Reddit reviews Practical Electronics for Inventors 2/E
We found 12 Reddit comments about Practical Electronics for Inventors 2/E. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Reddit reviews Practical Electronics for Inventors 2/EWe found 12 Reddit comments about Practical Electronics for Inventors 2/E. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Big fan of this one
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-Scherz/dp/0071452818
for a person with a visual mind I would suggest you start with [practical electronics for inventors] (http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-2-E/dp/0071452818/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1373135646&sr=8-2&keywords=practical+electronics+for+inventors) and an arduino (a specific microcontroller with a lot of helpful tutorials) to [cut your teeth on] (http://makezine.com/arduino/). Once you do a couple projects maybe interface with a couple chips you'll be on your way to creating whatever electronics you want.
Practical Electronics for Inventors is an amazing book which covers the basics of essentially every aspect of electronics a beginner would need to know. Seems to have had a problem with poor editing but it's cheap (under $30) and still far better than anything else out there.
The Art of Electronics is twenty years old and is still pretty much the standard reference for practical electrical engineering topics. Some sections show their age but still incredibly useful. A new edition is supposed to be coming out eventually.
I use this in my Electrical and computer engineering course in college...
Practical Electronics For Inventors
We are really only going over theory and some diode/transistors. But it was cheap and it looks like an excellent book that I will keep in my own personal library
and 20 bucks aint too shabby
Practical Electronics for Inventors is a great resource.
Investigate your local community colleges. It's becoming more and more common for them to have prototyping labs (with things like 3D printers and general machine shop resources) that are available (essentially) to the general public.
Several people recommended more entry-level books in the thread, these may be a good pick if you want results fast. They probably won't give you a full picture, but at least you will be able to put some basic circuits together to see if it's something you want to explore further.
My coworker speaks fondly of Practical Electronics for Inventors, but that's all I have.
On the pure electronics side, I have gone through a lot of allaboutcircuits.com, but not all of it. I bought a "wee blinky" a while back as a simple soldering exercise before I was comfortable enough with soldering to trust myself on more expensive components, and when I realized that I had no idea how it worked I did some research. I quickly found this link http://www.falstad.com/circuit/e-multivib-a.html and the site has some fantastic applets of other circuits that I found very useful in quickly understanding how they work. It is much more useful to me than a simple circuit diagram at this point. I also picked up a used copy of this book http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071452818/ref=oh_o03_s02_i00_details on the cheap, which is generally reviewed well other than it containing a lot of mathematical errors. I am comfortable enough with the math to work through it myself if I need to be sure of something, so that was not a concern for me. At some point I might pick up the "The art of electronics", but costs more than I want to spend right now.
On the projects side I have the Arduino Cookbook, which has been handy for helping me pick out projects to bite off from the comfort of my couch. It also has given me a good sense for what can be done in general and how much effort is involved. Obviously I keep an eye to the discussions here, and I also have spent time looking over the Arduino pages. "Interfacing With Hardware" (http://arduino.cc/playground/Main/InterfacingWithHardware) has some really good stuff linked from it. I look at the stuff John Boxall is doing at tronixstuff. I keep an eye on the make blog, and stuff on ladyada.net. I also look at any interesting Instructables I come across. I suppose I regularly scan most of the popular online channels for this stuff.
Other than that, I have just been biting off projects with no particular end goal in mind. I pick a component I want to get some experience with, get one, and do something with it. Then I pick something else and repeat. I have an assortment of parts on order from taydaelectronics that should arrive mid to late this month. When they get here I will experiment with them for a few weeks, and then order some more different things. Right now I am very much in exploration mode.
Edited for typos, and completeness.
If you need a quick, dirty, and practical explanation of EE concepts, I find that the Practical Electronics For Inventors is a good book. Otherwise the other books mentioned in this thread are quite good too.
This one http://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/2oenl0/beginner_here_need_advice_on_a_spider_robot_thing/
I posted a list there.
A motor will need more current then an Arduino pin can handle. If you connect one of the 2wd chassis motors under load it can fry your Arduino.
A transistor will conduct electricity when a small current is applied. So with your Arduino pins you can drive larger currents. Kind of like an switch... But Transistors will do more then that. You should grab a copy of "Getting started in electronics" (fun to read, not only for children, easy and still gives you a impression of the "inner workings" of electronics). Or practical electronics for inventors. Written well, not too complicated, but also includes a lot of important math and formulas.
Transistors, FET, diodes and such are basic components you will need all the time and it helps to understand what is going on if something is not working right. With a multimeter, the cheap arduino kit plus a bunch of transistors/led/capacitors and one of the books you are all set.
A H-Bridge module consists out of four transistors and can drive two motors forward and backward instead of just powering it on. These modules start at $1.30 but you can build them as well.
all I want to say is whatever you do, DO NOT buy This Book I did and I literally have 50 printed pages of errors and corrections. It makes it really hard to work through when you have to not only worry about doing it right but if the book is even right and reference the corrections.
The Synopsys book club has a list of EE/CS books that are either the clear standouts in their topic area or at the very least a good presentation of the material.
Two less theoretical books you might also be interested in, depending on what you are looking for:
The Circuit Designer's Companion by Tim Williams is a good overview of the practical aspects of turning a schematic into a working circuit. Grounding, how to choose the right type of cap/resistor/inductor, EMC, etc.
Practical Electronics for Inventors by Paul Scherz is similar to the Art of Electronics but is written at a more introductory level. It includes a lot of the important small details that either aren't covered in EE coursework or tend to get muddled in the slog through theory and are therefore easy to forget.
Best way to get back into EE stuff is to build some projects! Hackaday and EEVBlog are your friends, as are Sparkfun, Futurlec, and Digikey.
Practical Electronics for Inventors is an excellent reference for the price.