Raytheon Lectron

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Lectron was a modular electronic experimentation kit designed to introduce youth to basic electronic circuits and theory.

The LECTRON electronic blocks system and product was the exclusive and unique invention of Georg Greger in the early 1960s. He applied for a patent of his 'Electronik-baukasten' on May 7, 1965. He was issued a German patent #1228081 on May 18, 1967. The American patent #3,447,249 was issued on June 3, 1969. The American patent filing of May 5, 1966 is particularly interesting because it includes additional drawings (e.g. the speaker and deluxe base plate) which the German patent did not have. There is also quite a bit more detail on how everything works.

Contrary to many 'pundits' statements, Dieter Rams had NOTHING to do with the creation, design, development, the writing of the manuals, or even the packaging of the LECTRON electronic blocks system.

The LECTRON was brought to the marketplace in Germany by model train manufacturer Egger-Bahn. Braun took over the Egger-Lectron assets in 1967 when Egger-Bahn went out of business. The LECTRON was imported to the United States by the Macalaster Scientific subsidiary of Raytheon starting in 1967.

Raytheon sold the LECTRON in two waves. The first wave was sold as 'Electronic Dominoes' and featured two models: The 800 and the 820. The second wave, which began in May 1968, was sold as 'LECTRON' and saw an expansion of the LECTRON product family to three new sets initially (the 800 and 820 model sets were repurposed as the Series 2 and Series 3 sets with the packaging completely redesigned). This wave included the Series 1 - 5 models and the Add-On Kits 1 - 5 which could be used to upgrade, for example, a Series 1 model into a Series 2 model. The Electronic Dominoes moniker was also dropped. The styrofoam molds were reused from the Egger packaging (although the Raytheon production packaging used white styrofoam instead of black) and the blocks continued to be made in (West) Germany. The Series 3A reached the marketplace later and offered 64 experiments. Add-On Kits 6 - 7 were added at the same time of the Series 3A's release.

Raytheon also 'made' a Series 3 model for Creative Playthings of Princeton, NJ which was sold as the S822 Lectron SCIII.

The LECTRON kit consisted of electronic components installed within individual "building blocks" with a clear plastic base, an opaque white top with the component's schematic symbol and permanent magnets attached to the leads of the enclosed components. Each building block was magnetically attached to a metal plate serving both as a work surface and ground, eliminating the need for soldering, spring terminals or a breadboard. This gave the benefit of safety as well as the ability to rearrange the blocks to determine the effect on the circuit.

The instruction manual gave instruction on the proper arrangement of the blocks as well as the function of each individual component's contribution to the final circuit. Experiments began with simple circuits such as a basic electric lamp circuit with switch and worked its way to a three-transistor radio with loudspeaker.

The Raytheon models have not been officially sold in the US since 1969. The LECTRON product however is still being manufactured in Frankfurt, Germany and is available for sale with shipping world wide. Unfortunately, all the manuals are in German with no planned translation into English or any other language.

External links and references

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