Interesting DIY kits to purchase/experiment with?

[oldway]

Have a look on Velleman kits......

https://www.velleman.eu/products/list/?id=366970

To spend 10x as much as the Chinese version, with almost equally bad documentation?

Velleman has a list of about 150 different kits including several educational kits specifically made to learn electronics.
The variety of kits is very large, they even have a vacuum tube amplifier in their list.
Where are you going to find this in China?
It seems that you have answered without even having the curiosity to consult the list of Velleman kits.

I'm only proposing an alternative to Silenter, it's up to him to decide what interests him.

NB: If you want to experiment your own circuits, I recomend you to look for this book on Internet: (6 vol.)

Graf - Encyclopedia of Electronic Circuits

[GreyWoolfe]

NB: If you want to experiment your own circuits, I recomend you to look for this book on Internet: (6 vol.)

Graf - Encyclopedia of Electronic Circuits

Actually, there are 7 volumes.  I have 1,2,3 and 7.  No. 7 is a monster, 1128 pages with index.  Should be something interesting to build in there.

[tooki]

Velleman has a list of about 150 different kits including several educational kits specifically made to learn electronics.

Yes, they do. I just don't think they do a very good job of it. They don't explain theory of operation, so the learning potential is limited.

The variety of kits is very large, they even have a vacuum tube amplifier in their list.
Where are you going to find this in China?

eBay. AliExpress. Probably banggood, too. Chinese tube amp kits are all over the place. Seems to me it wasn't me who neglected to look around the usual sources. Something about throwing stones in glass houses…

It seems that you have answered without even having the curiosity to consult the list of Velleman kits.

No, I answered after skimming the entire list of Velleman kits, again, just in case they'd added anything interesting since the last time I looked. They haven't. The fact that you find such diddly things interesting doesn't mean I have to; I find them mundane and overpriced.

[Jwillis]

I admit that I have purchased a few DIY kits .And it's true that you learn very little on how they actually function .In my opinion ,most of the the "DIY" kits are for testing new employees for the assembly lines .But if your looking for challenge and education look around for old radios ,televisions and stereos and make them work again.Old vintage stuff is a lot of fun rebuilding .I recently rebuilt a 1939 Marconi Am radio and built a power supply for it since the old dry cell batteries are impossible to find.And currently I'm working on another valve radio from the early sixties and a Mixer amp from the late seventies .Even old computers can be interesting to work on .Sometimes the most interesting and stimulating projects can be found at a pawn shop.Just something to think about.

[oldway]

The golden age of the DIY kits is over, Heathkit and MBLE / PHILIPS have ended their business, the electronic kit market is dead, there are no longer large suppliers in this market and it must be taken into account before having excessive requirements.

[bitwelder]

I take the DIY kits for what they are: an exercise in soldering (and if I want it to be a relaxing exercise, it better be a though-hole one).
Sometimes the kit doesn't work and it brings the added bonus of troubleshooting what went wrong.