Hypothetically, If you where only allowed to read and have 3 books about electronics what would they be? This is pretty broad, so let's try and keep the focus on intermediate level, or above, books with an emphasis on analog electronics. Books on troubleshooting would be nice too.
Why just 3 books?... go to your local public library and look over a wide selection of books on the subject. "Electronics" is such a broad subject that there will be numerous subcatagories to chose from. Find books that fit your area of interest and check them out.... there will be many more than three books. As your experience and knowledge level increases you will then be checking out more in-depth and specific books. electricitym
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Nikolas Britt> Hypothetically, If you where only allowed to read and have 3 books
Yes but the question comes back around to what books do I check out, no pun intended.
Already on my list is the AoE but what other books can you guys recommend? what about this book: Troubleshooting Analog Circuits (The Edn Sries for Design Engineers) or this: How to Test Almost Anything Electronic by Delton T. Horn. or the other 5000 books on amazon.com.
What books are good for someone that has a firm grasp on basic electronics and electricity and wants to go to the next step and beyond, say for example a CE or EE degree?
Thanks but which ARRL handbook are we talking about, they have many? Also, does this book cover only RF stuff or is it more of a general book about electronics?
When I say troubleshooting I mean repair shop type not troubleshooting ciruct designs. For example, I have a Tek 2213 oscilloscope. I know what all the buttons and switches do but I really don't know how to use it in a practical way.
Wow, it's been a long time since you'be been in a library. Back about
20 years ago, they started to treat books like inventory, if they didn't circulate, they got shipped off to the yearly fundraising sale to bring in the lordly sum of $.50 each.
If I go to my local branch libraries, they probably have about five books on electronics at each one. Usually a donated copy of the ARRL Handbook and a ten year old book on VCR repair. And if you're lucky, The Art of Electronics and/or one of those big handbooks, like Reference Data for Radio Engineers, in the Reference section. (Down from thirty or forty books each when I was a kid, when they had all sorts of build your own ham gear, TV repair books, and even a PDP-8 system manual).
But, hey, all the self help books you can eat, and even Object Oriented Programming in Perl.
Mark Zenier snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com Washington State resident
None of those books you listed seem to be to popular NSM. The first book had 185 hits on google, the next one had 9 and the last one had 5. Thank you for replying though.
Nikolas Britton: The great thing about checking the books out from a library is that if you don't feel they are what you want you can "try" other books without having to purchase them. Then when you do find what kind of book you really do want you can make a much more informed purchase decision that is specific to your needs..... So....., frankly, since you apparently are not readily accepting the opinions of others in their reply postings to you ... you really should be doing a little legwork and researching this personally by getting yourself down to your library and looking over the different books. electricitym
I agree with you Electricitym... I'm doing the leg work right now... when I get to the library I'll have already made my "short list" of books to look at, based on the recommendations of others who play and work in electronics.
NSM, I didn't find a whole lot of info about Scroggie's book on amazon.com, It's out of print, no reviews, and is not for sale but I did find a book that list's Scroggie's book as a citation and that book looked really good based on the "inside the book" computer scans.
The name of the book is "A Practical Introduction to Electronic Circuits" by Martin Hartley Jones
"The ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications". There is a new one every year; the 2005 edition is ISBN 0-87259-928-0 . I think some older editions were titled "The ARRL Handbook for the Radio Amateur".
It emphasizes RF stuff, but it also has good coverage of basic electronics.
IIRC his books are quite good. The other books date back to the 1930's and have been reprinted and re-edited many, many times since then. That should tell you something. They're worth trying to borrow from your library.
I found a copy of scroggie's book at a library about 60 miles away through the online catalogs, maybe they can do an interlibrary transfer or what ever it's called.
So far none of the books listed here, even AoE, are available at the local libraries in town. I live in a podunk town of about 25,000 people, most of them are farmers, unskilled workers, or old people.
That's tough. Yes, look for those wherever you can. Also I have found "Electronic Measurements" - Terman and Petit, sometimes useful and own some of their books. Try Lindsay Books for reprints of old books - could be a fun way to learn. The Radio Experimenter series could be useful.
First one on my list would be _Getting Started in Electronics_ by Forrest Mims III. Radio Shack carried it, perhaps they still do. It's full-size paperback. Not expensive, crammed full of practical knowledge. This is the book that got me started in electronics and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Chances are you'll find some electronics books published by TAB at your library. I recommend staying away from these. On the whole, they're not bad, but they are almost always riddled with so many errors that you literally cannot depend on what they say. They also really cut corners when it comes to illustrations, making schematic diagrams so damned confusing that they're utterly worthless.
Look for back issues of electronics hobby magazines and ham radio mags. You can often find these by the boxful at hamfests.
Give "Practical Electronics for Inventors" by Paul Scherz a try--McGraw-Hill publisher-ISBN0-07-058078-2. Corny title buy a pretty good book-- $40 US.
Covers simple to complex circuit design and function--includes evaluation techiques for AC and DC circuits--gives detailed discussion of semiconductors, optoelectronics, IC's, Op Amps, filters, oscillators, timers, voltage regulators, power supplies, audio and digital electronics, motors (DC, RC, steppers)--requires some algebra and simple calculus--should be required study for any university EE degree program.
I have this book and I love it. I first bought a copy of the book around 1994 but some how it got lost along the way. Last year I was in the local radio shack looking for some electronics part and saw the book on the shelf, the only copy they had, and bought it on the spot. You can find a review of the book here:
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and you can buy it from here:
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The fondest thing I remember from when I first bought the book was using the voltage doublers and quad circuits in the back of the book. I would hook up the circuits with say a 25vac transformer off of the mains and then string a lot of large MFD caps in parallel. Then I would connect a wire to a nail and the other wire to a metal plate, makes for a nice arc welding intro. :-)
Does Forrest have any other good books that cover general electronics?
Thanks for the recommendation, I will check it out...
Right now I'm trying to stay away from the math and theory emphasized books. I have a few of those textbooks on my bookshelf that where given to me a long time ago. I have never read them because they jabber on about this and that math equation or theorem and don't tell or show me in a practical way why I need to know it.
I'm looking for books that are "readable", practical, and relatively light on math.
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