What ever happened to Amazing1.com (aka Information Unlimited)?

[Ben321]

This was a site that sold all kinds of cool high voltage equipment and components, for reasonable prices. While I never bought anything from them yet, I kept their site bookmarked in case I ever did decide to buy anything from them. Well about a month ago I checked and the whole site is down, and it's been down every time after that I checked. There never was any post on their site that they were having business trouble or any other indication their site would shut down soon. Just one day it was down, and never came back online. I checked their FB page (https://www.facebook.com/InformationUnlimitedINC/), and it seems one of the founders of the company had recently passed away. However the date on the post mentioning the guy's death was from a month before the site went down. That seems strange that it was that far apart, but I can only assume that guy's death somehow related to the site shutting down. Was he the guy who paid the bills for the DNS server for the website's domain name (amazing1.com)? Does anybody here have more inside info on the situation, maybe a member of this forum who personally knows the guys who ran that site, and can provide more info on what is going on with that website? I really hope this is just a temporary situation, and that they aren't going to close the whole company and website because of that one guy's death.

[coppercone2]

I think it was a bit of a hobby business, the guy liked scientists & education. Not sure if its the most viable thing without him.

[Ben321]

I think it was a bit of a hobby business, the guy liked scientists & education. Not sure if its the most viable thing without him.

They had all kinds of stuff though. What will they do with their excess inventory? They need to sell it off somehow. I thought he may have been one of the founders, but I thought there was an entire team of employees there running the company, including product engineers who always came up with ideas for new products. Also they were able to get all kinds of components that would be very rare outside of the high voltage industry, like capacitors and resistors designed to operate at tens of kilovolts. I figured they must have had some sort of business arrangement with a manufacturer of these components (which would normally have been sold only to manufacturers of high voltage devices), so they could buy these rare components from the manufacturer of said components, and then sell them to the hobbyist market (rather than the normal device manufacturer market).

[Alex Eisenhut]

Were they advertising in electronics magazines in the 1980s? I was really intrigued by all those ads back then. Tesla coils! Simulated lasers!

[Weston]

I remember that the amazing1 ads in the back of Popular Science (early 2000's when I was a young kid) were some of my favorite parts of the magazine. Its actually really the only thing I remember from those magazines...

Some of the stuff they sold seemed a bit kooky, but I was happy to finally buy a spun aluminium toroid topload from them a few years back for my tesla coil. Much better than the two taped together metal salad bowls I was using before that!

If they are truly gone, sad to see them go. Arduino and all that seem to be effective getting people into EECS, but it does seem a bit bland in comparison.

[coppercone2]

well the worlds gonna be short on plasma physicists. dark ages

[thm_w]

wayback: https://web.archive.org/web/20230811062305/https://amazing1.com/

Looks like a lot of crazy niche stuff.
Even a TMS device: https://web.archive.org/web/20230811072338/https://www.amazing1.com/health.html#tdhp40del

[Marc Brutschy]

The founder of Amazing1 was Robert Iannini, who also authored a number of books, like Electronic Gadgets for the Evil Genius.  I happened to call the company just after Bob had passed away, and the impression I got was that he was the technical genius behind all their products.  It sounded like the company might not be able to continue without him, so I think that may be why the webpage disappeared.  I was going to buy a solid state Tesla coil from them, but now I guess I'll have to build it from the instructions in Bob's books.

[Ben321]

The founder of Amazing1 was Robert Iannini, who also authored a number of books, like Electronic Gadgets for the Evil Genius.  I happened to call the company just after Bob had passed away, and the impression I got was that he was the technical genius behind all their products.  It sounded like the company might not be able to continue without him, so I think that may be why the webpage disappeared.  I was going to buy a solid state Tesla coil from them, but now I guess I'll have to build it from the instructions in Bob's books.

Did you get any info info on what they planned to do with all the individual components they were selling, that they still had stock of at the time of Bob's death? (High voltage diodes, transformers, capacitors, and even the custom flyback transformers without the normally built-in diode, for outputting high frequency hv ac)?  Also there were plenty of already assembled high frequency high voltage power supplies, and dc high voltage power supplies in stock, that could be sold, even if nobody else there could build another one. Are they just going to toss all these components and assembled devices in the trash. Or are they going to try to sell them off on eBay? Or do they plan to restart the amazing1.com website to sell them off?

If you still have their phone number, maybe you could call them back, and ask them these questions on my behalf. Because there's lots of stuff that I wanted to buy from them, but haven't yet.

[KE5FX]

The founder of Amazing1 was Robert Iannini, who also authored a number of books, like Electronic Gadgets for the Evil Genius.  I happened to call the company just after Bob had passed away, and the impression I got was that he was the technical genius behind all their products.  It sounded like the company might not be able to continue without him, so I think that may be why the webpage disappeared.  I was going to buy a solid state Tesla coil from them, but now I guess I'll have to build it from the instructions in Bob's books.

Try www.onetesla.com , maybe?

[Ben321]

The founder of Amazing1 was Robert Iannini, who also authored a number of books, like Electronic Gadgets for the Evil Genius.  I happened to call the company just after Bob had passed away, and the impression I got was that he was the technical genius behind all their products.  It sounded like the company might not be able to continue without him, so I think that may be why the webpage disappeared.  I was going to buy a solid state Tesla coil from them, but now I guess I'll have to build it from the instructions in Bob's books.

Try www.onetesla.com , maybe?

When I try to go there, I get this error message from my browser.

Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead

Firefox detected a potential security threat and did not continue to www.onetesla.com. If you visit this site, attackers could try to steal information like your passwords, emails, or credit card details.

The certificate is only valid for onetesla.com.

Error code: SSL_ERROR_BAD_CERT_DOMAIN

Apparently their SSL certificate is only good for onetesla.com and not also for www.onetesla.com

[KE5FX]

Apparently their SSL certificate is only good for onetesla.com and not also for www.onetesla.com

Hmm, yep, looks like that's the case.

They're legit.  Or at least they were a few years ago (I built one of their first-gen kits).

Also built a coil based one of Iannini's old BTC-5 plans back in the day when I could get away with wearing tennis shorts in public. 

[Ben321]

So what did they do with all the products they still had in stock? Yes last time I checked (before its closing) they had quite a few components and devices in stock still. Did they throw all those in the trash? Donate them to a local school science lab? Or do they have plans to sell them on eBay? Please, anybody here who has inside knowledge (either because you were an employee at the company, or are a friend of someone who worked there), let me know what they are planning to do with their leftover stock that they had when they closed.

[Ben321]

My main question sitll remains unanswered. What ever happened to their inventory of equipment that they didn't finish selling before their website went down? I hope they did NOT just toss it all in the trash. There was some stuff on there that Ive NEVER seen on eBay like flyback transformer, built for high frequency AC output. You won't find thos in a computer monitor. CRT monitors all have a built-in rectifier diode (and often a filter capacitor) on the main output wire from their flyback transformer. Antique TVs have a high voltage AC output flyback but only 10kv or a bit less output voltage. They depended on a voltage multiplier circuit to boost the voltage to 30kv and convert it to DC.

Where can you get a flyback transformers that were built from the ground up, to output high frequency AC at 30kV? As far as I know, the only place in the world that you could get such a flyback transformer was Amazing1.com and now that it's down, it appears to be an impossible type of transformer to acquire.

So if ANYBODY here actually knows what this guy's family did with his stash of 30kv ac-output flybacks after he died and they shut down his website, I would REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY like to know. I was going to buy one, but sadly his website was taken offline before I could buy one. So any alternative means to purchase one of these would be great. This request goes out to all members of this forum. If you have the phone numbers or email addresses of any of this guy's surviving family members, who might be willing to sell this his equipment, please let me know. I'm really desperate to buy one of these.

[KE5FX]

TVs ("antique" or otherwise) didn't always use multipliers.  Look for an old 20"+ color console from the early 70s, and you'll find a flyback that would have been rated for 25 kV.  A contemporary rule of thumb was that a color CRT required 1 kV per diagonal inch.

Sometimes you'll see Glassman power supplies on eBay as well, many of which were based on TV-style flybacks.

[BennoG]

I have a glassmand over here that can do 60kV at 10mA
you can control it over RS232 (or analog signals if you remove the RS232 control board)
It is designed to drive a X-Ray tube.

Benno

[mindcrime]

So if ANYBODY here actually knows what this guy's family did with his stash of 30kv ac-output flybacks after he died and they shut down his website, I would REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY like to know. I was going to buy one, but sadly his website was taken offline before I could buy one. So any alternative means to purchase one of these would be great. This request goes out to all members of this forum. If you have the phone numbers or email addresses of any of this guy's surviving family members, who might be willing to sell this his equipment, please let me know. I'm really desperate to buy one of these.

I don't have any first-hand info, but FWIW some basic OSINT stuff would probably turn up a way to get in touch with his family. Note however that I have NO idea how receptive they would be to being contacted about anything like this.

Anyway, his obituary is here:

https://www.smith-heald.com/obituaries/Robert-E-Iannini?obId=27660790

And that lists the names of his immediate family. His Facebook profile appears to still be active and may be monitored by family members? And the FB profile shows a "friend" link to somebody with the same name as his wife, so that's probably her. If anyone is really interested, I imagine you could do a little more poking and find a way to contact somebody.

[Ben321]

TVs ("antique" or otherwise) didn't always use multipliers.  Look for an old 20"+ color console from the early 70s, and you'll find a flyback that would have been rated for 25 kV.  A contemporary rule of thumb was that a color CRT required 1 kV per diagonal inch.

Sometimes you'll see Glassman power supplies on eBay as well, many of which were based on TV-style flybacks.

When I said antique, I was thinking about in the very old times when black and white was the only type of tv, like 1950s era. Back then they barely had any solid state semiconductor components (most stuff was vacuum tubes), certainly none small enough to cram into the case of a flyback transformer, so definitely no internal diodes in those.

[BrokenYugo]

Is this the sort of flyback you're looking for? AC output best I can tell.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806640710261.html

[Ben321]

Is this the sort of flyback you're looking for? AC output best I can tell.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806640710261.html

That looks like it might work. However there appears to be no primary winding on it, so maybe it's actually intended for use as a high frequency high voltage inductor?

[BrokenYugo]

They're calling it a transformer, mentioning use a of a ZVS driver, and the potting mold shape makes it pretty apparent there's supposed to be a primary wound there.

EDIT: Also this line in the description "Primary recommended number of turns: 3~10 turns"

I thought that's exactly what you were after, IIRC all write ups on using those old B&W/external tripler type flybacks I've seen rewound the primary.

[rsilvapt]

I live in Portugal, and I still have an Ion Ray gun from the first half of the 90s, bought from them. I saw an advertisement from Information Unlimited in a radio hobby magazine - I don't remember the name, as I used to buy many, and I probably still have it in some old dusty piles of magazines in boxes in my folks' garage.

The Ion Ray gun no longer works - perhaps it's a bad switch contact - but it was very important for me as a child and teenager to conduct experiments with HV and even to further spark my curiosity about electrical phenomena. My field of study turned out to be Physics, more specifically Solid State Physics and Magnetic Materials, although I no longer conduct research.

[coppercone2]

I think he produced good advertising for massively boring fields like electrostatics.

They are important to the economy. For instance, miniaturization of chips like 0201 and smaller has a electrostatic design component for the assembly machinery.

I think in the future we will see novel use of electrets as well, much like how rare earth magnets are getting into everything right now, if the right developments are made.

Also,exact knowledge of plastic behaviors for ESD and such, allowing design for cheap devices (i.e. medical field needs disposable electronics in very cheap enclosures for surgery).

Its one of those fields that IMO no one good will get into unless you interest them with that kinda silly stuff that he made.



Seriously, the classical approach to teaching that is a piff ball. A little tumble weed. Who the FUCK cares about this in physics class when they are young? The only thing it has going for it is that the parts for the experiments might be cheap.


But for ME, you think, maybe I can mod a vehicle with my knowledge. for EE you think you can build a computer gadget of some kind. For thermal engineering you might think maybe I can fix the furnace one day or build a nice fireplace. Chemistry you think oh fireworks might be fun. For electrostatics.... ? I feel like the people in that one basically like.. must have gotten in there because it happened to be around and its your last chance.

But he showed us how whacky it can be and suddenly its not so whack.


The ionic lifter made IMO electostatic research from something that you can literally be beat up for talking about to something you could show joes and have them in awe. The electrostatic swamp boat on youtube right now is like... high up there on with the pop-sci audience. Who would have thought that stupid piff ball from physics class can turn into a air boat motor that is basically two steps away from a star wars land speeder with lightning bolts coming off the engine?

[webworld]

I have some plans from his books, I wanted to hire a tech that knows how to build from schematics. Anyone have any suggestions as to a good place to find a elec. tech to assemble an item in one of Bob's books for pay? Apparently Amazing1's stock is long gone.