Does a "toy" like this exist?

[Nords]

Oh he has plenty of those. He just has a finer fascination with real toggle/rocker switches that light up and turn off when he flips them.

I knew it-- future electrical/computer engineer.

My wife wants another one.  I'm very, very afraid

Yeah, but you gotta get on board or get left behind...

Besides, didn't you used to preach that OEM usually turns out better than buying aftermarket, right?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Shoot you're 'on' today...pour out the rest of that coffee...

 

[sailor]

Do you make it light up when its flipped? Thats the big draw I think. Not sure how much power it would take to light up a lit AC wall switch. I kinda want to stay away from outlets so he doesnt get used to sticking stuff into those.

If I built it, i'd want them to light up, maybe do some stuff in series so different throws of the switches would cause stuff to light up, maybe a few beeps,boops and buzzes...

Eeeee, CFB - you are a marketing person, so lemme tell you it takes a lot of "uumph" to light up a AC wall switch
OTOH to lit a little LED from RadioShack (or Ebay) you don't need a lot - just a 9V battery and a small resistor and the AC wall switch will handle these without a problem. You can get piezzo buzzers from RS too
Some familiarity with soldering would be a plus, but this can be a learning project too.

Lemme see, since I'm at work and I can waste some time, here are few parts you might need:
LEDs: http://www.radioshack.com/product/i...2&kw=led&numProdsPerPage=20&parentPage=search

Holders:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/i...2&kw=led&numProdsPerPage=20&parentPage=search

Resistors- 330 ohm should be fine for 9V battery
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062319&cp=&kw=resistor&parentPage=search

Buzzers:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062397&cp=&kw=buzzer&parentPage=search

Battery snap:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/i...&cp=&pg=2&kw=battery+holder&parentPage=search

You will also need a soldering iron and paste and some wire.
Also AC wall switches & front plates.
You can also get blinking LEDs same place if you wish.

 

[justin]

I remember building a little light and buzzer kit from Radio Shack when I was in Electronics class in middle school.

Maybe you can find a kit with all the parts already included and rig it up on some plexiglass or plywood.

The kit I had included a 9V battery hookup, LEDs, a variable resistor with knob, an IC or two, some wire and a small piece of plexiglass. Maybe $10. Add a soldering iron and solder, and U R good 2 go.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Heyyyy...I used to be a semiconductor engineer...I can solder! And wire wrap and all that stuff!

I had to build my first single board computer from parts and a wire wrap board!

But I dont know much about light switches

I was thinking some of the 12v dc light switches for boat and motor home applications, direct wired to a 9v or maybe a bunch of AA's?

I was wondering if anyone had a kit like that...didnt see anything on the radio shlock web site. Maybe i'll look again.

Man, I miss the U-Blew-it electronics store off of rte 128 in MA...

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Now here's a possible start...
http://www.hobbytron.com/snap-circuits-electronics-lab.html

As long as theres nothing he can swallow or cut his fingers off in...

Maybe we're getting there...

 

[wabmester]

You want toggles and lights?   We got our kid one of these, and she loves it.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

You're going to laugh your ass off, but thats the first thing I thought of. "Wish I still had my old imsai".

Unfortunately they're a bit pricey, and if it fell on him it'd kill him!

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Buy him an old Altair on Ebay.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Altairs have lots of lights, but not many switches. Imsai was KING in the 'key in your own octal programs' world.

Plus imsai's and altairs in good condition run well over a thousand bucks a pop on ebay. I saw one with some good s-100 cards in it sell for over $3500.

Reminds me of the first time I saw a computer with a megabyte of memory in it. Someone bus jumpered two imsai boxes - one main and one with just s-100 slots...and a whole lot of 8k and 16k memory cards the size of a large book in them...had to run them with the covers off and a big fan blowing at it.

Then a half dozen of us stood around and tried to figure out what anyone, ever, could do with a whole megabyte of memory and couldnt conceive of anything. That was around 1977-78. Operating systems took up 2-4k, language interpreters took 2-8k. Most programs were well under 16k. A graphical word processor that looked a lot like the old wordstar took 12k and we thought it was a bit on the 'fat' side...

Those were the good old days when computers didnt really do anything, and hence were no threat to our way of life

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

You ain't gonna believe this, but I hadn't seen the IMSAI post when I whipped out my Altair comment.

Far out, wab!