This electricity experiment kit is A PURE NOSTALGIA
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 พ.ย. 2023
- If you wondered why I needed that 3R12 battery I mentioned in the video about AZ-5 switch, this is the answer - it is for this little nostalgic item from the past that I recently received as an accidental gift (thanks, W.P.!). It's an educational set made here in Ukraine in 1988 by one of Elektronmash factories, and it allows you to build simple electric devices and study electromagnetism. Back in the early '90s, I had exactly the same one. I believe everyone has a similar story.. :)
UPDATE: Thanks to one of our viewers, we figured out that this a good quality (though trimmed) copy of a German Kosmos Elektromann kit. There was a pure copy produced in the USSR since 1978, and this looks a smaller one that appeared either due to shortage of funding or they just wanted to make a smaller version too.
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As a Christmas gift when I was very young, I was given a 160-in-one Electronics Project Kit made by a company called Science Fair, and was sold through Radio Shack, which no longer exists. If I look online now, not only is there plenty of documentation, Elenco is currently producing its own version of these kits.
And that is very cool, meaning there is a demand. I am actually very happy there are still many kids who will prefer playing with light bulbs and wires over smartphone games.
I got a similar kind of kit to this as a youngster. It’s how I learned that resistors get hot after they’ve had current flowing through them.
I had the 75 in 1 and then 1 christmas got the 160 in 1! gawd I loved those kits, and would spend hours in my room building the projects in the books
@@GothGuy885I had them too, and loved putting those projects together well into my teens.
I got a similar kit for Christmas in the early nineties. Some models are the same, others different. I remember there were two carbon electrodes that you could press harder or looser together to emulate a variable resistance. When i had grown a little older i made an arc lamp out of them. Much joy!
Interesting...
When I first heard of carbon arc lamps I tried to make one myself via 120v straight between two carbon rods pulled from an old lantern battery's cells. made a hell of a racket, then I tried to light the lead of a pencil i cut in half longways. The graphite glowed white hot for a fraction of a second then exploded.
@@carpespasm I did something similar, but used a 60 watt bulb in series with a pencil cut lengthwise, and created a very smelly light dimmer.
I did these wild experiment often, and my dad would be outside my bedroom door angrily asking "Whats Burning!?
This is wonderful!
Such "toys" are a rarity... whenever I found anything like this is my childhood, I always knew that I'd obtained something very special.
So true.
Definitely had to immediately watch when the title has, "geek" and "childhood" in it...because tha's basically me.
Cheers!
When I was 10 or so, I was fortunate to grow up across the street from a retired UCLA professor. I used to build crystal radios, bell ringers, lamps... all kinds of fun things.
Great video sir!
This is so great. Thank you! Check our newer videos!
I think one thing was frustrating was dealing with the tiny magnet wire. My kit may or may not have had the coils wired up, because I remember a time consuming step. But in any case thank you for sharing this beautiful educational “toy” which helped inspire many I’m sure (I know me) to go into technology. 💜 🤖
Happy to bring you memories!
In the mid nineties in the UK, I had an "Electronics 2000" kit that was a similar principle with an opamp, some logic chips, etc., and many projects!
Thanks for sharing!
I had a very similar set in my childhood, but as far as I remember, mine was made in Czechoslovakia.
was it by any chance called "Merkur" ?
When i was a child, my grandfather showed me how to light a little bulb using a battery and a wire. Later i wanted to light the bulb again, but could not find the battery, so i went to the wall socket. A literally shocking memory. Anyway, my grandfather sparked my interest and i am interested in electronics to this day. So the showed kit is meaningful, as basic as it may look
*remembering his remark about safety*
Nice memories! I had a somewhat comparable set in the 1980s, don't know what happened to it. It also contained a working motor which interfered on radio and television like heck... No suppressor diodes...
thank you for sharing!
I had a similar kit when I was 9 or 10 (1965 ish). " Thanks Dad! "
Assuming my dad is likely watching this now, I believe he will have some quite special feelings.
That's a nice kit, kinda reminds me the "Construction" knockoff of a Meccano made in the GDR. I had a lot of fun playing with my brother's :).
3R12 batteries, becoming rare nowadays. Back in the '90s and beyond they were ubiquitous.
Using a mains transformer's bobbin with some added L-bracket, you could even make a Ruhmkorff's inductor! :)
I did actualy plug it in directly to the mains once whan i was a little kid, but only once... i am still greatly thankful that i am sitting here and can write about it today... ha ha I managed to find an original meccano Rumkorff coil a few years ago.
I spent I think a few days to find 3R12 which was not "old stock". But we need them also for old dosimeters, which use exclusively R12 cells.
I wish they'd produce kits like this still! I recall when I was still a small kid, we got together for a holiday (Sinterklaas) and my gift was an old set to build your own radio. The kit had schematics, it had springs you'd push into cardboard and you'd have to stick parts in between the coils... I don't know how my mom got her hands on it since it was American-made, also only with an English manual... Later on, I used the kit for parts to build other projects but I had been on the hunt for the same kit after getting a bit nostalgic and never seeing something like this anymore. I was a bit bummed out, looked for it a dozen times on the internet, and could never find the kit until one day, visiting a radio convention about 100km away from me and another kit just sat there on a table so it took no time whether to decide to get it or not. I got super excited and took it straight to show it to my mother. I recall the kit was super frustrating to put together, so I thought it was fun to let my mom go through the same frustrations as I had in the past. After repairing quite some old, unique, and interesting radios, building this radio together with her was still one of the most memorable electro-related things I've ever done.
I recall I could never get the kit working, my father tried to give it a look but couldn't figure it out either. Turns out there was a silly flaw in the schematic, now it sits on a shelf and every now and then I still turn it on with the audio quality being barely good enough to listen to the news.
this is so touching story... thank you!
I'd love to have had this kit growing up!
So understandable!
Lol I want one now! 😂
I had many educational stuff like that, and I also had the chance to play with full fledged PCs very early on (starting with an 8086). And I also watched educational cartoons about scientific stuff and the nuclear industry. And now I'm the kind of dude watching this kind of channel :P
The toy I'd love to find back (it's stored in our attic, somewhere) is my remote-controlled lunokhod! USSR-made of course (but don't know which country) Bought in (at the time still soviet) Poland. If I remember well I still have the box! It was so cute, and pretty realistic.
I have to say, any Lunokhod toys are very valuable now as those toy expert guys told us.
There was a roughly similar introductory Radio Shack/Elenco kit with spring terminals. I did get into the larger 50-in-1 and electronic voice recorder kits, but I never really got much further as a kid.
I regret not getting the 500-in-1 suitcase-sized unit when I had a full bench worth of test equipment to fully utilize it several years ago...
Thank you for sharing! Well, maybe it it is still possible to find that set somewhere?
Apr 2024: I got an electronics experimenter lab in 1979 branded "Tree of Knowledge", but was too impatient to assemble the kit at my age, so I opted for the Radio Shack 160-in-One set, which allowed focus on the experiments as ready-made. I still have the "Tree of Knowledge" manual, having the luxury of retesting my reading comprehension that I was too lazy to conquer then. lol
Thanks for sharing!
I had several kits of this sort as a kid. Some also had telegraph receivers with a pencil that should draw dots and dashes on a roll of paper. I remember one particularly weird project which roughly simulated protection automatics. It was a very janky relay that held itself up suspended in the air by the current flowing through it. A fault, which was simulated by a minute interruption in power supply, would make the coil drop on the table, thus breaking contact. I loved those kits to bits and pieces.
Wow! That is interesting!
Seems kits like these were ubiquitous for little electronics tinkerers the world around! I bet they made great holiday presents for anyone who's parents were amused and annoyed by their child taking apart anything with wires they could get their hands on. It would be fun to see a series documenting these kits across different times and different countries.
That would be awesome. It is interesting that one commenter helped to identify that this set was a clone of a German one, though it seems Soviet had a bit better plastic used.
"amused and annoyed by their child taking apart anything with wires they could get their hands on" {Raising hand] Guilty as charged! 😄
Whoa! I remember that! The motor was the toughest one to get to work.
Yesss needed to adjust it pretty much
I had a msx1 was a child and I always dreamed about msx2+, because all magazines showing those amazing graphics and goodies. I've bought a Panasonic A1WX MSX2+ in 2009 because of that.
And it was surely a good decision.
These kits are the best when you are an exploring kid. Had one of them (not exactly the same ofcourse) when I was a kid, my son also sometimes uses his. Your imagination is the only limit...
So true
Pretty wild man. Reminds me of kits we used to be able to get from a place called "radio shack" here in the states and a few other places. The motor specifically looked really close to one kit I had... wish I still had all of that stuff. As you said, good memories, and while I could make things like that today, it wouldn't be the same, and the stuff is rare now. If they show up somewhere, snatch them up 😉
Thank you for sharing! I heard about Radio Shack and how many people miss that :)
Your statement that "even old dreams should come true" is beautiful. Thank you for that!
You are so welcome!
That's a really cool little kit! I would have loved to have one when I was a kid. Heck, I want one now! 😅 I used to have "100-in-1" electronics kits when I was a kid, where you could hook up parts to make little devices like organs, light flashers, etc. It was a lot of fun.
It is never too late to bring back that happiness :)
Old experiment kits ar fantastic. My childhood i have philips and Gakken EX kits... :)
What I like about them that they do not have "rounded corners" and therefore literally make the child think and learn.
As a kid in the US in the early 2000s I played with "Snap Circuits," I could make lots of different battery-powered circuits and they were connected together with metal clothing buttons. Those kits taught me a ton about electricity.
Cool!
The 2R10/3010/DUPLEX battery was quite common for multimeters and other expensive instruments in Western Europe, those were made from two naked R10 in series wrapped in cardboard or plastic. I think now they use a CR123 inside a plastic adaptor.
Interestingly, we did not have them. For those we used 9V batteries.
Haha, as a kid in Bulgaria I had a similar kit (more pieces, including a rotor; and simpler "flat" boards to screw into, instead of the boxes like this).
Thanks for sharing!
The closing statement is very wise , it is very true .
I just know so many people who say "Ah, I am too old for this" and then when I ask them "Are you just shy or what?" they actually agree that if they would not be shy, they could get a piece of happiness. That helped many.
When I was a kid, I had a simlar set, in Yugoslavia, today’s Serbia, might be even the same. I called it “struja”, wasn’t really doing more than making lightbulbs glow. I do not remember if it was Yugoslav version or grandpa brought it from Moscow as he was frequently traveling there for work. I do remember it had cyrillic script on it…
Cool!
This kit looks very cute, and a great introduction for kids to electricity concepts!
I would have loved to have something similar years ago :)
As I told in the end - never too late! In fact I spent kinda 4 hours playing with it now and damn enjoyed it.
@@ChernobylFamily Exactly, and Mehano still makes very similar ones.
I got myself an advent calendar that ends up with enough parts to assemble 24 electronic games. I’m not sure if they reuse components, or every day provides a complete game kit. But I’m so excited to find out!
WOW!
@@ChernobylFamily Yeah, I loved electronics kits as a kid. The ones I got were a bit safer as they were sold in Australia, they used screws and washers on a plastic base to tie insulated wires with stripped ends together. My personal favorite from that was the Crystal radio.
I got something a bit similar to that when I was a kid back in the late 60s, although it used only one plastic base with many holes in it for screws that a pair of "C" batteries clicked into the underside of... I can't remember the name of the manufacturer other than it was a Dutch-made product... It was a motor/generator kit in which you had to do the fine copper wire (supplied) windings around a three-armature rotor that when completed right, would spin within a pair of curved metal pieces with a couple of magnets between them (stator), and was activated by a closed circuit to a pair of metal brushes that contacted a round copper cylinder on one side of the armature... To do the generator, you disattached the batteries and attached a small light bulb to wires attached to the stator portion of the motor and simply turned the rotor in the opposite direction by hand with a crank you attached to the other side of the armature rotor... It didn't do nearly as much as your kit did, but it at least showed you how electricity turned things and how it was produced... For a little kid, it kept me occupied for while building it...
Thank you for sharing!
I had "Юный Электроник" (Young Electronic) constructor set. I believe it was a clone of Radio Shack Electronic Project Kit.
There were proper components (resistors, capacitors, four transistors, a coil, photoresistor, red LED and a speaker) mounted on a large plastic apparatus. There were a bunch of wires stripped on both sides, that you ysed to connect the components by shoving those into contact springs. Instructions where in the form of list of the contact pairs you needed to connect. It quickly turned into a rats' nest of tangled wires. You could do lots of things with it: a trip wire, light detector, Radio-Morse transmitter, AM-radio...
Cool stuff! Though nowadays I believe breadboards to be more convenient.
Thanks for sharing!
In my family there is an Erector set made up of parts from five generations of boys Christmas presents. We each got an add on set. There's a sixth generation on the way!
A suggestion for you. Start a building set to pass on. The one you've shown today would make a good starter. Add to it each time it's passed along. The shared memories are precious. I'm the third generation so I got to know and build with all five and should get to build with the sixth.
That sounds like a great idea!
приветствие из Финляндии - i was ABSOLUT ELEKTRIK MANIAK when child (and i am still in 44 years age) and had very same set also - instructions were naturally printed in Finnish language et cetera - but - OH BOY - this brought emotions for me
Thank you so much for sharing!
Wow, this is a bonus video for me, as i somehow missed it when it was released. You do such good work.
Hope you enjoyed it!
This toy is a dichotomy of Soviet society , on the one hand , the recipient of the gift must think outside of the box . On the other hand the recipient must follow instructions by “The Book” , for the outside of the box thinking to equate to a working device .
The funniest thing that a little research with the help of one of our subscribers revealed that it is a clone of a German set. Check the description of the video - I've added the updated details.
I've got the same one ❤
For our luck little nuclear physicist aka 'Reactor 4' set hasn't been released 😂
Well, we still have Gilbert's Nuclear Lab ))))
Like at least one other commenter I see, I also received a "Science Fair 160-in-1" electronics kit from Radio Shack as a gift back in the 80's. I didn't understand all of it at the time, but it was a lot of fun, with a detailed manual explaining how to construct various "experiments" such as a Morse code key connected to a lamp, a simple radio, and many others, using a set of cardboard-mounted resistors, capacitors, three transistors, a relay, and a few other things. I haven't looked at it in many years, but I still have it! I think I would need to cut some new lengths of wire to use it, though, as many of the included wires (cut neatly to various lengths) were scattered about years ago, hehe.
Thank you for sharing!
I had one just like one of those! The little electrician (but on the box it was in German)
Thank you for sharing!
Very nice Kit!
I think this is a copy of the German kit "Elektromann" by Kosmos that was released in the 1930s. This version with the plastic boards, instead of wood, was from 1963. Even the drawings in the booklet are the same, except for the text of course.
I guessed it is some clone, as some people told that it looks oddly familiar. I will check on that, but if you are right, it is epic.
Looks like you are right! But not from the 1930s, but from 80s. Also Kosmos one has a bit bigger number of parts... but this explains why there are some openings and holes in chassis that are never used!
@@ChernobylFamily Yes, the versions from the 30s look completely different. They were in wooden boxes, and the parts are different. My version is form 1973 and contains almost exactly the same parts as your version.
Edit: sorry, the elektromann was actually always sold in cardboard boxes, but many of the Kosmos-kits in the 30s came in wooden boxes.
Is there a chance to get a scan or readable images of the manual? I really want to solve the mystery :)
@@ChernobylFamily hmmm, i think my comment was not posted, because it contained a link to an interesting website i found.
If there is a way to send you some files, i can scan some interesting pages (or maybe the whole thing) from my booklet.
this is awesome. kind of like an erector set, but it teaches the fundamentals of electricity.
when I was a young teen I had a project kit from Radio shack, that gave me many hours of enjoyment , and I learned a lot about electronics. and would experiment with some small alterations to the circuits, like changing the values of resistors or capacitors to see what the effect would be, and got some pretty interesting outcomes, that weren't mentioned in the project book. so I know how you felt 😀
Thanks for sharing!
Incredible , even Soviet toys were interrogate , for learn a trade , very good write up , much appreciated.
As grim that society was, as good were some toys. Of course, vast majority of really good toys were clones or reworks of western, as this one; but after all, we loved them.
I had a very similar one, called 'The little electrician' from the brand Mehano i think. Also with bells, coils, resistors, motor field pieces etc. I was a bit too young for it to actually wind the motor windings and such but i played around a lot with the coil and a iron core to pick up things. I got afraid of it after i got shocked by the coil with the core. My father didn't believe it, it was only 9 volts! It took me until i was in puberty that i realized i really did get shocked, and it was the inductive kickback that could produce high voltages from 9v.
That experimenter's kit has been in production for decades, i think you can still buy it.
Thank you for sharing this strory!
Yes I had some electronics experimenter kits, the things where you connect componants with springs, including a pretty fancy one I received for Christmas. I remember I managed to blow a led within 5 minutes after opening the box, because I wanted to try it onto a 9V battery without a resistor 😅 I was super annoyed, where to find a replacement led ? 🤔 Now I have hundreds of leds in stock 😂
You had LEDs aaaaa I am jealous
LOL I did the same thing, live and learn 😀
This looks honestly miles better then the kit i go whan i was a kid, i really loved those kits too! My father gave me a similar kit whan i started scool, before that he made a set of of wood plats with old carparts, bells, lamps, switches and other things, i still managed to find two of them, i where so glad i found them!
This is so cool!
Das gibt's doch garnicht. Diesen Baukasten hatte ich in meinen Händen. Leider war er nicht vollständig...
Thanks for sharing!
I love your content. Thank you so much 😊💖
You are warmly welcome!
You can still buy 2R10 batteries and split them into 2 separate cells.
It is interesting, but before you told I had no idea 2R10 exist. We do not have a single device where they are used, never have seen them in retail sale (online I see, yes, but in the shop - never).
I remember kits like this in the 90s and they were mostly just cheap cardboard with springs and bad instructions. I would've found this to be much better, especially with its "professional" feel. Of course, if it was in English. :p
That tank robot you've seen in the video, right? - so I went recently to that very toy shop where its chassis was bough in 1986 to talk with managers if they remember some stories about the location of that store in 1986 (which they shared gladly). But I just for fun roamed in the sections; well - there were sets of this kind, but everything is somewhat... too simplified. Made me think.
Мне это напомнило электроконструктор детства. Помню, родители купили мне в 1994м. Там такие круглые прозрачные модули с моторчиками. Только вот, что можно было из них получить уже не помню. Гуглил-гуглил, так и не нашёл, как называется эта штукенция.
щось дуже знайоме...
Amazing I wish I could have had such kits as a child myself I would have started into electronics way faster and just asking if "Forgotten" is writen wrong in the title ?
Thank you! Ahh Android keyboard!
@@ChernobylFamily no worries also awesome video ! It always brightens my mood when I see you upload
I had very similar kits, a bell and a motor (with commutator!). Made from the cheapest materials possible, and they were terrible.
Notably, one had to buy another kit for each function.
Thanks for sharing!
in Spain this toy was called "SCATRON sparks and motors". And I mean it's looks the SAME as your ucranian version. Such a cute toy. I had one back in the 90s. Spannish version has more pieces and mountages to do. A few years ago I managed to get it back, found one in pristine state in a local collectionist fair. Maybe now I can do the full-wounded motor that never did when I was a kiddo :D Nice video guys, brings me nice memories :)
Thank you for sharing! Well, it is never late to do that!
I did similar experiments, but just using batteries, wires, switches, bulbs and bells, all bought att the hardware store.
PS: Did you get my email about Uppsala?
Thank you for sharing!
Uff... I just found that it got filtered. Let me answer tomorrow - I need to discuss that.
О! У мене такий конструктор був. Залипав тижнями. Окремі запчастини досі десь є.
маю сказати, що ключиками від оригінального я інколи користуюся по сьогодні :)
I Have USSR Quicksilver Switch Bell, Similar To Your
cool!
Real deal mercury? They didn't fuck around, haha!
The mercury switches where the only ones that worked back in the days... Still unbeaten seen to the reliability in my opinion. I think i still hawe one somewhere in the boxes... :-)
I dont want to sound like a grandpa but toys really used to be better back in the day
Me neither, but I agree.
I'll bet they didn't let children have a crystal radio kit! 😅😅
That's what everyone was doing when they were 7, so did I! But I used a diode and a laaarge variable capacitor. Also once I made a radio from a potato, which perfectly may work as a diode with some modifications.
Fun
Yes
so basically thats how they built AZ-5 back in the days..
Bhah. No.
Hey I work as a tool and die machinist. I have access to 6 million dollars of machinery and I’m willing to make robot parts for free so long as I can make a TH-cam video about it
Thank you! We gonna return to that robot in spring. After we got some tech data on it, it appeared it is a 100Kg heavy device, we need some outdoor work for it.
Sounds good 😊let me know if/when you want some help. Ide love to be a part of the project.
What happened to your girlfriend? She doesn't appear in the videos anymore. Is she alright?
she is my wife :) Don't worry, she will appear from a time to time, just not everyone is good to be in the frame, so she prefers to hold the camera and also to do quite much on Patreon.
@@ChernobylFamily Ah! I understand. She's pregnant. Congratulations!!
I live very far from the Ukraine but in 9 months I will drink a glass of champagne in honour of your newborn child!
Good job! 😅
@peddersoldchap uhm... no she is not.
@@ChernobylFamily HAHAHA Just joking ;)
This is a most interesting toy! Very hands-on and educational at the same time. Would have loved to have something like this in my younger years, but I don't think they sold anything like that over here. You could buy "Build-it-yourself" radio kits that would essentially have you built your own very small radio. Growing up in the 80s, for me, Transformers were the big thing. Unfortunately, the toys were so expensive that I never could afford them. Maybe some day I'll get one...
Back in the 90-s we had even sets "Built-Yourself-A-Dosimeter"... seriously.
@@ChernobylFamily
That's awesome! We most certainly didn't have any of those. And thank you again for the wonderful lecture yesterday. We learned so much. Your vast knowledge about the Zone is incredible.