RadioShack 28-280 Electronics Learning Lab

This review is for the Radio Shack (28-280) Electronics Learning Lab; bought at Amazon. This is a great product for introducing your daughter (or son) into the electronic world. The lab has a bread board circuit design center which is how an electronics expert would set up a circuit design. It also has a lot of "support" items like switches, LED's (indicator lights), variable resistors, a speaker, a meter built in a plastic board (box?) so that it doesn't "hang by the board".The books, that come with the Lab, are top notch and take you through assembling your first circuit. You will notice that the actual resisters, capacitors, transistors and integrated chips are just like you would buy from a store; so replacements are easy.I also recommend this Lab for electronic hobby use. for 40 dollars (USD) you have a very inexpensive bread board platform. You also have lots of parts to start off with.You could buy the next higher up model (300 in 1) from Amazon but there is only 1/3 more experiments for 2 1/2 times the price.

I was able to rob parts out of it so my daughter could build things she needed to build for her high school physics class. Comes with a nice manual for the projects for which it is intended. Delivery was great as I've come to expect. However, I bought my kit in 2014. I am seeing more recent reviews which mention kits which are missing parts. My kit, which was complete, was provided by Killer Concepts LLC. Anyone buying this kit should carefully inspect it and return it if parts are missing.

Incomplete.had to purchase parts. Wiring still on breadboard was only a minor inconvenience but missing parts were a major hassle. Especially difficult for a beginning learner to figure out what was missing.

Good hobbyist tool overall. Be careful, however, as there is a design flaw in the unit. The main power switch disconnects the ground from your circuit. The main power holes are always live when the batteries are in the unit. That means that there is as much as 7.85 volts (difference between V6 and V1) always present regardless of whether the main power switch is on or not. A better design would cut all 6 power sections out of the board when you switch the main power to off. The board still works. Just be careful.

I got this for my 11 year old and myself as a father and son activity . We are trying to fit in a couple of pages with the projects a day. On only the 2nd day he was reading the schematic to assemble the project, as was I. I have no experience in this and in the past when I have tried to look at schematics I have gotten dizzy. I think the manuals that come with it are great for beginners. The most important thing is my son really enjoys it, as do I. The price on this is great for the learning, and fun with your kid, that it delivers. The provider was very concerned with customer satisfaction and enclosed a note to contact them if there were any problems, and I thought that was refreshing.

If you compare the price of this kit versus buying all the parts individually it's a fantastic deal. The learning lab itself is put together very well and works great. The included books are pretty good and build upon themselves well. The font is a little obnoxious and some instructions are slightly vague but nothing terrible.This also includes most of the parts required to follow along with the Make: Electronics book so if you want to use that book then you can save a lot of money on component costs by just using the pieces of this kit.I would suggest getting a nice pair of tweezers (Wiha 44501) since the breadboard can get a bit cramped. You also might want to pick up a digital multimeter (Extech EX330 or MN35), separate breadboard, and some alligator clips all of which are cheaply available on Amazon.

This is great for a portable electronics prototyping board. I have been using PIC micro controllers and sensor circuits on it. it very handy to have a pile of LEDs and pots easily hooked up for testing ADCs and I/O pins on a whim. It also has a nice assortment of switches and a battery based power supply. The books it came with by Forrest Mims are also useful for learning the basics.

I am starting to learn electronics, and this seems like it has all the basics covered. It comes with the main board (which has quite a lot to it), a lot of separate pieces (many wires, capacitors, resistors, and ICs) and a learning booklet. The reason it gets a 4 instead of 5 is for the booklet. While the step-by-step instructions seem pretty easy, there is not enough explanation or illustration for me. Overall, I'd recommend this product for those getting into electronics.