Beginner Electroinic

A good book, that should last you for quite some while, is "The Art of Electronics" by Paul Horowitz & Winfield Hill. This covers the majority of the theory side that you will require and would also be useful through any course of study you undertake.

I am not sure how good they are these days but the magazine that got me started was Practical Electronics . They used to run a number of project articles that had all sorts of useful (and not so useful) little gadgets to build. Other magazines, like Electronics and Wireless World and Elektor did similar things, and I am sure that some of those on the USA side of the Atlantic will advise the American publications soon enough. I know they have something called Circuit Cellar over there too.

If you can find one near to you perhaps joining an Amatuer Radio Club might also give you a lead in to some practical projects (but be careful as it can also be a very addictive hobby - sometimes more so than programming). Such clubs will have a number of knowledgable mentors who could answer those awkward questions and aid your understanding of the subject.

As for when you get a job, I would tend to hire someone who can do both the hardware and software aspects of a project in equal measure. I would also expect a failry wide range of interest in other topics outside of embedded systems (especially in other physical and theoretical sciences, social past-times etc. - so don't neglect those aspects either).

Best of luck in your endeavours.

You might try "Designing Embedded Hardware" by John Catsoulis, published by O'Reilly.

Hello Sean,

"The Art of Electronics" is what I also would suggest. It was one of the best investments I ever did. This is the book I use most to explain electronics to others. By now I probably should get some royalties for all the sales this created...

With respect to robot stuff check out this company:

No, I am not at all affiliated with them but bought a few MSP430 header boards there and the prices were really good. So it's also a good place if you want to get your hands onto micro controller porgramming but don't want to spend an arm and a leg. The SW tools are mostly free, at least with Texas Instruments if you limit yourself in code size.

Regards, Joerg

Personally, I found this a very good book after I already knew some basic AC theory. I don't think it's a good introduction for a raw novice. Maybe it should be coupled with a standard introductory textbook explaining basic circuit theory in more depth.

Al

Hello Al,

But it does start with pretty basic stuff like "what is an inductor". That has helped me in explaining, for example, a switch mode converter to others (use of an inductor as an energy storage device).

Regards, Joerg

obvious

much

electronics

any

physics.

Check these out:

I'm like the OP (Sean Fao); most of my work has been programming. I bought "Art of Electronics" a few years ago, but found it much more comprehensible after I'd taken some DC and AC theory classes in a local community college. The book we're using in those classes is Electronic Fundamentals (Floyd), and I think it's a really good introduction. However, Floyd chooses to discuss AC circuits without using any mathematics more involved than multiplication, division, square and square root, sine, cosine, tangent, and arctangent. I did some outside reading (including Art of Electronics) and finally realized why complex numbers are useful and easier to use for AC theory, so I'm using those instead. As for the more complicated mathematics of AC circuits, Laplace Transforms aren't something I need to bother with right now, but perhaps in the future.

Wayne

Hello Wayne,

In day to day design work that's really all you need. There will be the occasional integral but you can always use a nifty approximation.

That stuff is the "upper room" of electronic design, just short of Maxwell's equations they pestered us with at the university.

One very useful tool is Spice and you can obtain a free version (LTSpice) from Linear Technology. Nice GUI, lots of helpful tools. Then you can try "what-if" scenarios on the PC without any capacitors and stuff blowing up in your face. IOW you can draw a circuit or part of it, see if it does what you expected and then build it.

Then, for down-to-earth RF design there is the "ARRL Handbook". This is also a very good book to get started in electronics pretty much from scratch. But the goal towards the end is more RF than anything else.

Regards, Joerg

Point taken on the book (you could have put a more complete reference for the Floyd ie: Title/Author/Publisher/ISBN - it helps when searching for the book on-line or in stores). As one of the early respondents and suggestors of Art of Electronics I had also reccommended the OP joined a local amatuer radio or electronics club where he could have gained some of that useful initial guidance.

On the maths front, yes, math with complex numbers is easier when dealing with AC circuits than having to remember whether you need to use Squares/Square Roots Sine/Cosine etc. You will probably need to eventually but much of the graft is taken out by using the complex math and keeping the real and imaginary parts separate until you need the real result. I have seen some components whose impedances are actually quoted as a complex number pair.

As for Laplace and the rest of Calculus. Due to having an absolutely awful maths tutor I never really got that stuff while at college. My Electrical and Electronics Theory Tutors were always amazed that I turned in so much homework in complex math (albeit correctly) rather than do so much less written work in calculus. Still, in over 30 years of career I have never really needed the calculus stuff but still use the complex math regularly enough. Some of my Forth programmes utilise the complex math techniques to keep calculations simple enough to manage easily.

Thank you for all the recommendations. I'll check into the books listed. I'm sure I have a long way to go; but hopefully this will give me a good jump start.

Hopefully I'll see you guys again soon,

and

to

the

amatuer

complex

Paul, you're right about needing to cite the book more plainly. The ISBN for the Floyd book I'm using is

Thanks for your perspective on the Laplace Transforms. Sounds like what I'm learning now will serve me well enough. I've also found that the TI-89 calculator is well-suited for the classwork; I can input complex impedances in rectangular form (real + imaginary impedances), and it can automatically display them in polar form (magnitude and degrees of phase angle).

Wayne

It's amazing how much you can do with the TI-89 once you learn how! I hated it when I first bought it because all my math instructors used the TI-83 in their classes; but once I figured out where everything was, I was living large! And boy does it ever come in handy when calculus throws in a Z-axes ;-).