Fran's Rare Toys - Mr. Wizard's Experiments In Electronics

Just for chuckles, while on lockdown today, I recreated one of the component boxes using my cnc and 3d printer. I engraved tri color pick guard material for the cover. You could easily repopulate the missing pieces.

Joe Conway

This was a fun video. Thanks for sharing!

Brendan Meteer

I had a Tandy (Radio Shack?) 100 in 1 set, so I am looking forward to your 150 in 1 video.

David Peaker

Thanks Fran for the video. I started out with a simple electronic kit/toy with spring connectors but seem to remember making it smoke very early on and a lot of the projects didn't work. One of the projects that still worked I remember was an AM radio through a crystal earpiece that needed no batteries, always remember being so excited by the fact it worked and needed no power. Your videos are an excellent way to forget about all what is going.

Leigh

really cool! I like the futuristic look of it too. When you were using the kit, where the connections reliable with the magnets holding things together? Just a thought if you have a really dull moment- it might be nice to share the cube design on thingiverse or such, along with magnet size, and contact drawings... Just in case someone want's to fill a missing part. Thanks for sharing. You've got all the cool toys!

Hmmm... I know the collectors make big circuits with the large sets so that's interesting. Maybe some tricks to it...

Fran Blanche

The blocks I need are missing. I'd have to get replacements from a collector, but nahhh...

Fran Blanche

I remember only seeing a few shows when he was older and more bitter.

Fran Blanche

Cool!

Fran Blanche

I got that weird vibe from him also!

Fran Blanche

I don't really know, but it may have been around $14 or so.

Fran Blanche

On my 9th birthday I got a Philips EE2003 Electronic Engineer box. It allowed you to make all kinds of interesting electronic circuits: blinking lights, moisture detectors, an audio amplifier, various radios including AM and FM receivers, a Wien bridge (which took so many components that none were left for measuring), etc. There were other boxes in the series including one that had a picture tube and allowed you to make an oscilloscope or a black and white TV. A few years later (after I had reused most of the parts from my EE2003 for other projects) I got to see the Braun Lectron box that my high school owned and I thought it was the coolest thing. But the science teacher who showed it to me told me that the magnetic contacts didn't work all that well and it really wasn't reliable enough for demonstrations (yes back then people learned electronics in high school), let alone lab assignments.

Jac Goudsmit

Why not replace the missing components with modern ones, not original but at least complete? Or am I just being a philistine?

Dr Andy Hill

Mr. Wizard was my hero when I was a young kid. There were not enough shows though, by the time I was old enough to see them in the late 50s.

Rocco Rizzo

I had a Lectron set purchased at the then new RadioShack store in Boston MA. Circa 1969. My father was a Raytheon employee and thus qualified for the employee discount at RadioShack. I still have a Micronta analog volt meter and original box from that same store and a few years later.

The ominous disembodied head of Don Herbert... For some reason when I was a kid watching him on Mr. Wizard, it seemed to me like he was suppressing homicidal rage while dealing with the various kids on his show. That undoubtedly says more about me and my childhood, than him.

Do you remember what you paid for your Mr. Wizards's electronics set? I paid about $20 for my first Heathkit, the JK-18 "Heathkit Jr. Deluxe Workshop 35" back in 1971 when I was 15. It did about the same thing as your electronics set but it used wires to do each "experiment". My buddy two houses down from me had the same set and we ran wires between our houses so we could do the intercom experiment and it worked. We could talk between our houses without a phone. Pretty lame, ah? Ha ha! Thanks Fran for sharing your toys with us.

David Blake