Electronic Kits For Kids

Electronics kits are a fun way of introducing children to electricity and study the wonders of science. Plus kit building offers parents valuable time with their children learning and exploring.

Today they're numerous easy to build kits with colorful blinking lights, loud sirens, and alarms to keep the interest of little ones. Kits are available with spring terminal contacts for easy wire connections with very little effort. The spring terminals are perfect for small hands and often kids are able to connect the wires better than parents. Another advantage is no soldering is required.

A number of manufacturer's offer a variety of kits for kids including Datak, Elenco Electronics, Maxitronix, Ramsey Electronics, and Velleman. A very popular selection of kits worth a look is The Electronic Lab series for ages 10 and up. The Electronics Lab is available with 50, 75, 130, 300, and 500 projects. The Lab offers the spring terminals connected right to the corresponding components and includes pre cut wires. A nice starter kit is order No. EP50, which has 50 projects including:

Finger Touch Lamp
Magnetic Bridge
Voltmeter
Morse Code
Alarm
Electronic Noisemaker
Kazoo
Electronic Keyboard Transistor Radio
Radio Announcer
Metal Detector

The Electronic Labs would be a nice way to get kids started and comfortable in simple wiring and spring terminal construction.

Another very simple kit with a long history behind it is the crystal radio order no. MX-901. This kit is recommend for ages 8-12, but we know a few adults still enjoy this kit, myself included. This crystal radio offers the spring terminals and only a small handful of components. The key to the circuit is a good solid ground connection and fully extend the wire antenna which is included. The crystal radio is unique because no battery is required. The fun part is to see how many radio stations you can pull in. Many longtime kit builders say crystal radios were the first kit they ever assembled. The crystal radio is a true classic kit.

AM, FM, and shortwave radios are also available using spring terminals and are very easy to assemble but need batteries to provide power.

Electronic kit building gets young minds thinking and exploring with a hands on approach that will build confidence with a finished project they will be proud of.

SMT Training Course

Finished kit with cover over PC board.

Just finished up the Elenco Surface Mount Technology Training Course Kit, part number SM-200K. This was my first experience soldering a kit with just surface mount components, turned into an interesting process.

The finished kit is called a Decision Maker, by pushing a switch six LED's blink in sequence and a buzzer sounds until one LED remains on.

Theory of Operation:

6 LED's are driven by a decimal counter and two oscillators. One oscillator drives the decimal counter and the other drives a buzzer. Two timers control the counter and the oscillators. The decade counter IC 4017 is a 5 stage divide by 10 counter. This IC has 10 outputs and one clear input. Only one out of ten outputs are high, the other nine are low. Every time a pulse is fed to the clock input, output 1 will go low and output 2 will go high. Each clock pulse will move the output one position. When an LED is connected the the output, it will light when output is high. When clock is on LED's flash ON and OFF with the speed on the clock. When the clock stops only one LED remains lit.

This kit uses two oscillators, one produces a frequency of about 200 hertz, and the other is about 20 hertz.The 4011 IC contains four two input NAND gates. Two of these NAND gates are needed to form an oscillator. Both ICs act as inverters, when input is low, output is high. One oscillator controls LED's depending on if pin 1 is high the circuit will oscillate, when pin 1 is brought low, the circuit stops oscillating. The second oscillator produces the buzzer sound.

Parts List:
8 resistors, 4 capacitors, 2 diodes and IC's, 6 LED's,
PC board, buzzer, switch, battery snap.

Construction Notes:

• Use plenty of lighting, these SMT devices are super small, TINY.
• I also use a magnifier light with arm attachment to my desk.
• One device is lined up over pads use clear tape to hold one side down, this make these devices super easy to solder. Never thought I would say that with surface mount.
• Kit includes four resistors and a spot on board to place them on for practice.
• Small soldering iron tip is helpful.
• Funny the time is took me to line up the small devices compaired to your standard leaded parts.
• Ultra short capacitor leads, no clipping with this kit!
• Lay off the pre-building coffee drink, steady hands help here.



PC board with components mounted.

Smoke Test:

The LED's lit up the first time but no sound from the buzzer. I double checked both IC's and notice one lead did not have a solid connection to PC board, resoldered and buzzer sounded perfect.

This is a good kit to get your feet wet and build confidence working with surface mount devices.

Power Supply Kit

Finished up the Elenco Power Supply Kit Model XP-720K this afternoon. Testing was very easy, just a matter of checking output voltages with a multimeter.

Everything checked out right on the money with the voltage checks. Overall I am a very satisfied customer of Elenco kits. The assembly Manual was very clear and easy to follow. Besides the general instructions on part placement, etc. booklet also includes a circuit description and if your really get into it a quiz.

This kit will fit right in on my workbench. On the subject of power supplies I have an Astron that needs two new binding posts on the rear, both are pretty stripped and just barely hold wires securely for my HF radios. Time to add the posts to my next component order.



The Elenco Model XP-720K

New Kit Build

Today was a typical cold January day with temps in the twenty's and it almost turned into a lazy do nothing Sunday until I got motivated and started a new kit build.

The first kit build of 2011 is the Elenco Power Supply kit model XP-720K. This power supply has 3 fully regulated supplies, 1.25V - 15V @ 1A, -1.25 to -15V @ 1A, or 3-30V @ 1A and 5V @ 3A. It also has 6.3VAC @ 1A and 12.6VAC center tapped @ 1A. The kit also includes a sharp looking enclosure that would fit and look nice on my work bench.

This power supply will come in handy for my power requirements. By working at my usual slow pace I soldered on the resistors, diodes, and capacitors. I prefer a slow build, seems like most things are done these days at a super fast pace, so looking to change things up.

This is my first power supply kit I have built since my Heathkit many many years ago in my basement as a kid.

Crystal Radio Fun

It was a very windy cold day in NJ for this time of year in May, spent most of the afternoon cleaning up the garage. This evening I broke out an old favorite kit built a few years ago with my kids, the crystal radio.

Crystal radios are fun to play with no matter how old you are. The kit listed above is the Elenco MX-901 Crystal Radio. Four local stations came in loud and clear into my earphone.

WABC, 770AM, Talk
WINS, 1010AM, News
WEPN, 1050AM, ESPN Sports
WBBR, 1130AM, Bloomberg

The hook up was very simple, antenna wire hung over curtain rod, ground wire to a plate on radiator. The key is a good solid ground, make sure your connection is not made against some metal that is painted.

I am going to keep it connected for another hour and maybe get lucky with a station or two out of the local area.

Project Notes

This past Sunday I finished up The Elenco AM radio kit. The final tune up was easy and everything checked out.


Radio works well and is on at my desk for news and talk through out the day. A very easy kit to build plus offers the new builder experience and confidence to move on to the next project.

Elenco also puts out an AM/FM radio kit and maybe later in the year I will build it. I must say Elenco Electronics has a nice selection of kits with well written and very clear instruction manuals.

On a sad note is the passing of Dave Ingram, K4TWJ, yesterday. Last night I took out the January CQ magazine and read his How It Works column on purchasing and restoring old rigs. His World of Ideas had some interesting reading on crystal radios. Readers of CQ and the qrp community in general are going to miss his monthly articles and enthusiasm for radio and electronics.

First Kit Build of 2010

This afternoon I broke out a Elenco Model AM-550K AM Radio Kit. The kit is the IC version built around 3 transistors and a diode. Elenco also offers a 7 transistor AM radio.

This kit looks pretty cool when complete, includes its own display stand. I always keep an AM radio on in the background at work tuned to either the local news and weather on the eights or NY public radio. When complete this will find a corner on my busy work desk.

As with all my projects this kit will take some time, I build at a slow pace but also have time only on weekends and the odd night.

Will keep you updated.