Franzis Make your own Bat Detector Kit & Manual

You need solder, wire cutters, a small flathead screwdriver, a 9V battery, and a soldering station. Assembly took about an hour (I wasn't particularly rushed).All electronic components are included; they seem to be of decent quality. The cardboard box itself serves as the housing--meh. Pro: good quality, thick/stiff cardboard. Con: it's still cardboard.The booklet was excellent. It contained solid assembly instructions with a mix of both electronic and bat theory. I wasn't expecting much at all, so my expectations were exceeded.Soldering wasn't particularly hard, but I wouldn't recommend it as an absolute beginner. There's an 8 pin IC that you need to solder--not bad but might be a bit intimidating for someone with no experience.Best part: it worked! I took it to the park and hung out by a tree that I knew had bats; it definitely enhanced my bat-watching experience. But I'm uncertain if I could have found bats if I hadn't known where to look.Great value for money spent: novelty, education, and sharing enthusiasm for science with my kids.

Haven't used it for bat's yet, still too cold. It works great for testing dog whistles and dog bark detergents. The range is from 20 to 40 kHz. Will try to find more uses as I go but for now it keeps the Grandkids entertained.

Works as expected!I purchased a new item from a third party seller, and as indicated, the kit contains a circuit board and other necessary components. The only thing you need to add is a 9V battery (a soldering iron, pliers, wire stripper, wire cutters, and a screwdriver are necessary to assemble the kit, and some glue or hot melt glue is helpful to hold the microphone down).The kit is pretty easy to assemble if you are comfortable soldering stuff, and the instruction manual is in both English and German. The manual includes a few experiments/suggestions for different ultrasound sources to listen to.The circuit appears to use a heterodyne detection system, so you will need to optimize the local oscillator frequency (with the frequency knob) to listen to different sources.

This is a great little kit. The housing is a card stock box, with a circuit board, and loose capacitors, a resistor, and an IC chip to be soldered together. There are also knobs and rheostats for volume and frequency. The instructions are very clear and if you have experience in soldering it should only take under an hour to put together. It does work well in detecting ultrasonic sounds from 20 khz to 100 khz.

This kit is complete, and the manual is incredibly well written. The author thinks of everything in his explanations about how to build the kit, and what it actually does. More ultrasound than you think is reverberating through your environment. The Fledermausdetektor is a great thing to have and build.

A snap to put together for someone with electronics construction experience.It detects bats quite well.It has been fun to experiment around the house - many things emit ultrasound. Rubbing hands or fingers together makes quite a racket.

This works great , Kit directions were very clear, detected a bat the first evening ,Highest quality kit I've encountered , works as described , Highly recomendedGary

Doesn't work

While the 'kit' form may require soldering skills that some will find too challenging, it also allows a bit of flexibility in the build. Rather than the cardboard box provided, I used a plastic sandwich box, and added a mini phone jack and a switch to select the jack or the provided speaker. I'm quite pleased with the result. Be advised that a soldering jig is almost a necessity for attaching the tiny wires and components.

Dover usare del tempo e dell'impegno per assemblare il bat detector, saldando condensatori e qualche filo, non ha prezzo. Soprattutto nel momenti in cui lo si mette al lavoro sul campo e si scopre un mondo che di norma è precluso ai nostri sensi. Emozionante.

J'ai pas encore eu l'occasion de tester en conditions réelles car les chauve-souris sont un peu absentes à cette période, mais je voulais commenter concernant le kit en lui-même au vu des autres commentaires.Le kit est très bien fait et vraiment très simple à comprendre comment placer les composants et pas compliqué à souder.Evidemment, le fait de parler anglais et de savoir souder aide, mais franchement le rapport qualité/prix de ce kit est top!

I bricked the PCB, so do follow the instructions carefully. Not like me :(

Der Detektor funktioniert nach dem Mischerprinzip und das hat der Entwickler sehr clever umgesetzt:Das eigentliche Herz der Schaltung ist ein CD2003 Radio Chip :-DSomit kann man, wenn man das Ultraschallmikrophon durch eine entsprechende Induktivität (Spule) ersetzt Radiosender hören. Auf Youtube gibt es dazu und zu weiteren Experimenten viele Anleitungen vom Autor (der Kanalname "bkelektronik" dürfte für Burkhard Kainka stehen) aber auch von anderen.Ich habe dazu das Mikrophon nicht verklebt, sondern von Außen nur eingesteckt und von innen wird es mittels Lötschuh verbunden, somit kann ich es im Falle des Falls auch in das Gehäuse legen um es beim Transport zu schonen.Die Verbauten Teile sind wirklich Hochwertig: das Gehäuse ist die Schachtel in der der Detektor geliefert wird und besteht aus dicker, lackierter Pappe, die sich nicht verbiegt. Das Mikrophon ist robust und die kleinen Anschlusspins passen ziemlich gut zu den kleinen Lötschuhen.die Potis (aus Metall, nicht Plastik) sind groß und die aufgesetzten Knöpfe werden verschraubt, sodass auch sie leicht abgenommen oder ausgetauscht werden können.Der Lautsprecher ist kein Piezolautsprecher, sondern klassisch mit Spule und Membran, sodass die Töne gut rüberkommen.Die Schaltung wurde so entworfen, dass sehr wenig Rauschen verstärkt wird, das hat mich sehr gewundert und begeistert.Die Anleitung besteht aus Aufbauanleitung, verschiedenen Experimenten und einer Erklärung der Funktion (beinhaltet auch Schalt- und Platinenplan).