Good Beginner Electronics Book

Forest Mims III wrote a number of booklets "Engineer's Mini-Notebook" that Radio Shack has stocked for years. These booklets are pretty basic, but focused and on target and a decent starting point. I doubt Radio Shack still carries these but you can find them elsewhere.

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news:217a24f3-3235-4c06-a004- snipped-for-privacy@q27g2000prf.googlegroups.com:

I'm just beginning also, although I did take 2 semesters of physics, albeit about 30 yrs ago ;)

I also bought the "Electronics for Dummies" book, but the "introductory explanations" left out a lot of important info, which I had to scribble in from another reference.

I'm still at he stage of figuring out how to trace current flow, and how to translate schematic into actual assemled components. SO I unfortunatley can't help you a whole lot. But, since i empathize with a fellow beginner ;) , just in case these might be of some help to you, here are some things I was either referred to, or found, on-line (the brief descriptions are my own, intended to help you decide whther the link might useful for your needs):

- This page describes itself as "Really Basic Electronics" - but it does not show the relationship to the circuit schmeatics, and actual assemblies:

- This site shows a simple circuit WITH it's assembled end-product! It is the *only* such side-by-side tutorial I've found so far:

But it makes a lot more sense if you get more information ergarding what the itmes are, so the following is a really good site:

- which seems to be a whole electronics text/course, but in on-line format - it loads fast and is easy to navigate (no cumbersome Flash or other annoying plugins required to access it, no dancing baloney or flashy doodads - just good, solid information) - it has a lot of great explanations of how things work - but again, from what i've seen so far, no side-by-side comparison/explanation of circuit schematics and finished assemblies:

- this page explains what those colored bands on resistors mean:

- Related to the above, two different types of capacitor codes:

HTH and Good luck - if you find any side-by-side schematics:assemblies references, either on-line or in print, it'd be great if you could post the links (or references); I'm stuill looking, but I'll do teh same, post and references I come across.

- K.

The NEETS modules start from the basics and work up. They're probably not all relevant (you may not need info on radars right away) and somewhat dated but good info.

has copies of these and other manuals; drill down from the "Documents" link.

--
Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

I started by reading all the books in the children's library even remotely connected (ie at the time there were a lot of books that were more electrical than electronic) and then started reading the hobby magazines.

None of it made sense at first, but I kept buying the magazines, and partly osmosis and who knows what else and it started to make sense.

IN some ways the early reading was thrown away, yet it was crucial to what I built on it later. It's the same with the projects I tried to build, the first few never worked yet if I'd not done them "until I knew things" I might still be waiting.

In effect, I submerged myself in it, and then used books to explain things as I needed them. Reference books that you can look things up, rather than sit at page one and read through it, may be as important as trying to learn by reading a book and then doing things.

The problem with that is the hobby magazines have mostly disappeared, and at the very least no longer cost the fifty cents per issue that I paid almost forty years ago, so the raw material isn't there to learn from.

Try multiple books rather than a single "One Big Suurce". Buy used or go to the library so the cost isn't a big factor if you get a dud. Read a book through, not stopping if you stall just rush through the parts you don't grasp at first, and then work on another book. The other book may fill in the gaps the first one had. Or once you get to the end, things may be more obvious than earlier in the book, so you can go back and fill in.

And learning suffers when things are abstract. If you're not ready for a bit of information, it will be harder than if you have a practical use for it. For that matter, for the hobbyist, there may be more need for practical informatin, how to solder and where to buy parts, than things like how a capacitor works. It may depend on whether you "want to learn electronics" or "want to build things". The experience of building will help to put the theory in context.

I once bought a dictionary of electronic terms, and while I've never used it that much (when I bought it I was already loaded with books), it is still useful every so often to look up a term. I don't know if that sort of thing is still available.

Michael

Here is another link you may want to look at:

Go to radio shaft, and get one of those 101 Kits. it has all the components with in, that are reusable.. it's a great tool for getting started..

"

The main drawback of those kits is that they generally don't teach design techniques, and even the explanations of how the circuits work often lack details that, to a beginner, are quite significant. Additionally, since the older kits usually only had, e.g., 3 transistors, some of the circuits had to be rather clever in making use of a single transistor to simultaneously be, say, an RF oscillator as well as an audio amplifier. Describing how a circuit like that works is not at all trivial -- I suspect that even most college professors who teach electronics would be stumped. The schematics also suffer from the usual problem that often they've been "compressed" to fit into a particular frame within the page, and thus things like, say, differential pairs don't *look* like differential pairs unless you re-draw the schematic (or do so mentally), something that many a beginner won't know to do.

Still, they're a lot of fun to play with, and usually cheap.

Why not download a very solid Navy electronics course?? Very good and very cheap, zero cents.

Rich Webb wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Cool website, thanks ;)

You'll almost certainly find that no one book will be right for you, and recommendations won't mean much. You have to read a whole bunch of them, and some of them will "click" for you and others won't. The Talking Electronics books are quite eclectic but do a pretty good job for the beginner:

Dave.

Here is what I am using, it doesn't get any simpler. It is a course book of

57 lessons and you buy the component kit that comes with it in a nice little tool box complete with breadboard and jumpers. The book and kit are 100% compatible. The kit is exclusively sold by The kit is loaded with all of the required components and cost approximately 35% less than if bought separately. The book covers some theory then immediately has you breadboarding the lesson. They start with the schematic and pictures of the breadboard then wane you off of the breadboard pictures. The book has a few errors but the author maintains the required corrections on his site. The course takes about a 100 hours to get through if you are passionate. There was an error in the NOR and NAND gates lesson that threw me out for 2 days until I checked the site ( schematics where reversed)

Check out the author's site for more questions, answers and examples.

There is an Abra in Montreal Canada and one in the state of New-York, same owner and they do most of their business on-line. Very reputable and cater mostly to educational institutions.

The way the Navy course suggested in the other posts is outstanding!!!!! If there is one thing where the military excel in it is course design. It is thousands of pages so when I get confused on a concept in my Evil Genius course I check out the Navy course. It is a theory course, no practical experiments at all.

Are you lazy? I know I am so there is a 40 hour electronics course on Youtube given by a university in India. The teacher Mr Natarajan has a bit of an accent but the course is awesome. He power points the theory then breadboards everything in front of you. Those 40 hours are worth 2 years of school!!!!! The reason they did this very professional course is to be able to train people in remote areas of India who can't get to a proper institution. I would have paid good coin if they had charged for this course.

If nothing above helps consider knitting :o)

Claude Montreal

I reccomend reading several editions of "The ARRL Handbook for Radio Amateurs". A new edition appears every year and has for about 75 years. Most big libraries have a collection of issues and old issues show up at swap meets and garage sales. It's oriented towards equipment for Amateur Radio stations but has a good basic electronics section and lots of construction projects. As someone else pointed out, the US Navy NEETS manuals are very comprehensive and written at a level appropriate for beginning Electronics Technicians. You can buy the NEETS set on a CD Rom.

Ken Fowler, KO6NO

Be sure to look for Colin Mitchell's rant in one of them about how compact fluorescent lightbulbs are never going to catch on. :-)

I like your description -- definitely accurate.