Philips Electronic Engineer Kits Starter for You?

[gingpeakin]

I also had an EE1003 in the early 70's. I think i've still got the ferrite aerial and the inductor and a few other bits, including the springs.
Hours of fun. And so much better than the contemporary 'Denshi kits' around at the time.

Ging

[Cobaltblue]

These Kits do fetch quite large sums on Ebay. For some reason one of the parts most often missing are the black feet. I am lucky enough to now own an un played with EE8 and an A20, the EE8 was a boot sale but but the A20 was at Harpenden 2 years ago. The resistors used in the kits don't seem to turn up too often either. Although I never had one as a child I have also got an RE1 and RE2. Another Ebay buy was the optional LW coil. with its box and instructions.
Nice to know other fans of the EE's out there!

[murphyv310]

My mother was a Jehovah's Witness during the 60's & 70's so there was NO Christmas celebrated in our house (I think she was just tight) But my dad bought me an EE8 probably in 64. when I was 10.
My pal across the road had a EE20 and he used to bum about how much better his was, I managed to blow one of his AC126's though.
They were really good kits, and the Re-flexed radio worked well, the AF116 was an RF amp and was re-flexed with audio then the AC126 drove the earpiece.
Nice to see that box again.
Great Memories

[Andrew2]

Wonderful!
I got a 'Trionic' (not Philips) kit for Christmas in about 1963 when I was ten. My mate Noj got the Philips. The Trionic wasn't as flexible as the Philips, as you were limited to encapsulated plug-in components and fixed PCB's.
You could make several things with the Trionic, but I only ever made radios, my interest at the time and ever since!
The Philips was open to experiment. We added all sorts of bits to make it 'better'.

Trionic:http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Triang-Tri-oni...-/230543181361

and http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/VINTAGE-KIT-B-...-/290501481709

[bluepilot]

I had a radio kit and an interphone kit. I still have both of them in made up form although the boxes have long since disappeared. I spent hours listening to the radio. I remember once when I was ill I had the interphone set up between the bedroom and my mother downstairs. My father didn't realise the interphone was there and I heard him say all sorts of "interesting" things. He never found out I was listening in.

[Cobaltblue]

Hi Andrew
You said only built the radios like it was a bad thing!
Actually thinking about it if you could have built a TV you probably would
Seems what ever the kit result same

[Cobaltblue]

Hi Stuart I don't want to speculate about interesting things
So I now know of two people who had the rather rare Interphone kit.
I suppose the EE's did Radios and intercoms + stuff
The Interphone and RE were a single use kit.
Philips did valve kits as well but to date I never saw one except on the internet.
I bought my nephew a kit a few years back using similar springs to make an fm radio. So I suppose soon you will be able to get a DAB kit good luck getting that to work Have fun Mike T

[Station X]

From what I remember these kits used "mustard" type capacitors. I wonder if Audiophools buy them just for the caps?

[Cobaltblue]

Thank God the mustard caps were only rated at 160V

[russell_w_b]

I had a Philips 'Radionics' electronics kit (can't remember the number) when I was about 12 - again, I had been dabbling with stuff before then, usually Govt. Surplus.

The kit had a PCB, about A4 size, as I recall, with the components mounted on colour-coded plastic bases with brass threaded legs: 2.5mm maybe? The PCB was laid out generically for a two-transistor amplifier, from which a transmitter, photoelectric switch, regenerative receiver, water-level detector, etc... could all be constructed.

Mustard-colour caps (white bases), black domed silicon transistors (yellow bases), resistors (red bases) a crystal earpiece and some battery press-studs.

I had hour upon hour of fun with that little outfit, and I still recall that the instruction book had various illustrations in it to accomplany the constructional notes, with one of the circuits being illustrated by a ficticious popular beat combo called 'The Dreggs'.

[60 oldjohn]

Brings back memories. In 64 I was in infant school after talking to a helpful teacher he offered to lend me a Radionics? kit (the one with brass strips) for the weekend, great but it ended all to soon. The following Christmas I was given the Phillips EE8. I had limited success, and lots of transistors I seem to remember paying for 8s.6d each for transistor from the department store. Yes I should have gone to my local radio shop.
John.

[geofy]

I still have a kit with a picture of a boy controlling a radar and air traffic, it was bought as a Christmas present in the sixties, though I had already made crystal sets. It still has its components but is a bit inaccessible in the loft. Will have to get it down one day. It had the AC126 and AF117 which still worked though one of the leads had broken off. Came with a ferrite rod with MW coil, and pack of resistors and mustard capacitors.

[Cobaltblue]

Wow 8/6 that's a lot of Corona bottles I think the EE's pre dated the Radionics kits. There were some lab kits teaching aids one recently appeared on Ebay and fetched a big wedge of cash. Incidentally my friend Al always said that you could substitute transistors I wouldn't hear of it but of course he was right

Yep that typical early sixties boy with the world of electronics at his fingertips that was the essence of these kits, Radar communications I bought it

[bluepilot]

The radio wasn't very selective. With a good antenna, a station could be heard most of the way along the dial, so a poor antenna was better. The operation of the interphone was interesting. There was a master unit and a slave unit joined by a two-core cable. The whole thing was switched on by pulling out a dummy antenna on the master. When switched off, either unit could signal the other by means of a push switch on the side, which caused the other unit to buzz. Then the master had to be switched on for the people to be able to speak to each other. Of course if you had the master, you could just switch it on and listen to the other end without anyone realizing.

[jhalphen]

Hi to All,

Not much to add to this 2 page thread, but you might be interested in some pictures

- Philips boxes EE-10
- Philips EE-20
- Last photo shows the construction board with the spring pins used for connections.

Story:
In the early 90s, a toy shop closed in my neighbourhood and everything was priced with huge discounts to clear the inventory. There wasn't much left in the shop, but i saw 2 dusty boxes on a shelf & asked to see them. Amazing discovery! Both were made by Philips. Box #1 contained a 3" DG-7/32 CRT (broken) in a plexiglas case containing also H/V scan boards & video amplifier. Box #2 contained a UHF TV tuner + audio/video IF strip.

Rapidly exploring the user manual, i learned that box #1 allowed hundreds of experiments using the CRT, the final project being a simple oscilloscope. Box #2 was an add-on to make a television receiver using the CRT as a green/black display.

I purchased both of course, they practically gave them away because the CRT was broken.

I replaced the DG-7/32, the worst part being opening the glued perspex sides without breaking them. I built the Scope, then the TV. I then used the display to show Lissajous diagrams with my stereo for many years - the girls were fascinated! I retired the unit when a fault developped in the HV section of the CRT PSU.

The good news is that i still have the unit and the beautifully made user manual, a 2" thick Pro job that looks just like the Philips service manuals for professional products.

Too busy right now, but i will photograph & scan some sections to at least recover the kit P/N.

I am amazed to this day that Philips would venture as far as to offer potentially dangerous and sophisticated devices such as an oscilloscope and a working television receiver to the scientific toy market. Obviously it was geared towards the 14-16 year old young adolescent, not 8-10 year old children, but it was a remarkable achievement for the time, probably in the 70s - remember it's all Ge transistors, not Silicon.

Anyone else seen/purchased/played with this kit?

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

[ppppenguin]

Jerome, that kit with a CRT is amazing. I didn't know there was anything that complex and potentially hazardous available for children.

I'm not sure exactly which Philips kits I had. I remember 2 loudspeakers of unusually high impedance. I think I still have them. I remember a 3 transistor reflex radio which worked welll on local stations. I remember an intercom. I remember an organ which was never quite in tune. I remember going down the Tottenham Court Road to buy transistors etc to replace the ones where the legs had broken off. Amazingly I don't think I ever blew one up.

I also had a Radionic kit with all the parts soldered to coloured bases which were screwed down to a baseboard and joined with brass strips.

When I was about 5 (1961) I had a kit that I can barely remember at all. It had a CdS photocell in a plastic housing, some kind of baseboard and a fair bit of other stuff. I don't remember any transistors. Might have been made by Chad Valley.

[Station X]

When I was about 5 (1961) I had a kit that I can barely remember at all. It had a CdS photocell in a plastic housing, some kind of baseboard and a fair bit of other stuff. I don't remember any transistors. Might have been made by Chad Valley.

That may have been a Tri-ang Electronics Lab. They had a bell, multi-way switch, rheostat, lamps, plugboard, relay, thermostat, rain grid, photo cell and a relay capable of operating mains powered equipment. Powered by four U2s.

[ppppenguin]

That sounds like it! The rain grid has jogged my memory. Has anyone got any pictures?

[jhalphen]

Hi Jeffrey,

Thanks for the reply. I pulled out the manual, so here are the references of the Kits:

- EE-1007 is the DG-7/32 + H/V scan & PSU in a perspex box.

- EE-1008 is the complimentary box containing a UHF tuner, A/V IF strip module and AM audio detector.

To build the TV you needed all 3 boxes: EE-1003 was the basic Radio/General Electronics intro + EE-1007 (CRT) + EE-1008 (Tuner, IF, AM sound).

The entire manual is in French and the TV was 625/50 UHF L standard.
The manual was probably translated (a huge task!) from German, as graphics/schematics have German text.

I remember now that not having EE-1003, i had to purchase some additional components.

With a bit of luck, a Google search should find something.

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

[jhalphen]

More about these Philips Scope/TV kits:

Lots of data on these 3 sites: photos, parts list and even a pdf of the entire manual, alas in German.

http://www.hansotten.com/index.php?page=ee1000
http://norbert.old.no/kits/ee1000/ee1007.html
http://www.schaltungen.at/a2broker/schaltungen/992

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France