Cheap 3in Alnico Cow Magnet

Customer Ratings:

I use these magnets during contruction to find nails or screws in the wall while doing "surgical demolition". I place a piece of surgical tubing to 1 end and holding the tubing end, run the magnet along the wall. When it finds a fastener, the end holds to that position. Note that only the ends attract anything. Great little tool.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

These magnets have many uses other than cattle. I use mine to locate studs in finished walls (via the sheet rock screws or nails), to retrieve items dropped in hard to reach places, heck, I even used it to remove a small chunk of ferrous metal that became lodged between my eyelid and eyeball! They also can be held up next to most commercial fire alarm systems' smoke detectors to trigger them (for testing purposes only!!! :P ) I wish I had several more of them cause magnets are fun!!!!

Best Deals for 3in Alnico Cow Magnet

I use this magnet for all sorts of things. In the garage and in the field. It is very strong and will pick up lots of metal. The quality and build is great. I have no issues with this magnet. Works great!

Honest reviews on 3in Alnico Cow Magnet

I bought this for a specific purpose. What can I say other than it works. My only disappointment is the housing. But I suspect that ithe housing is appropriate for the original intension of the magnet.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for 3in Alnico Cow Magnet

Kids are fascinated by magnets from an early age. They will work with these magnets for a long time and return to them again and again. The mysterious power of magnets is a profound lesson.

Best Cooking Club for Kids - Pizza Kit Deals

Customer Ratings:

A wonderful set. My 4 year old son made pizza the very first day he received it (under my supervision, of course). The size of gadgets was perfect for his little hands: he was able to roll the dough with the rolling pin, brush the sauce over it, and use the spatula to take the pizza off the form once it cooled down. It gave him the invaluable sense of independence! And the pizza made a great family dinner. Highly recommended!

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

Buy AmScope Student Compound Microscope 40X-800X

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $750.00
Sale Price: $107.78
Today's Bonus: 86% Off

This microscope shipped very quickly. It came fully assembled and I only had to screw the objective lenses on. This is a great microscope for beginners.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

Best VTech V.Smile - Lil' Bratz Smartridge Deals

Customer Ratings:

I like this Bratz game. It has many games to play that are fun enough for the older ones(4-5) but still easy enough for my youngest (3). A good choice for little Bratz fans!

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

My daughter loves the Bratz, Bratz Babies and anything Bratz. Except for this game. Its pretty no educational and pretty stupid to play. thumbs down.

Best Deals for VTech V.Smile - Lil' Bratz Smartridge

Had this for a few years now, but I just remember how my young daughter (about the age of 7 at the time) just couldn't put it down! She loved how she could put on a fashion show with the Bratz characters and she loved being able to interact with them in this video game.

Vtech VSmile graphics are pretty simple, but at that age I don't believe the kids really care. She had fun with it, and now her little sister is also enjoying it many years later.

Honest reviews on VTech V.Smile - Lil' Bratz Smartridge

This is a great game for little girls, my 4 year old grand daughter loves this, and I would recommend this to anyone who likes to dress up.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for VTech V.Smile - Lil' Bratz Smartridge

Not the most educational product in the V-smile line, but it keeps my duaghter busy and gives her some experience with technology and increases her attention span.

Buy Learning Resources Animal Classifying Cards, Grasslands

Customer Ratings:

My kids love to look at flashcards. This series has both beautiful photos and educational informational. Taken care of, these will be useful and interesting for years.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

I'm always looking for compact toys and such that can be used during a road trip. We're not big fans of electronic toys that get kids in a mindset of "the only thing I want to do is use a computer or video game." We want our kids to explore the world around them, enjoy learning, and develop skills that are applicable beyond computers. So, we don't just give them a gameboy type toy for the car rides. The kids really liked these animal cards and after we had gone through them a few times, we created an impromptu memory game with them in the car!

Discount Planet Earth Mini Explorer Kit

Customer Ratings:

This was a good gift for my little explorer son. He favorite color is of course blue so this was for him. He still uses it and love the bincoluars. And it's a huge plus flashlight doesn't need batteries, just crank it and go.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

Just got this for my 4 year old's birthday he wanted a pair of binoculars and I couldn't see spending alot for something he may or may not use.

This is a fantastic set! the flashlight alone was worth it it's a manual charge LED they sqeeze a handle to charge the batteries. LOVE it! Binoculars are ok for a kid, minimal magnification, but my guy doesn't mind or know the difference. If he'd ever actually looked through a real pair he might be disappointed, but for a beginner they're just great especially love the break-away safety strap. The compass is functional although he's not interested in learning how to use it (big brother helps him with that part). Overall this is perfect for us. My son is thrilled and I feel like I got more than my money's worth. Plus he looks darn cute running around with his explorer kit strapped on, ready to conquer the jungle!

Buying a second one for big brother's (7th)birthday !

Discount Elenco AC/DC Triple Output Power Supply Kit

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $79.99
Sale Price: $59.24
Today's Bonus: 26% Off

Okay, there are a number of reviews here on Amazon that point out the cons of this unit. Allow me to say this about how the regulators are installed on the heatsink. The only way to keep costs down as well as build assembly simple, is to use this method. Other options would require active cooling with a noisy fan and internal heatsinks with pin guides for the PCB which for people new to kits like this (and Elenco designs this series for students), would increase difficulty. If you've never loosely stuck a TO pack to a pin guided heatsink (with thermal grease), then tried to tighten things up and solder in place, then finish screwing it in place before ( and that would have to be done four times in this kit), then this is a much simpler solution. All things considered I would prefer to have the individual heatsinks on the PCB, but I do get the design for cost and build simplicity. But as others have said make sure you heat shrink the exposed leads of each of the TO packs, so make sure to have some on hand.

Now for the binding posts, there is no excuse. Elenco not only picked the cheapest posts they could find, when it became a problem they didn't bother to correctly address the problem. See a modern, quality binding post will be hard nickel plated on the post part but the area you attach the wiring will either be gold plated or bare, polished copper. Why? Because you can solder to gold or copper. You cant really solder to nickel very well. The reason they are fully nickel plated is because of costs. Nickel is a good electrical conductor (not great, but good enough), and really resists wear from the constant friction of plugging and unplugging of your leads. So thats a good thing. But when these cheap posts are made, they just plate the entire steel part in nickel instead of just the binding part and then polishing the internal hookup part as that is several extra steps that raise costs. So Elenco decided that on the 2010 revision of this kit to include 7 extra nuts but not add instruct the builder that they should just use the extra nuts to attach the wires in place with. Now the overall quality of the posts is fine, you just cant really solder the wires to them easily. Trying to use the extra nuts to bind them to the posts in cramped quarters is also pretty annoying. Run down to your local Radio Shack and pick up a $2.00 pack of 22 gauge ring terminals (catalog 64-3114) and use them instead. Just give yourself and extra half inch of wire on each of the binding post wires. Strip off one full inch instead of the 1/4" the instructions say. Double it over and solder it together. Then crimp it in the ring terminal and screw into place with the extra nut. Much simpler than trying to solder the posts or holding the wire in place in such cramped quarters.

Other than that, the only parts I found that were just bad were a couple of caps. One of the 22,000µf and my 47,000µf were right at the very brink of their +/20% range, so I upgraded all my caps to new, high temp, low ESR caps that should last a good decade or two. Total price was an extra $7.00 with shipping. So if you can, check your caps before you build. You should be fine, but caps are cheap and good ones will last for a long time.

A few do's and don'ts for the kit: Dont use the included lead free solder unless you have a tip and iron for lead free solder. Its hard to work with, it eats up your tip, and requires a good bit of excess heat. Do get some .20, .30, or .40 size 60/40 or 63/37 lead solder with a rosin core. When it comes to electronics, lead is indeed your friend. Don't use the included two pieces of plastic based heatshrink tubbing. Do get an assortment pack of different size heatshrink tubbing and use that instead. Heatshink all exposed contact points in the kit with individual tubes and not just one big one.

This kit can be modded a bit. Like many who have built this kit, I chose to install a couple of 2k, 10 turn, wire wound pots to make precision adjustments. The simple carbon pots that come with the kit will work just fine. I justed wanted more precision (like fine tuning) when setting my voltages. If you don't happen to have a couple of these in your parts bin, then they will cost a bit. Upwards of $35.00 for two with shipping. That includes an extra few bucks for new dials since the included dials, wont fit most multi-turn pots. If you go this route, you will have to drill out the holes just ever so slightly more. We're talking just a hair or two.

There is also plenty of room for a display to be installed in the company logo area of the front panel. I will be adding one in the future as I can see that checking my voltage every time with a multimeter will become a bit of a pain. I've already seen one kit where somebody installed a 20 x 4 line LCD display for this and it reads voltage and amps for all outputs.

There is even a little extra room between the AC and DC rails for installing a load circuit, which I plan to do.

So you can spend twice the price to upgrade this kit if your not careful. Keep in mind that most of these mods are just fun to add and helpful but are not needed. For that amount of cash you could just but a PSU with a display, and fine tuning built in. But the main reason to do it with this kit is it offers dual adjustable DC jacks at 1 amp, a constant 5v DC at 3 amps, and a 6.3/12.6v AC. You cant come anywhere near a quality tri-rail PSU at the $120-$130 mark. So the mods can be fun, useful, let you learn a little if your new to electronics and offer serious bang for the buck features that you would normally pay several hundred bucks for in a prebuilt PSU.

The case and transformer are very well made and should last a very long time if treated with care. The taps on the transformer are made with silicone covered wire (which really surprised me) so they wont get brittle with age and heat like the common PVC types. The overall circuit is very simple, through hole based so if a componet happens to fail it would be an easy fix.

All in all, its a great value kit that offers lots of upgrades options and should last a long time. I got it in January when Amazon was selling it for $49.00 (with prime), and I see that its now up to $59.00. That seems to be the average price online, so I dont think it will really go up more than this. I've put about $40.00 in parts and upgrades to it, and I'm very pleased with the end result. When I'm finished with future upgrades it will be about $120-$130 spent and I'll have a very versatile PSU, thats cool running, silent, and built to last. I give it five stars.

***EDIT***

Quick tip for building: Flux and tin ALL the PCB solder pads before you begin to populate the board. The solder pads on the PCB are beyond huge and if you try to solder components without the tinning, it will make the work much slower as it will take forever to heat up those large areas and leave your iron on your parts for to long. Don't forget to clean off any excess flux when you are done assembling the PCB.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

This is an excellent kit. The quality of the components is high. The workmanship on the chassis is high. The documentation is excellent...includes many pictures, diagrams, theory of operation, check sheets, etc. This kit is sold in the Amazon toy store but it is NOT a toy...it IS a solid experimenter bench power supply. It is easy to assemble. It worked perfectly first time it was plugged in. I cannot verify the stated regulation or ripple specs (lack of proper test equipment and load cells at home). The only negative I have (and it isn't bad enough to reduce a five star rating) is the wiring of the regulator ICs and a power transistor is by direct soldering to the component leads...pretty low class. But it helps keep the kit cost low by eliminating sockets. Good soldering technique is required to accomplish this part properly.

All-in-all a really good value and a lot of fun to assemble.

Best Deals for Elenco AC/DC Triple Output Power Supply Kit

This kit is very good. It is easy to put together, and the final product is of high enough quality to use for years to come.

I have read some complaints about soldering the binding posts. May I suggest that if you are having a problem in this area, that it is you who need to improve your technique. I had no problems soldering to these posts, and I am just getting back into electronics after many years away from it. You can do it easily, but only if your soldering technique is up to snuff.

The only reason I am only giving this 4 stars is because of the rather lame method of attaching the transistors/voltage regulator ICs to the heatsink and then having to soldering wireds to each of their terminals. Come on Elenco, there are much better ways of doing this.

Anyway, It took me a few hours to put together and it worked perfectly the first time out. Double check your work every step of the way, and you will be fine. Be especially vigilant when wiring the sections illustrated in Figure I on page 9. You don't want to miswire the AC.

Honest reviews on Elenco AC/DC Triple Output Power Supply Kit

The power supply arrived on the advertised and neatly packaged. The instruction are very good. I was able to completely assemble and test the power supply in about 5 hours. I am slow, but steady and experienced with electronic kits.

Two things stand out:

1) You need a decent soldering iron with a variable temperature control. The Sn based solder is MUCH more challenging to work with than the old Pb product. This has nothing to do with Elenco, lead is no longer used due to it's poisonous nature. I found that the solder traces, especially on the large 'lytic caps needed much more heat.

2) Put a 2cm length of 5mm heat shrink tubing over the wire leading to base (middle) leads of the transistors and regulators mounted on the heat sink BEFORE soldering the leads. Again Sn based solder can lump easily, and there is not much room between the collector, base, or emitter. I also tinned both the wire and leads before I assembled this part of the kit.

Other than these cautions I am enjoying my new power supply. It's nuthin' fancy, but I don't need anything really upscale. Remember, 1A is a lot of power when working or modern electronics.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Elenco AC/DC Triple Output Power Supply Kit

This power supply is an excellent value. It performs very well. The AC output is useful. I have kit building experience, so there was no problems in building this unit.

Review of Galileoscope Telescope

Customer Ratings:

An economic educational telescope. I have built it and taken it apart several times to educate my children on how telescopes works.

The optics are great, clear and allow us to study the planets and search for star clusters. Very easy to use. The focusing needs a little getting used to but by using a screwing action one can get sharp viewing.

I have other larger telescopes, but this is my preferred quick look and traveling telescope.

I would not consider this a toy, rather an educational instrument.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

You just need to also buy a tripod (a good photo tripod will do). It is a telescope of excellent quality that gives you the direct experience of what Galileo could see. Verify if you do as well or better than the great man. Why is it cheap? Because the aim was to make astronomy interesting and available to every child. You can pay 2 or 3 times as much for something poor. One of the advantages is that there is quantity of web sites to help you with this, from Galileo.org to noao.edu. It is a smart gift for any teen if you want to spend some time with the teen in question.

A telescope is like a piano, not many kids will enjoy it on their own.

Best Deals for Galileoscope Telescope

I wanted something that was a step up from my monocular, and that was easy to take with me when I go on my night-time star walks. This fills the bill, and is easy to sight, too! I've recommended it to my friends!

Honest reviews on Galileoscope Telescope

This was a gift for my science-loving son's 9th birthday. Putting it together definitely required dad's help, and though we see the moon really well, we've had a harder time using it to see much else.

Cheap Elementary Owl Pellet Pack

Customer Ratings:

Okay guys, you think that this is a funny item but in real life it is fastinating. My husband teaches 4th grade ad each year they make a trip to the Owl Barn at nearby Elkhorn Slough. Each child is given a Owl Pellet to dissect and they love it. All these kids come from higher middle class homes and have all the electronic equipment, expensive ski trips and vacations but have rarely if ever handle real nature. These pellets are filled with a rich history of the day in the life of an owl and as each child dissects their pellet, they reassemble the bones, skulls, etc (now stripped sterile and clean by the function of the owls gut) . It is wonderful and educating and really helps the kids learn about nature in a real and fun way. So some of you may think its gross or stupid or ecologically questionable but it's Biology !)! plan and simple. Owl poo rocks!

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

I ordered the Owl Pellets as part of an after school enrichment program. I was doing a unit on owls. The owl pellets were great! My kids loved dissecting the dried pellet to try to determine the type of animal ingested by the owl. As part of the unit, I had my students create art by making an owl, listen to a book about owls as predators, and then dissect the pellet. They were fascinated! I can definitely recommend this product.

Review of Story Reader Disney Deluxe Book Pack - 3 Storybooks

Customer Ratings:

I have a 3 1/2 year old and he loves these books. His birthday is in August and now I know what I'm going to get him, more books for this! :)

We bought this product at Toys R Us for a lot cheaper than what the purchase price is on here. I even went on their website and they were offering an even lower price on their website.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

RepRap Prusa Mendel Iteration 2 Complete 3D Printer Kit Review

Customer Ratings:

I'm only at step 15 in the video series describing how to put the thing together. So far I'm happy with one exception. The parts have changed since the videos were made, I've been able to get around this so far. Step 14 had me stymied today (a Saturday) so I called the support number. To my surprise I actually got a person on the line. He was able to point me to a few pictures to help me out and I did make it through to the next step. I would give 5 stars for the experience so far however there needs to be documentation included for the places the videos differ from the currently shipping version of the kit.

[Edit] I've completed the build using the videos as my guide and had to call support a couple of times. If you get this kit note that the RAMPS 1.4 connections are not shown in the videos however they are pretty straight forward and looking at some pictures and the wiring diagrams I was able to get it hooked up. Every time I called support I got a human being, which is a GREAT thing these days. I think I blew up the motor controller board (because I wired the power supply incorrectly, make sure to use the square plug wires with two green wires and two black wires from the PS) so I'm about to find out if the 90 day warranty is correct. It took me five days from start to finish working through several steps per day.

[Edit 2] The new RAMPS board is on the way, they gave me no problems at all with the replacement so I'm changing my rating to 5 stars.

[Edit 3] I've found that putting blue painter's tape on the heat bed glass fixes many issues. The glass I got with the kit was warped so I went to lowes and picked up a small piece of flat glass. The thermistors are tiny and fragile, I replaced mine with larger REPRAP thermistors (had to drill out the hole on the J-head hot end). I've run into a lot of issues with my printer but this isn't due to this kit, it is due to design flaws and #D printing still being in the early stages. I still recommend this kit just be aware you WILL have issues and you will have to work through them.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

I ordered this kit directly from NWReprap and received a very well packed shipment in a short time. Complete video and illustrated instructions are available on-line and almost MUST be followed realtime while assembling the kit. A number of improvements that have been made in the design throw a curve since the videos and instructions are behind reality but reference to the RepRap forums plus a little common sense will pull you through the rough spots.

The quality of the parts provided are very good with few exceptions. The kit went together smoothly, generally, and the final steps of downloading the software and making the necessary changes and additions, though a bit mysterious and requiring quite a few "rewind and replay" iterations, resulted in a fairly complex machine working properly THE FIRST TIME! It's very important to go through the calibration steps carefully as presented in the videos.

Response from NWRepRap via e-mail has been very quick and always helpful. A wonderful exception to the general lack of service we become used to. I've been having a great time designing my own parts on the OpenSCAD (Computer Assisted Design) program on my computer and then downloading them to print. My friends and neighbors are impressed.

Ted in Tennessee

Best Deals for RepRap Prusa Mendel Iteration 2 Complete 3D Printer Kit

I purchased a kit from nwreprap.com and shipping was fast. The nwreprap.com website contains COMPLETE assymbly videos that detail all aspects of assymbly and calibration. When I had a problem with calibration I was able to call their phone number and the guy that recorded the videos was available to walk me through the process. I posted a video of the problem that I had and Aaron from nwreprap.com looked at the video and told me exactly what I needed to do to fix the problem. When buying an Open Source hardware kit I always wonder what kind of support would be available, sometimes its hit and miss. This is not the case with the nwreprap crew. I was building the printer to show off 3d printing at a Maker Faire in Tieton Washington. When they realised that they were geographically close to me they even offered to drive out to the Maker Faire to make sure it would be a successful demonstration. This turned out not to be necessary as they were able to help via email and phone.

You will not be disappointed with this purchase.

John Storlie

Yakima Makerspace

Yakima, Washington

Best LRNLER0264 - Intermediate Pattern Block Design Cards Deals

Customer Ratings:

We like the Melissa & Doug Pattern Blocks and Boards because it is durable AND the shapes are standard size and color (large blue rhombus, red trapezoid, green triangle, orange square, small white rhombus and yellow hexagon). However, our 3y/o mastered the wooden cards quickly, so we added the Learning resources Intermediate Pattern Block Design Cards. This has six levels of learning activities (full color w/ outline, full color partial outline, black and white w/ outline, black and white perimeter only, pattern sequence, symmetry design) and the teaching guide offers extension activities (package says "grades 2-6", so we're a little early). The only difference is the Learning Resources cards depict a "tan" small rhombus, but the M&D small rhombus is painted white (hardly a problem for our now 4y/o). We will have years more use with these two products used together!

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

GeoCentral Dinosaur Egg with Creature Excavation Kit - Tyrannosaurus Review

Customer Ratings:

This shipped out really fast. I had it within 3 days of ordering so I was very pleased. But it is very small, I was expecting it to be bigger since it was 15 dollars, it's about 3 inches tall. But overall I'm happy with it because I know my lil man is going to light up when he gets a "real" dinosaur egg.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

Review of Young Scientist Series - Set 9: Magnetism (Kit 25) - Static

Customer Ratings:

The kit doesn't warn you you'll need quite a few extra supplies before starting, which seriously delayed the fun on Christmas morning. And the experiments are ones you can find pretty much anywhere online. My daughter had more fun creating her own experiments with the supplies provided than following the instructions. While I'm glad I purchased this to find out about it, I don't think I would purchase another of these kits.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

Gave this as a Christmas gift at the family get together last evening. Gave this to one of my great-nephews who is 10 years old and his granddad said he cannot wait to get with him and enjoy this gift. He was thrilled it looks like it will be very educational and fun to do.

Best Deals for Young Scientist Series - Set 9: Magnetism (Kit 25) - Static

This kit comes with tons of supplies to do the experiment such as real minerals, a real geode that the kids break open, and lots more. My kids loved learning about the minerals, making crystals, and fossil molds. Lots of science fun.