Customer Reviews

Electronic Gadgets for the Evil Genius : 28 Build-It-Yourself Projects

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This book assumes alot. To start with, a back ground in electronic engineering. If you don't have practical real world (or at least laboratory experience), you could get yourself, or worse, someone else, killed.

I wouldn't suggest this as a source book for high school science projects; it's as likely to get you a term of 5 - 10 in a state run facility (not college) as an A grade. Given the current climate, using a high power laser pointer could land you in a fair bit of trouble (the book does point this out). This is also one of the better documented projects.

The other factors that the book does not consider are:
* Budget. These are not low cost projects.
* Time. Plan on doing research outside this book.

From the 28, there is one project I plan to try. Read the contents page before buying - unless there is at least one project you really want to do (and sink time and money into). I would pass. Some of the plans are more like overviews.

I was intrigued by the types of "gadgets" that could be built with the guidance of the book and decided to pick up a copy and start with the "Laser Window Bounce Listening Device". The most important restrictive factor in building these projects, for me, happened to be the cost of each. Since the book claims on the back cover that "needed parts are listed, along with their sources - and most of these projects can be built for $100 or less." Great, I thought! "$100 or less". Not so! The book is very misleading in this respect. For example, there are a total of 28 different projects to build, of which only 15 are "$100 or less" (many are a few hundred dollars)! The book misleads you further by giving the total price for "basic parts" ONLY or "specialized parts" ONLY!!

Let's add insult to injury by mentioning that the book seems to be an advertising tool for the author's company: Information Unlimited. This is the source for the "specialized parts", such as the "printed circuit boards"...that is, IF you can find the part!

So, getting back to the project I had wanted to build: the "Listening Device". The book says that the project would cost "$100 for BASIC PARTS" (my emphasis). Really? And what about the other parts? The most important parts, such as the "image converter tube" for the "See in the dark" project or "the special prepared plasma tube" for the lightsaber project? Where on the website can I find these among many other "specialized parts"? Asking questions about parts from their company is just as tedious and a waste of time as you will be sent from one phone number to another to get a small piece of information. Not worth it.

So, overall, the book may seem innocent and fun to learn from and exciting in its list of potential projects to build, but if you don't have a lot of throw-away cash AND a lot of throw-away time, especially spent at their advertised company, then I highly advise staying away from this book.

The book claims you can build all projects with standard components. However, every project contains at least one component that can only be ordered on the website of the author! No details about those components is provided to force you to buy it in his shop and make it almost impossible to find it somewhere else. Also, the claim that all projects can be built for less than 100$ is an outright lie! Most projects are very expensive.
I can be very brief about this book. Don't buy it! It's just an advertisement folder for his own company disguised as a book. Besides, every project in it can be found in one form or another on the internet for free.

UPDATE:
It's been four years since I've bought this book...and I have to say....I'm a convert. What I typed below was true (so I wanted to keep it. It's there under "Old Review"), but what the author is doing here is showing a way he did it...which is fine....

I realized a few days ago that the book is good when I was sitting around STILL reading from it. The experiements are pricey as hell..but so are all usual physics/electronic experiemnts...the sheer amount of bad ass projects in this book make it worth it.

This is the way I attack it: I look at his project, see how he does it, then try to create it my own (and frequently cheaper) way... For instance: the laser bounce window listener. I recreated for about 20 bux (major short cuts) and the sucker WORKED....

In sum, yes its a great book. The experiments are pricey, but they are great starting points.



The Old review:
Ok....we bought this book for the physics club so we could build some cool gadgets and what not. I completely agree with the other peoples review that the author just plugs his website through out the book. WHAT A RACKET!!! He GROSSLY underestimates the cost of building each product. For one of them called the "Two inch spark tesla" thingy...he says that it is a fun expirement that will cost approx. $25 dollars.....So he then goes on to list some parts needed for the project. Most of them are pretty easy to find. But three of them are not...they include a 400V square wave transformer, TWO 25Kv Pulse transformer, and a 300V SIDAC switch....now all these parts are very very very hard to find...(Dont count on radioshack or even your average electronics store carrying these things)...so i went on [...] and i will copy and paste the following prices from his price list...

Chapter 15 - 2 Inch spark Tesla Coil with Timer

SIDAC - 300 volt Sidac ....................$[...]
28K074 - TYPE1PC Switching Transformer ....$[...]
CD25B - 20 kv Pulse Transformer ...........$[...] (you need 2)
PCLITE - Printed Circuit Board ............$[...]

which is more than 70 BUX!!!!....WHAT A LIAR!!!

in addition to the fact that a SIDAC switch is completely unnecessary. there are many cheaper ways to accomplisih this with out using a sidac....SIDACS ARE VERY RARE (as well as the transformers)...WHICH FORCES YOU TO GO TO HIS WEBSITE!!!!

in short the author chooses to build his circuits using rare pieces to force you to go to his website!!!

Meh, I had high hopes for this book, I really did.

Some of the projects are really interesting, but as it's been pointed out many times before the whole thing is just a book of plans from his website. Every single project requires at least one (often many more) special part that can only be order for an arm and a leg. Expect to spend several hundred dollars for the cheaper things.

I did learn a lot, and aside from his special parts everything else is clearly labeled and listed, so the book is far from a waste. Anyone reading this type of book should have enough of a background to be able to replace with their own cheaper components.

I did enjoy it as a good read, but please Mr. Iannini: lay off milking people from your site so much.

I got this book for my birthday, glancing through the pages it seemed full of exciting projects to build. My enthusiasm wore off once I started building the projects. Although most of the parts in the "Bill of Materials" are easy to obtain there are some _critical_ parts required for the completion of the project. The book contains vague descriptions of arcane parts that can only be obtained through the authors web site. Alas, overpriced in my opinion. A good book in my opinion wold list part numbers and various sources so the reader has a choice. I have found the cost "estimates" ridiculous, in a particular project just two of the "special" parts needed are more than the "estimate" for the full project. Not to mention that you can only get them through the authors website. In my opinion one of the reviewers that called this book "an infomercial" for the authors website was right on.

Thank you for reading.

First off, let me WARN people that there is more than one book that looks like this one with the phrase "For The Evil Genius" in it, and these books are not going to be alike at all!

This is a series of books sort of like: "IDIOTS GUIDE TO" where each is written by a DIFFERENT AUTHOR on a DIFFERENT subject!

THIS book, with the word "GADGETS" does indeed show some evil "mad scientist" like things to build. But another book that looks exactly the same: "Electronic CIRCUITS for the Evil Genius" does NOT, I repeat NOT show you how to build any "evil" cicuits at all! Only how to build a night lite, connect an LED to a battery, and make a speaker buzzer, just basic grade school science project type stuff.

So.... I just wanted to make that clear, as some people may go to a store, see a book that LOOKS like THIS ONE, buys it, then goes home to find out it is NOT THE SAME BOOK they THOUGHT they were getting!

Now.... On to the review of THIS book...

This book DOES have mad scientist type gadgets that COULD be built, if you had the money and expensive specialty parts that they require, but don't think you are going to build any of these things with parts you can get at your local Radio Shack store.

Get this book just to read and learn about how such devices could actually be made and how they would work, rather than thinking your are going to actually build them, and you will be very happy with the book. If you are getting it thinking you are going to build these devices, you are going to be very dissapointed.

This book is really just an infomercial for "Information Unlimited" who sells plans and kits for everything in this book at their website.

I have seen thier ads in magazines such as Nuts & Volts and never was willing to pay the price for the plans for any one individual device, here you get the plans for several of their items all in one book.

But once you start reading this book, you realize there is no way you are going to be building any of these things.

Just make sure you get the PURPLE BOOK with the word GADGETS and not the GREEN BOOK with the word CIRCUITS!

It's an interesting glance-thru, but the projects are out-of-scope for most people and require buying supplies from the publisher.

I'm a big fan of the information and projects presented in this book. However, it is not for the electronic faint of heart (or pocket book). Projects require some form of background in electronics and soldering to be able to understand (and in some cases, complete) the required tasks.

The pricing for projects range from $25-$500++ with parts for the more advanced (and cooler) projects being hard to find. However, the projects are incredible. Everything from a ultrasonic microphone and night vision device to EMP generators and class IV lasers.

Anyone who is seriously interested in constructing advanced electronic gadgets or who is merely interested in what is possible will benefit from owning this book.

M Iannini claims many of these projects can be built for under $100 but that isn't true. His laser based projects can run into the hundreds of dollars because the specialized parts are not easy to find. I am on the fence about whether or not I will hold onto this book.