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Book Reviews

Robert Hill

Mar 5, 2015
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Here's my review of 'Electronics for Dummies'. It's part of the dummies series of books which assume you know nothing and tries to teach you in simple ways.

As a 'Dummy' when it comes to electronics I found the book a really helpful first start. And would recommend it to others.

Pros:
- Good value for money. This book cost me about £20 and is about 600 pages long with online extras included.
- Simple and builds knowledge progressively. The book builds chapter by chapter so you learn things like Ohms law and then go on to understand resistors, capacitors and LEDs for example. Everything is explained using simple language.
- Lots of projects to practice and learn from. The book gets you to build circuits which demonstrate the principles it has just taught you.
- A little bit of everything. The book covers a broad range of subjects to give you a good basic knowledge.

Cons:
- Some errors. There were a few errors I detected in the book, usually units being listed wrongly or a calculation being done wrongly. Although i detected these errors, these could be confusing for others (and where for me at first)
- Dedicates a lot of space to Stamp basic microprocessors. As far as I can tell the Rasberry PI and the Arduino are the standard in this area now so it seems odd that the book looks at an older processor. That being said the introduction to microprocessors was still useful.
- Sometimes leaves you wanting more. I had to do follow up research online to get a full understanding of things. Sometimes the book would simply state that a component e.g. a capacitor between two chained 555 timers should be used without explaining why. In addition certain deeper topics such as radio and op amps didn't have a huge amount of depth of explanation. I assume this is because they didn't want to go beyond the limits of the dummies simplicity.

Overall for me the books greatest strength (beginners simplicity) was also it's weakness as I often wanted to go further. That being said it is supposed to be a get you started text so I'd say it more than achieves it's aim. I'm certainly pleasantly surprised at how much i've learnt.
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
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Jan 21, 2010
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It might be worth mentioning that the new edition of The Art Of Electronics is being released on 25 April. I have one on pre-order and I will post my impressions of it as soon as I am able to.
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
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Jan 21, 2010
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It has arrived! (It may take me a few months to read it and review it though)
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
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Jan 21, 2010
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I've been budget than I thought I would be, but I have skimmed through the first chapter of The Art Of Electronics 3rd edition.

I am almost certainly on record saying that beginners should skip chapter 1 on the first read. Well, it is MUCH improved in the new edition.

It is a far easier read and covers things with useful examples. I did note an error in one schematic though.

On the subject of errors... I also noted a caption which appeared to have a word or a line missing. This is a bit of a worry given that I simply skimmed this chapter. It might be worth checking for errata on the internet.
 

M.Sridhar

Sep 16, 2015
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The book Electronics Level 2is a very good book for beginners to understand each and every basic circuit component
 

bsco

May 8, 2011
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For guitar amp repair I have a book written by Gar Gillies...the founder of Garnet amplifiers....very good book. and another book on guitar amp repair...namely vacuum tube amp repair...written by Tino Zottola.....Very good book as well if you want to get into vacuum tube guitar amp repair....also books on basic electronics, pretty much would be good as well.....there are tones of book around.....some of them are better than others and everybody's opinion will be different....
 

Minder

Apr 24, 2015
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On an allied note, my first go-to for books is AbeClearing House, I have had a real good deals on $$v'e books, some with the accompanying CD unopened.
http://www.abebooks.com/
M.
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
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Jan 21, 2010
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On an allied note

Off topic, but relevant.

I've recently purchased books from a similar source. It pays to be very aware of the editions you're buying and to find reviews and read them.

In some (rare) cases reviews actually praise earlier versions over later ones. In many cases the books get very poor reviews -- which may well be associated with why they're being sold at a fraction of their RRP.
 

Rixen

Feb 16, 2016
98
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Feb 16, 2016
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Operational Amplifiers & Linear Integrated Circuits by Robert F. Coughlin

I bought this one recently, excellent for new players like me, starts off easy enough, the "difficulty" ramps up quickly however, but it's okay, since everything is well explained and has all the formulas you would need, it takes you through calculating and breadboarding the examples in the book..

Has anyone read this one?

https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Control-Linear-Switching-Supplies/dp/1608075575
 

Valery

Jul 29, 2016
3
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Jul 29, 2016
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Make Electronics – Learning by Discovery by Charles Platt (2nd Edition)
“Learn while you make” – that’s the best one liner for this book.
This is a great book where you can practice first and learn while you make the circuit. A totally different approach given to electronics self-teaching. The book encourages you to think – “Why it is so” ?. In one of the first experiments author asks reader to touch battery leads with tongue – what a fun way to begin learning electronics. The problem with most books on “basic electronics”is they all teach mathematical circuit analysis first! – which is not appealing to the beginner As a starter in electronics one should wet his/her hands first at experimenting. This kind of trial and error experimenting develops curiosity. To solve curiosity one starts asking – “Why it happens so”. This is the point where you should start learning theory. When you start learning theory after experimenting with stuff – you will understand theory efficiently and faster.

So this book is really great to get your hands wet! Highly recommended.
 
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bsco

May 8, 2011
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May 8, 2011
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Another way to get your "Hands Wet' so to speak is to build kits...Radio Shack, now called The Source in some parts of the world, sell experimenters kits.......that can range in size of over two hundred individual circuits that can be built from the parts that are contained in the kit....It has a detailed instruction book with a small bit of theory on the operation of each circuit....the kit uses battery power.....very easy to build the circuits....and will give the beginner an easy way to determine if electronics is right for them.....I find that books are great but nothing compares to a hands on experience.....
 

Soulwyvern84

Jan 31, 2016
40
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Jan 31, 2016
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I have to say, being new at this, Electronics for Dummies is too off topic, trying to make it fun. I already think it's fun without the added bologna. My dad gave me Electronics Component Handbook By Thomas Jones when I was 15. I ordered it again to see if I remember any of it.
 

Sjoert de Boer

Aug 31, 2016
3
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Aug 31, 2016
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A book that I find very interesting to read is: "Building Embedded Linux Systems" 2nd edition by Karim Yaghmour, Jon Masters, Gilad Ben-Yossef & Phillipe Gerum.
It explains the process of creating a Linux embedded system. Creating GNU developement toolchain, building a specific kernel, bootloaders and several libraries such as uClibc, Busybox, U-boot
 

darren adcock

Sep 26, 2016
463
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Sep 26, 2016
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463
Nicholas Collins: Handmade Electronic Music. It was my first book, I knew nothing. It gets you started very quickly, has good descriptions of parts, skills etc. Then gets you quickly making projects. I raced through this book, learned a lot very quickly then jumped on internet forums to learn more. If you want a start in making audio projects then I recommend this.
 

Pyramid

Jan 17, 2017
24
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Jan 17, 2017
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OK, I have some questions about writing a book and getting it published:

I recently retired from my company that I started in 1990; we designed and manufactured high end communications equipment for public safety and military applications. I wrote all of the operating systems in 8051 assembly language and over the years, trained a number of our engineers on embedded design and programming. Most of them had 8051 programming experience, but they lacked a sense of knowing how to start a project or how to put all the pieces together. I know there are a lot of 8051 books on the market, but most of them barely scratch the surface when it comes to practical programming apps and design theory, especially when it comes to trouble-shooting and concepts like resource planning, documentation, binary math, subroutines and interupt structures. I recently bought a highly recommended book on the subject by Subrata Ghoshal (8051 Microcontrollers 2nd edition); while his book is very thorough and concise regarding the instruction set, I feel that it doesn't address any of the more advanced issues that many new software engineers might face.

So, to my questions:

1. Is a book that covers more advanced subjects than explaining the instruction set and how to swap a handful of numbers around in memory, useful?

2. What subjects or areas of difficulty would be beneficial to cover?

3. How to successfully get a publisher to back a project like this? I already have a fairly good outline in place, and libraries full of real world routines, but would like to get a good working relationship established with a publisher before I spend a lot of time writing and diagramming, only to find out no one is interested or everything needs to be rewritten to meet their specs.
 

adir figueiredo

Apr 18, 2015
4
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Apr 18, 2015
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4
Eu recomendo usar:
Engenharia Elétrica: Princípios e Aplicações por Allan R. Hambley (2011)
Você pode vê-lo aqui:
Http://www.scribd.com/doc/34151864/Electrical-Engineering-Principles-and-Applications

Abrange os seguintes tópicos, incluindo muitos exemplos claros trabalhados:
Capítulos 1-6: Análise de Circuito Básico
Ch.1 Introdução
CH. 2 Circuitos Resistivos
CH. 3 Indutância e Capacitância
CH. 4 Transientes
CH. 5 Análise Sinusoidal do Estado Estacionário
CH. 6 Resposta de Freqüência, Parcelas Bode e Ressonância
Capítulos 7-9 Sistemas Digitais
CH. 7 Circuitos lógicos
CH. 8 microcomputadores
CH. 9 Sistemas de Instrumentação Baseados em Computador
Capítulos 10-14 Dispositivos eletrônicos e circuitos
Ch.10 Diodos
Ch.11 Amplificadores
12 Transdutores de Efeito de Campo
CH. 13 transístores de junção bipolares
Ch.14 Amplificadores Operacionais
Capítulos 15 -17Electromecânica
Ch.15 Circuitos magnéticos e transformadores
CH. 16 máquinas CC
Ch.17 Máquinas de CA

O livro também tem um site companheiro muito bom com soluções de vídeo.
Arquivos PDF de soluções para as perguntas do capítulo estão disponíveis no site complementar (você precisa comprar o livro para ter acesso ao site complementar)

Pré - requisitos :
O livro recomenda uma compreensão da física básica e cálculo de variável única.

Um livro de texto muito bom primeiro.
Mito bom ok
 
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