Elenco FM Radio Kit

This auto-scan FM kit from Elenco is fantastic. The instructions are well written and illustrated. Included is a good explanation of how the radio works and its different sections. All the components are organized for you in advance on a bit of cardboard. The main FM chip is surface-mount, but has been pre-soldered for you. The build process is straightforward, and all the parts are of reasonable quality for a kit like this. There is no case, but one could be 3D-printed if needed (though I think it is fine without a case, as the battery holder acts as a stand). The radio itself, once built, performs quite well after alignment (if you have bad performance, don't skip that step). The audio amp section is very loud. Tuning can be a little odd, as you can only "tune-up." You then reset the radio to start at the bottom of the band. Unfortunately you can't hold a specific frequency when listening to a marginal station. It will eventually lose lock and tune up. It works best with stronger stations. This is a great kit for beginners to advanced beginners. Intermediate builders will find it a relaxing build.

I bought this to just pass the time, and as a kid I used to put together Heathkit things so I thought the time has come to get back to my youth. This FM kit is really a work of art. The board is beautifully detail and it was well packaged, presented and laid out. The instructions are excellent and there is lots of additional information on radios in general and this radio in particular. I have little understanding of these things but I read all about it anyway and was fascinated. And thank goodness it actually worked at the end of all my somewhat amateurish soldering. They make many good points about having the right soldering iron and learning to solder well. I recommend paying attention to that part. And it was fun when I finished to turn it on and instantly hear a radio station. The sound is mediocre but it's not meant to be that kind of listening excellence. I recommend being patient and steady and all should turn out well.

I'm 28 with a fair amount of radio and electronics experience, though I hadn't soldered much in a while. I tried this kit for fun and to reacquaint myself with soldering before working on a more delicate project I have in mind. I found this kit to be very well-designed and easy to assemble. For the price, it is excellent. I had to detract one star because my kit included the incorrect screw for attaching the battery holder (not a big deal, but still annoying) and because I think there are other Elenco radio kits I'd recommend above this one. This kit would be great for a teenager's introduction to soldering (easy to follow assembly instructions, clearly labeled components and PCB, large soldering pads, a fun end-goal of producing your own radio), but probably just "okay" as an educational tool in teaching radio design to a young engineer. I understood the circuit descriptions and educational aspects found in the instruction manual, but I'm already familiar with those concepts. I think it'd be difficult to understand a lot of the provided circuit description and radio theory if I wasn't already familiar with the information. Another thing limiting this kit as an educational tool in radio fundamentals is the inclusion of an integrated circuit in the core of the receiver design. This makes everything more abstract from an educational perspective. I just checked around on Amazon, and there are several other Elenco radio kits available. Some of those are specifically "transistor" versions which involve no integrated circuits. That may mean twice as many components for you to solder, but it'd probably make for a better educational tool in teaching radio fundamentals. Two final tips: The kit features large soldering pads and lead-free solder. I support both of these choices for a beginner's kit (lots of space for your soldering iron, and no lead around children), but that combination can actually make soldering tricky because large pads sink more heat, and lead-free solder doesn't melt until higher temperatures. You'll probably want to use a chisel-tip on your soldering iron, and wet the tip with a bit of solder to help with heat transfer. If you have access to an oscilloscope, this is a fun little kit to probe around! The carrier frequency (~100 MHz) may be outside your scope's bandwidth, but most of the receiver circuitry operates at an intermediate frequency of 70 kHz, and the audio portion will be around ~1 kHz, both of which you can easily measure. So you can observe the ~1mV frequency-modulated 70 kHz IF signal on one channel, and on a second channel bring up the ~0.1V audio signal going to the speaker. Or probe anywhere along the chain rather easily. Fun stuff.

This was a very nice experience for our daughter. She is learning about electronics but this project was to teach her to become pretty good with soldiering. Had to help her (initial safety instruction, initial practice on the side) with the 1st 3 components, after that she finished on her own (age 12, 1st time soldering). Turned out great, works very well for what it is. It picks up only a few stations but that is a combination of less than high-quality components and living in an area where we have a lot of interference (our problem, not the products, regarding interference and signal strength). We built a small box out of plexiglass and now it is a prized possession but the experience can never be replaced - great learning project! The benefits in not using higher quality components as we see it are: a) product cost savings, b) replacement parts (if you sorta mess anything up along the way) are cheap and you will not break the bank should you decide its time to just start over ;) At the end of the day, this was an excellent product and learning experience. Perfect!

Some people might be disappointed without a frequency display for tuning, but it is a great soldering project, and you end up with a functional FM radio. Various people have designed cases that can be 3D printed, which is a nice finish to the project.

It’s a robust and good project kit to keep my 8 year old from the tablets and phones.

Tout est fait pour ne pas se tromper. Tout est bien prévu, sauf qu'il faut d'abord traduire les textes en Français pour éviter les petites erreurs de montage. Il faut un petit fer à souder à bout très fin. Il fournissent l'étain, mais j'ai utilisé le mien (il contient un peu de Pb) car il fond plus rapidement. Il faut bien aérer avec un ventilo. Le plus difficile, c'est de régler les spires pour une meilleure réception. Il fonctionne fort et clair si les soudures sont réussies : bien inspecter chaque soudure en cas de bruit bizarre et si besoin titiller chaque composant.

Le kit est facile à monter, même si l'étaim fourni il faut bien chauffer pour que ça accroche, avec de l'étaim de qualité en revanche aucun soucis, la notice en anglais est superbe illustrée et détaillée, y'a pas à se tromper, je conseille de souder les deux composants optionnels pour un bon son.

The radio works after assembling almost all components per instructions, though without LED light on; Volume control not very smooth and probably have space to improve the accuracy for circuit design; It'd be good to have digital LED display for the chosen FM radio frequency; If a simple radio case can be provided would be even more desirable;