Elenco Two IC AM Radio Kit | Solder | Great STEM Project | SOLDERING REQUIRED

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Elenco

Elenco Two IC AM Radio Kit | Solder | Great STEM Project | SOLDERING REQUIRED

Regular price: €52,03
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Regular price: ~~€86,00~~
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Description

Build complete radio on a single PC board
Teaches the basic theory of AM radio operation
Educationally sound project
Requires (1) 9V battery (not included)
From Elenco Electronics

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Customer Reviews

Excellent!I'm not sure why others were complaining about the printed circuit board, but I can say that the PCB requires cleaning and tinning before soldering any parts onto the board. This will go a long way in making the solder flow properly on the pads. That said, the board is very good quality. I have assembled the FM model FM-88K as well as this one, and can honestly say I learned a fair amount about how simple radio circuits work. I have a better understanding of the IC (LM386) and how it amplifies the sound. All in all a very good product that is well marked and documented. 5Bad TuningThe audio section is good, but the tuning section is so out of range, it won't even access the upper portion of the AM band. It was assembled by yours truly (a retired tech with 40 years of experience) and it still gave lackluster results. Very disappointed in the design, and this has really put me off Elenco kits. If I have to modify tuning sections to make them work, I sure don't want to recommend them to my students or beginners who have no idea how to work with radio. I'm just glad I didn't pay much for it. 2All it's missing is a caseMy 9 year old son and I had a blast building this. It was his first attempt at soldering, and since the parts are relatively large (almost all discrete components) he was able to do much of it himself. I helped with soldering the IC socket since I was pretty sure he'd melt the plastic near the lugs.The instructions were clear, and he had no problems finding which parts went where. All the capacitors and resistors are clearly marked so there was no fumbling with a color code chart.Once everything was soldered in place, we popped in a battery and much to his amazement it worked. He happily listed to AM radio all that weekend - it was a revelation for him, since he pretty much lives on YouTube and cable TV.The sound is what you'd expect from such a tiny speaker - tinny. But that's not really the point. He loves it, and will still occasionally turn it on even though the novelty has worn off. Its a nice weekend project and teaches basic schematic reading and component types.My only quibble is a small one - I wish it came with a case. It sits on his dresser, and I worry parts will break off since everything is exposed. The finished product is exactly what you see in the picture. Still, for the price you can hardly go wrong. 4Excellent soldering practice and fun to fiddle with once completedAs an adult with a desire to learn basic first-time soldering skills, this kit provided a lot of valuable practice. I was able to assemble this kit and have the radio up and running in a couple hours. There is no case but I was able to assemble a simple Lego stand. The printed instructions (also available as a PDF) include a check-list that you can mark once you locate each part and as you solder each component. There are no spare parts here except for two extra wires so keep that in mind. Like some of the other reviewers, I found that I could tune in some stations very clearly in the 1300-1600 AM range but a lot of stations I can get from other AM radios at lower frequencies don't come in. Fiddling with the antenna is explained somewhat in the instructions but I found that it's very delicate -- the wires connecting it to the PCB are only as thick/durable as a single strand of thread. Move the antenna around too much and you're likely to break one and have to resolder. I would say that the antenna is by far the most likely part to break in the kit.I give this kit 5 stars since I was really interested in soldering practice, not so much having a cheap AM radio. :) 5My 5-year old daughter LOVES this!OK, so I have many years in RF engineering and I'm a ham extra, still, I've tried to not "force" my electronic and musical hobbies on my daughters in fear of them being overwhelmed and too directed. Still, when I asked her early last year if she'd like to "make a radio" sometime, she was very interested and asked about it several times later before her birthday in September. That was when she received this kit. I looked around at many and after some consideration, I chose this one.A few weeks after her birthday, we sat down at a good well-lit bench and I thought we would work through the kit for a couple of hours each over a few sessions to spread it out. Well, that wasn't going to happen! My daughter was so excited that she determined quickly that we would do it all at once, even though I encouraged her to take her time. Admittedly, she has soldered a few wires together before (just some leads twisted together and soldered) so she was not shy or afraid. I guess I'd have to recommend doing that first as it gives the child the opportunity to see how the solder melts and how, if the leads are heated enough, it wets and flows. I admit I did that well in advance to whet her appetite. I also spent some time letting her know (note this!) that ANY circuit board with copper traces has a glue that holds the copper to the board, and too much heat will break it down. That will allow the solder pads to lift which can be tricky to recover from for the inexperienced.All that said, she set about putting the components on the board with a little verbal help, and made her first real solder connections with relative ease. We followed the instructions and checked them off as we went. She especially like trimming the leads with small side-cutters. I recommend some comfortable safety glasses for that part, as the lead-bits do fly.I find it nice that they include lead-free solder,which took some worry out of the project. I am not sure that all of the components sourced meet the RoHS (lead-free) standards, and there is almost no practical way to know, so a really good wash-up after handling is still recommended. Lilli made most all of the small component solder connections herself, although she had me do the Integrated Circuit socket and I did the trickier lead wires for the speaker and tuning condenser connections. I think in all it took us about 4 hours.My goodness did her face light up when she turned it on the first time and quickly found a local station ! Now, 5 months later, it still is "displayed" prominently in the living room and she frequently plays with it and includes it in her situational play games often. It must just sip current, as the battery is still the original one we put in when we built it. It was a wonderful experience to see her go at it with such gusto and focus. I have taught many people to solder in my professional capacity over the years (20+ mostly ladies in production environments) and I have to say that kids can learn it as quick or quicker than any adult. Patience and preparation are key.Just last week at breakfast I suddenly asked her, out of the clear blue - "Lilli - what's the most interesting thing you have ever done?" Her answer, without even a slight pause to think, was " Building a radio! " and she gave me a smile I will never forget. I wish I could upload here some of the video I made with her making her radio - then you would understand. A child's world is without borders until we erect them. Lilli is certainly teaching me that!A few caveats on this unit - first - it is not a traditional superhet unit - that means the sensitivity and selectivity are extremely poor. Second, the audio is atrocious and without a cabinet the speaker sounds like the proverbial tin can. Third, I recommend to use a little stripe of silicone adhesive to hold down the little wires that go to the ferrite antenna if you want the radio to be handled at all. They are a bit longer than required and would get hooked and damaged easily if not nailed down. All that aside, Lilli never noticed any of this stuff - it's her radio and she made it. It works and she's proud as can be. Most importantly, it got her enduring interest. And that has nothing to do with price or sound quality. Job done. I recently asked her if she wanted to build another kit and her reply was a resounding YES!! So, off we go on the hunt for the next adventure. I keep thinking about that Fox-Hole Radio my father and I made together.... Four stars for overall development and implementation, a decent kit with decent instructions. Minus one star for the technical points of audio quality and selectivity issues. 4A very good kit for beginners. Learn to solder and make a working AM radio. Elenco kits are great!A fun and satisfying kit to build. It is very well organized and comes with clear and detailed instructions. The completed AM broadcast band radio has good sensitivity and surprisingly loud volume and clear sound for such a small speaker. The antenna coil was a bit touchy. I had to move the coil to the very extreme end of the ferrite rod and even a bit off of the end of the rod so that the higher frequency stations could be tuned in. Because of that, the ferrite rod isn't supported by both brackets. I've seen that other people have experienced the same problem. I guess that the antenna coil windings are not perfectly matched to the radio. Not ideal but still an easy and worthwhile kit to build! 5A fun kit but a few problemsThis was a fun kit to assemble. It's not complicated at all, but I did have a few small problems.First off you get all the parts needed. Nothing extra is needed apart from space on a table or desk, and a good soldering iron. You get enough solder to build the kit in the package.All the small components such as the resistors and capacitors are on a card, and clearly marked. So you should have no problem finding and identifying them.The kit went together in a reasonable time.However once assembled I did have a small problem. The tuning range didn't seem as it should. Near the top end of the AM band a lot of stations seemed to cram together and it was hard to tune stations that I know the freqency of. I put that down to the fact thta this is a just a hobby kid and not a commercially available radio that has its tuning and alignment properly done. This is just my experience, and I can't find any cause for this. All the parts are in the right place, no solder bridges.But I'm pleased with the set and it does work so I can't complain too much. I just wish the tuning was a bit more precise. 3This is one of the best value for the money kitThis is one of the best value for the money kit. I bought this kit to work on it with my grandson. Instructions are very clear and in spite of quite a few parts after the assembly the radio actually played! For me as an old timer in electronics it was a pleasant experience to see how far the radio technology has come along. Such a radio even 20 years ago, would require at least three times as many Components. I would highly recommend this kit . 5I want more Elenco kits!This was an excellent kit to build. I would highly recommend it for someone who doesn't have a steady hand for soldering yet. There is plenty of room on the board to work around. The instructions are clear, include a complete inventory of parts, and even explain how the radio works. The illustrations are very easy to read and large enough you don't need a magnifying glass. It includes charts for reading the codes on some of the components, like resistors and capacitors, and a chart of metric conversions. There is a glossary in the back of the booklet. The whole project took me about 2 hours to complete. The very first night after I built it, I was able to listen to Coast-to-Coast AM with George Norry, and it gets good reception when the weather is good, especially if you add a ground to it. I would also recommend the Aven 17010 Adjustable Circuit Board Holder, to keep it steady when you are working. It also makes a very nice display stand. Aven 17010 Adjustable Circuit Board Holder 5Great value for priceI gave this a 5 because the instructions were fantastic (unusual for electronics) and it worked the first time I turned it on.The instructions showed three levels of diagrams: a higher level functional diagram, a circuit diagram, and then two diagrams showing how to attach the parts to the printed circuit board. There was also an explanation of how the radio worked. This was very educational and it was interesting to see how the printed circuit board layout is implemented to achieve the connections of the circuit diagram. I also downloaded the datasheets from the Internet for the two ICs to give me more information.It was also a great exercise in building soldering skills. Soldering the leads for the audio IC really requires concentration not to bridge solder between the leads. One minor criticism: in the alignment instructions for the trimmer on the tuning capacitor, the pictures just didn't match my capacitor. But I experimented turning them while the radio was on and it didn't seem to make any difference. Also, getting the 9 volt battery into the holder was a difficult squeeze.A fantastic value for the price. 5

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Elenco Two IC AM Radio Kit | Solder | Great STEM Project | SOLDERING REQUIRED

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Shipping and Returns

Customer Reviews

Elenco Two IC AM Radio Kit | Solder | Great STEM Project | SOLDERING REQUIRED

Categories

Headsets

Computers

Laptops

Mobile menu

Elenco Two IC AM Radio Kit | Solder | Great STEM Project | SOLDERING REQUIRED

Description

Shipping and Returns

Customer Reviews

Elenco Two IC AM Radio Kit | Solder | Great STEM Project | SOLDERING REQUIRED

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