the Internet so i can get it on my phone or something. Maybe the same program, can't remember since I installed it a while back and can't even remember much about it, but its still being sold on the Internet.
Ok, too much typing. Gota run...

Thanks again. Hope to hear more from you about this stuff.
Oh, BTW, never been to Dayton Hamcon. Only use to get out to the ones local (LA, Long Beach, San Diego etc..)

Brad

[DaleReid]

Brad,
another Heathkit junkie!

As a disclaimer, I am NOT using a 5001 in this way, but no reason that it wouldn't work as I can see.

Weather display can take the output of your station and log it locally, but also can relatively easily (if you have web page space from your subscription or wan to buy hosting services, publish a nice summary that others and you can see.   Absolutely no knowledge of html, xml or php needed to get the basic page, which is nice.

All you'd need to do for it to be on your smart phone is go to the site.  I don't do the little screens, so I'm not sure.  The author may already have a module that makes the screens better viewable on the tiny handhelds.

I'm not doing this part, but see the setup code to have the software sned you and email via your email account of weather extremes, alarms or updates on a regular basis.  since all the other stuff in the package works for me as I've had a chance to test it, I see no reason this emailing or phoning wouldn't work either.

Is that what you were looking to do, or did I miss your point?

[Braditude]

Yes. I use to go to the Heathkit stores in Pomona and L.A. here is So Cal with my dad, since I couldn't drive back then. My dad had lots of Heathkit around the shop. Battery charger, scope, signal tracer etc..
I built a clock, which I still have today, running with only one problem 5 years ago but fixed now. I think I built that back in the 70's.
Have been a ham since 1977 but not as active now as I was 15 years ago. Just no time anymore.
Oh, yes I think that was the info I was looking for.
I don't have a web sight or anything (no time) even though I have a lot to publish with all of my hobbies and things that I build, but just have not gotten around tuit.
I have only had the Internet on my cable for the past 2 years since I just got married and my wife needed it (use to use the dial up or find someone in the neighborhood that had an unsecured line!
So it has only been recently that I was thinking on getting it linked up to the net.
Just didn't know if I needed something other than the RS232, an interface but I knew I needed software of some sort.
Anyway, one of these days I'll get to it.
Thanks again Dale for the info.

Brad