How can you pass up reading a book titled More Electronic Gadgets for the Evil Genius?
As a child growing up in the 1980s, I was fascinated by electronics. From my first motorized Tinker Toy set at age 8 I progressed to playing with batteries and motors. At age 10 I got my first Science Fair 150 in 1 Electronics Project kit from Radio Shack and carefully stepped through each one of the projects. At age 13 I read Getting Started in Electronics by Forrest Mims and started experimenting with creating circuits with discrete components. Soon I found out that, for the electronic hobbyist, there is a finite number of interesting circuits to build. After all, how many Metronome, Siren, or Electronic Organ circuits does one need?
That is when I discovered the most interesting book for the electronic hobbyist at our local library in 1983. The book was called Build Your Own Laser, Phaser, Ion Ray Gun and Other Working Space Age Projects written by Robert Iannini. As a young teenager and electronic hobbyist how could I pass up an opportunity to read this book cover to cover! This was the holy grail for the electronic hobbyist. It contained schematics, part lists, and theory on interesting projects such as a CO2 Cutting Laser, Pocket Pain Field Generator, and Solid State Tesla coil. I checked this book out so often that the librarian didn't even get a chance to place it back on the shelf....ever!
More Electronics Gadgets for the Evil Genius contains many revised projects from the original 1983 book. The author also runs Information Unlimited, a company that sources some of the harder to find electronic components used in this book as I doubt your local Radio Shack carries the 30 Kilovolt rated capacitors needed in some of the projects!
Even if your don't venture into building the projects in this book, it is a good read!
Interesting video about the author Bob Iannini and his company Information Unlimited.