- 2025
- Jan
- 31
The Heathkit EK-1 multimeter.
Here’s a picture of the EK-1 next to it’s big brother, the AA-1:
Isn’t that adorable? It’s so small.
The EK-1 was a piece of equipment you build as a teaching aid for an electronics course of the same name. It’s interesting in that it’s a voltmeter/ammeter with no battery requirements - although the ohms function does require a single C-cell. The Ω/V rating is pretty low, since it’s really nothing more than a meter with some resistors in it - no active components here! The only AC function is a neon lamp to check 110VAC, so this is a glorified appliance test box.
Still, it’s cool in that it looks like a piece of Heathkit equipment, there’s no batteries needed for the most part, and it can sit there on the bench ready to go as a power supply test unit, or a tester for anything else where a bit of load won’t bother it.
It’s going to go on the bench as soon as I give it a contact cleaning and a new battery. (The AA-1 is also in queue.) You’ll probably see it in some shots in the future, stay tuned!