I have always been interested in electronics when used for magical effects. Tony Anverdi was one of my heros. I especially loved his version of the Amazing Card Dog trick. The one where you have a card selected and lost in the deck. Cards are dealt into a box in front of the dog and he starts barking when you are about to deal the card you selected. It is a gem!

Recently I had a local magician tinkerer and electronic wiz to make me a trick that functions like the Anverdi trick. It is marvelous - and since you can't get an Anverdi trick any more - this is very special to have one that works so well. If you are interested in having this fellow build you an "Anverdi Dog" trick or some other custom electronic piece - toy can give him an eMail. His name is Todd Cox and his eMail address is:
tcox634@hotmail.com. He will do a good job for you. I am completely satisfied with my dog and am so glad that I can do the Anverdi effect in my close-up act.

Hi there,
To the specific question about what is an "SCR", also known as a silicon controlled rectifier, it essentially is a solid state relay. One of the problems with bodging together bits and pieces of things without really knowing what you are doing is that much of electronics is about keeping the magic smoke inside the electronic device. Soooo, if you happen to try and 'drive' a high current relay directly with something that normally would drive a speaker, it might work for a bit, but eventually would burn out the circuit, simply because it draws more current than the device would normally be expecting if it were to be driving the speaker it was designed to drive. That said, if you go on ebay and get any number of ready made transmitter/receiver packages, with "latching" or "momentary" relay outputs, you will have something very small indeed that will in the former case, turn on with a pulse of the remote and turn off again with another pulse of the remote. In the case of the "momentary" outputs, the relay would be closed (or open, depending on what you configure it to be) only so long as the transmitter (remote) button is pushed. Hence the term momentary contact.

Transistors and other solid state devices can effectively turn a very low power (current) device into something that will be able to control a much higher power (current) device like a motor or a solenoid (like in a knocker board or a spirit bell).

When you consider that a programmable device like a PIC can now fit into the space of a pencil eraser, you can start taking "AA" batteries apart and placing smart electronics into the shell, effectively reducing a complex microprocessor driven device (like the magic switchboard effect by Wellington and others) into a very simply "all there is to the effect are a few switches, lightbulbs and a few batteries to power the thing".

What once took thousands of dollars of complex (for their day) electronics to create a sometimes, less than reliable prop for mentalism effects can now be achieved with digitally secure, ultraminiature electronics the cost of which has been reduced to a few dollars in materials. Never before has the art of magic been more important to sell the illusion that clever science can make OR break.

Take a look at RFID (radio frequency identification devices) on eBay. The passive tags are now getting to be near the size of grains of rice. Combined with smaller search coils (frequency dependent) and longer detection ranges, you can now identify which object is in which hand, what object was taken from what group of objects etc, etc. But all that aside, to see a truly clever bit of sleight of hand, or a well executed peek setting up a one-ahead effect is a thing of beauty, even for an alpha geek such as myself!

Take care guys,
Doug
(BTW, Chuck Caputo is a great resource for things magical and electronic and has always been very generous in sharing his knowledge with those who care to learn....tnx Chuck )

Excellent advice.

On a side note, I'm working my way through "Make: Electronics" to learn basic circuitry. Once you start understanding how transistors, capacitors, etc. are used (and some of the basic formulas associated with their use- Ohm's Law, etc.) it's easier to know what you're doing without destroying things.

It's a pretty good book, but be warned- the parts they want me to buy can be difficult to find or sometimes expensive. I looked ahead to see they wanted me to buy two $7 relays, just so I could take the cover off one to look inside (potentially breaking it), then push too much current through it and possibly burn it out. I think I'll skip the destructive tests; I can easily read what happens without blowing $7 on it.

Hi Doug:

Appreciate your insight and as I pointed out above I have limited experience with electronics. However I will stand by my idea of using a doorbell remote unit and a low wattage relay or SCR as a very effective remote switching device. Doorbell units are very robust and cheap (recently picked one up for $5.00 on sale). I have used this idea to trigger many devices over the years including battery toys, flash unit from a disposable camera, lie detectors, haunted books, electronic montes, etc. Some of these projects are 15+ years old and I have not had one fail or "burnout". I would not suggest this method for a high voltage project but for uses as I have pointed out it has proven cheap, reliable, silent and easy to hook-up.

John

Great into to electronics (and inspiration!) is Sparkfun over in the US. Highly recommended.

Sorry, that should read 'intro'.

HI folks,
This post took me back quite a ways in my travels. I met Claude Klingsor, in Belgium many years ago. I purchased the originols of his books, NOT translated from French. THe translated versions would be nice since the effects (using IR) could be done using much more modern RF technology. More reliable and cheaper too. If I recall correctly, his "signature" effect was a chinese doll that was a clockwork automaton that he developed many years before such things were known to be possible. The doll was about 2 foot tall and basically followed a predefined script. When I first saw it, I was reminded of Norm Nielson's Floating Violin. At the end of the effect, the violin would move around him before exiting from the stage, apparently under its own control.

Very cool effect that I would love to see described somewhere in detail. Does anyone know if he did anything like Anverdi?

Doug
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On 2010-05-29 23:15, MentalistCreationLab wrote:
Picked this up a little while ago, Miracles of Modern Magic by Claude Klingsor $15.00 from Lybary.com

The ebook is ok the schematics are rough and not very detailed. Mostly covering IR circuits, and has no real parts list. Aside form that it’s not too bad it give you the basic concept on a few interesting ideas. The work was translated from French from a 1980’s era lecture.

Café Mods this is not a review. It is posted here to answer the above question about electronics

edec there are a lot of electronics part suppliers on line. PM me and I share who is the best of these to you only. BTW this is a interesting topic.Thanks
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Putting together electronic circuit is not all that hard. I would recommend the books from a great author for the electronic hobbyist by the name of Forrest Mims III. Here is his website; http://www.forrestmims.com/ He has some great material for circuits along with parts list for the circuits. I used to build and fly high powered rockets and needed custom electronic circuits to fire ejection charges, countdown timers, etc. Mr. Mims material is right up our alley.

To get started, you will need an electronic breadboard to build your prototype, jumpers, components, a 9 volt battery for a power supply, perfboards (a kind of less expensive circuit board that you transfer your prototype from the breadboard to a more permanent mount), a soldering iron, and a few basic tools. The cost is very low. You can get most of these items from Radio Shack or online.