Customer Reviews

Elenco 300-in-One Elecronic Project Lab

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've always been interested in learning at least the basics about electronics and finally decided to do something about it. I bought a couple of 'intro to electronics', 'electonrics basics' type books and I bought this toy. While rated for 10 years and up, they'd be pretty bright 10 year olds. The kit comes with capacitors, resistors, diodes, wires, transistors and even IC's. The other reviewer is correct. Resistors are all color coded -- and very small --- and very many in this kit. I finally spent about 4 hours labelling over 50 tiny plastic bags so I could easily find the appropriate parts to do the projects.
The manual explains how to identify all the parts, and for the projects uses a step by step approach to instruct one on how to put the project together. For example, "Insert 100 ohm resistor in B12 and J12 on the breadboard". In this respect, yes, a 10 year old could easily follow these instructions. The diagrams show the breadboard layout as well as showing you the "real" schematics. That coupled with my reading through my "electronics for dummies" books -- it's actually all starting to make sense as to why components are laid out they way they are. Without the other books, I would not have figured that out just from this kit -- but, if you just want to make things flash and make sounds etc and follow the instructions, that that won't matter. The manual does attempt to explain why something works -- but I was lacking the bare basics, so it didn't make much sense.

All in all, I would highly recommend this kit to anyone who really has an interest in learning about basic electronics and wants to put things together.

It would be a great kit for family projects. However, there are a ton of very small parts and good eyesight or a magnifying glass and a flashlight would be recommended for those of us with less then perfect eyesight.

Well worth the cost, working out to much much less then $[money]/hour of enjoyment to work through the 300 projects.

I rate myself as a complete beginner when it comes to
basic electronics. As with anything the best way to
learn is to practically do it, which can be difficult
and extremely expensive when it comes to electronics.
This project kit has to be probably the best starting
point for anyone who wants to get into electronics
because it focuses on the practical side which is a great
experience.

Looking at the product packaging the box looks high quality
until you look inside. It would have been extremely nice to
have batteries included to get working on the projects as
soon as possible. The electronic device itself is plastic
and can shatter to bits if you are not carefull.
The manual itself is wide making it extremely difficult to
handle. Probably the most irritating thing about the manual is
the layout. It starts off in English only to suddenly move off
to other languages. Each project section is actually split into
different languages increasing the size of the manual.

Apart from that I found the instructions were pretty much
easy to follow and straight to the point. The most noticable
thing about the manual I found was that it will get you
on your feet and going but thats about it. A paragraph or two
is included for each section summarising what the circuit does
but chances are you will want more information on what is going.
A good electronics book should help although you wont need
it if you are already familiar with whats going on. A simple
look at the a good website should be enough to increase your
understanding.

The most surprising thing I found about this product
was that a lot of the interesting components happen to be
on the main device itself. You only connect the
necessary components to the appropriate connectors - placing
the ICs, capacitors, transistors and wires on the rather
small breadboard. A good pair of thin pliars is probably
recommended as it can get seriously messy especially with the
more complex and demanding projects.

All in all a superb product, looks cheap for the price but
dont let that fool you. Dont expect to make a full fledged
electronic game or a full fledged radio out of this but do
expect to learn enough to be able to get a grasp of advanced
electronics. With 300 projects on the list, chances are
you'll probably think of something cool yourself after you've
completed all 300.

Finally I have to say this - the kit is pretty advanced for a
bunch of 10 year olds. If you do decide to give it to the
younger enthusiast, be sure to help out. It takes patience and
practice otherwise the components could break or become damaged.
Another important note is that a lot of the components will
damage if static gets hold of them.

I agree with the first reviewer. I purchased this kit for my 10 year old son, who is above average intelligence and has a voracious appetite for scientific knowledge and experiments. He is fascinated by the kit, but the instruction book is so poorly written that he cannot even begin to make sense of it. I am taking the other reviewers advice and purchasing some other basic electronics books in hopes of salvaging the [money] spent on the kit.

I have been a hobbiest in electronics for over 15 years, and i ordered this kit for my 8 year old. i knew before i ordered it that i would have to spend a lot of time teaching her basics, but she already has a firm grasp on capaciter and resister decoding, and she knows what they are used for. unfortunately it took even me some time to figure out the most basic of circuits, because of the poor quality of schematics and componant labeling in the book. transisters and ic's do not match up with the labeling in the book, and there is no info to help you decipher what parts they are telling you to use. also, the pot on the unit itself has a very high resistance, so some projects may require you to purchase other pots to get desirably results. there is one noise making circuit in particular that i helped my daughter build on christmas morning that only worked on about a 3 degree portion of the pot. everything else was too little or too much voltage for the circuit, wich caused it to be very touchy, and basically its not what it should be. if you purchase this product be prepared to purchase more beginner books (if you are a beginner), and several more electronic componants. this is a great product for somebody with a GOOD knowledge of electronics, and the time to tinker with this kit.

I'm a practicing Software Engineer. I have been for the last 16 years. I get paid a lot of money for my technical expertise. I took some Electrical Engineering courses while I was attending an Ivy League University, but I concentrated mostly on Digital Electronics. I wanted to learn about analog components. That's why I bought this kit, inspite of its rating as a Toy appropriate for 10 year olds.

This "toy" is appropriate for me. If there is a 10 year old who can make sense of this toy, his name would be Steve Wozniak.

The instructions are pretty ambiguous. The easiest projects start somewhere in the middle. The manual is not clear. The plastic from which this kit is made will definitely not stand up to abuse by a normal 10 year old.

If you buy this, do not buy it for a 10 year old. That will be money wasted. Also, be sure to read the sheet of errata that comes with the Manual.

I still own one of these kits, but my parents did not pay this much for this 300 In One Lab Kit. Radio Shack used to sell these kits for around $49.99, $59.99, $69.99 then it got discontinued. I don't know why this kit has to be too expensive, maybe cause of the demanding chinese market and the prices for semiconductors on the rise.

You can build various projects to help you brush up on your electronics theory. You can build a IC radio, LED circuits, Audio Amplifer, AM wireless code transmitter, AM broadcaster. And it
was fun to do. It comes with plenty of resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, wires, and it comes with a AM ferrite bar, variable tuning capacitor, output transformer, but it does not have a relay, but it does have a speaker. I wish that batteries would be cheaper so I can build some more projects.

I wish these kits would not be so darn expensive, it was not like that at Radio Shack and I always had great customer service and free replacement parts.

I ordered this toy for my 10 year-old son who is willing to take challenges beyond the Elenco's Snap series which are just too basic for him. Initially I found this toy can consumes much more his time and this is what I want. Everything is not that easy to assemble and is very trivial to figure out what component is what. However, I found he cannot make things happen for many projects and I cannot find anything wrong with what he has done. I also repeated his work and it did not work either and we were so frustrated. I bet something not clear in the manual. I also think this product is somewhat fragile! I am a engineering PhD and I found myself difficult to troubleshoot problems so how come I expect kids to enjoy this "toy". Instead of a toy I would think this is mini lab for those with some electronic background.

I am very happy with this set. The box is very well laid out and the fact that it comes equipped with a breadboard makes it possible to use well beyond its original scope - for example, for prototyping your own schematics. There are spring connections to the most frequently used components which are built into the box. The breadboard and spring connections allow for extremely fast building of the schematics - way faster than soldering them. This is a very big plus for me, because in the past I was discouraged from building schemes due to the time needed for a single experiment. Not so here - you can build fast, and once you are ready, modifications to the scheme are a matter of seconds (you should know what you are doing though, otherwise you may fry your components :).

It comes with a very good set of basic components which are sufficient not only for the 300 experiments described in the book (some of which are a bit similar, I must add), but also for further exploration and your own small studies. Due to the breadboard it would be easy to add new components to the set. This is another big plus for me. I guess I am not patient enough to do like most hobbyists - gradually build a collection of components.

The manual serves its purpose - it shows how to build the schematics, but don't expect to learn electronics from it. There are bits and pieces of information but not a well laid out course of electronic science. There are some basic experiments but I think that without other learning materials and at least basic knowledge you will miss on the opportunities this kit offers.

Unless you want to spend hours focusing your eyeballs on the labels of tiny resistors, and trying to keep track of them all and then hooking up a circuit that doesn't even work..be my guest !!
This "toy" was even difficult for (2) adults with masters degrees ( computer science and chemistry ) to figure out. I'm sure there is educational value in there somewhere.

What the descriptions fail to mention is that resistors, one of the most critical types of electronic parts, are *always* color-coded. If, like me, you're even moderately color-blind, you have a very expensive paperweight on your hand.

For people without that problem, this looks to be a greally great kit.