[Coco] A little off topic

Dave Philipsen dave at davebiz.com
Thu May 18 00:18:46 EDT 2017


Wow, this is starting to trigger some memories!  Does anyone remember 
the name of those kits that were sold in Radio Shack stores back in the 
late 60s and possibly early 70s?  The kit was comprised of a two-piece 
plastic box about 5" x 5" x 1-1/2".  All of the different kits were the 
same size box and the components for building were inside the box.  The 
bottom was clear plastic and the top was red opaque plastic with 
perfboard holes all over it.  I think it  might have been called 
"Perf-Box" or something like that. I must have built two or three of 
those when I was in grade school and then my dad bought me a 20-in-1 
experimenter's kit.  The experimenter's kit was a board made of 
cardboard with electronic components (transistors, resistors, 
capacitors, switches, etc.) mounted on it and scattered over the 
surface.  Each component had spring terminals for the component 
terminations and then you could hook them up with short pieces of 
insulated hook-up wire that could be clamped down in the spring terminals.

My favorites were an AM radio transmitter (when I was in 6th grade I 
played radio DJ and asked all my friends to tune their transistor radios 
to my station), and a 7-segment LED up/down counter.  There were others 
but I can't remember them all.  When I was about 16-17 I also built a 
digital alarm clock using a fluorescent display from an old calculator 
and a circuit board designed for that based around the Mostek MK-50250 
clock chip.  I still have that clock today! Many of the parts I bought 
at that time were from an electronics surplus outfit called "Poly Paks", 
I believe.

Dave


On 5/17/2017 8:16 PM, Melanie and John Mark Mobley wrote:
> How to build a AM Transmitter...
>
> Radio Shack Cat. No. 62-5018
> Engineer's Mini-Notebook Science Projects
> By: Forrest M. Mims III
> Page 42
> RF Telemetry Transmitter
>
> You will need:
> 1) 30 gauge Magnet Wire
> 2) 1/4" Soda Straw
> 3) 2N2907 transistor
> 4) 50k-ohm potentiometer (pot)
> 5) 10k-ohm at 25 degrees C Thermistor
> 6) 10 microfarad capacitor (cap)
> 7) 1.5 volt battery
>
> This simple low-power Radio Frequency (RF) transmitter will broadcast
> temperature as a series of clicks to a nearby radio tuned to the upper end
> of the AM broadcast band.
>
> ----
> This book has many science projects...
> Electroscope
> Galvanometer
> Homemade Batteries
> Graphite Resistor
> Liquid Resistor
> Super Capacitor
> Thermocouple
> Small DC Motor Circuits
> Inverse Square Law
> Light Listener
> Monitoring Sunlight
> Electromagnetic Probe
> Wind Speed Indicator
> Rain Sensors
> Electronic Thermometer
> Motion Detector
> Position Detector
> Pressure Sensor
> Seismometer
> Earth Movement Sensor
> RF Telemetry Transmitter
> LED Telemetry Transmitter
> Electronic Cricket
> Analog Data Logger
>
> John Mark Mobley
>
>
>



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