Best electrical & electronics books according to redditors
We found 1,080 Reddit comments discussing the best electrical & electronics books. We ranked the 417 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 1,080 Reddit comments discussing the best electrical & electronics books. We ranked the 417 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
If you move the decimal over. This is about 1,000 in books...
(If I had to pick a few for 100 bucks: encyclopedia of country living, survival medicine, wilderness medicine, ball preservation, art of fermentation, a few mushroom and foraging books.)
Medical:
Where there is no doctor
Where there is no dentist
Emergency War Surgery
The survival medicine handbook
Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine
Special Operations Medical Handbook
Food Production
Mini Farming
encyclopedia of country living
square foot gardening
Seed Saving
Storey’s Raising Rabbits
Meat Rabbits
Aquaponics Gardening: Step By Step
Storey’s Chicken Book
Storey Dairy Goat
Storey Meat Goat
Storey Ducks
Storey’s Bees
Beekeepers Bible
bio-integrated farm
soil and water engineering
Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation
Food Preservation and Cooking
Steve Rinella’s Large Game Processing
Steve Rinella’s Small Game
Ball Home Preservation
Charcuterie
Root Cellaring
Art of Natural Cheesemaking
Mastering Artesian Cheese Making
American Farmstead Cheesemaking
Joe Beef: Surviving Apocalypse
Wild Fermentation
Art of Fermentation
Nose to Tail
Artisan Sourdough
Designing Great Beers
The Joy of Home Distilling
Foraging
Southeast Foraging
Boletes
Mushrooms of Carolinas
Mushrooms of Southeastern United States
Mushrooms of the Gulf Coast
Tech
farm and workshop Welding
ultimate guide: plumbing
ultimate guide: wiring
ultimate guide: home repair
off grid solar
Woodworking
Timberframe Construction
Basic Lathework
How to Run A Lathe
Backyard Foundry
Sand Casting
Practical Casting
The Complete Metalsmith
Gears and Cutting Gears
Hardening Tempering and Heat Treatment
Machinery’s Handbook
How to Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic
Electronics For Inventors
Basic Science
Chemistry
Organic Chem
Understanding Basic Chemistry Through Problem Solving
Ham Radio
AARL Antenna Book
General Class Manual
Tech Class Manual
MISC
Ray Mears Essential Bushcraft
Contact!
Nuclear War Survival Skills
The Knowledge: How to rebuild civilization in the aftermath of a cataclysm
The Electrodynamics book by Griffiths is a standard textbook for a reason. He explains topics well and has good examples. This is the link to it.
Would probably be better to post this to r/ECE rather than to Hardware, but either way:
Shortly summarized:
A MOSFET is a 3-terminal device (4 if counting bulk, and there's also a 6T type), where you have Gate, Drain & Source. Assuming you know BJTs, you can "map" them as:
If again, we're comparing MOSFETs to BJTs, we can say that a MOSFET is a VCCS (Voltage controlled current-source), while BJTs are CCCS (Current controlled current-source). In other words, when you apply a voltage to the gate of a MOSFET you'll create a current at the drain of the MOSFET. The current that's generated depends of the operating region:
Normally one operates in the the saturation region.
Not sure how much details you want, but if you want to read more about MOSFETs you've got books such as Sedra & Smith or Razavi
-----
-----
BOOKS
Children Electronics and Electricity books:
Newbie Electronics books:
Basic Circuit Theory books:
Analog Design books:
Digital Design books:
(download old edition)
Digital Signal Processing books:
Computer Design books:
6502,
6800,
6809,
8080,
8085,
Z80,
68000,
x86
processors on Wikipedia.
8051,
ARM,
AVR,
PIC,
RISC-V
microcontrollers on Wikipedia.
Electronics Reference books:
Historical books:
-----
-----
MAGAZINES
Current Electronics Magazines: (subscribe now)
Historical Electronics Magazines: (archives)
Historical Computer Magazines: (archives)
"Kilobaud"
-----
That is advanced physics for you. If it were easy, there would be as many people in physics lectures as something like business administration. Most topics won't stick the first, second, or even third time around.
As for electromagnetics, I could recommend: https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-4th-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562
Feel free to get an older addition.
The Art of Electronics.
​
Years ago I got my 2 year degree in electronics. Afterwards I ran across this book and it filled in ALOT of blanks with more layman explanations.
Hey! I can relate exactly to where your'e coming from. I, some years ago, decided I wanted to get into building synths. I ended up getting a job at a pedal company and have spent more time learning to build and repair pedals than synths. I don't work there anymore, but it gave me a lot of perspective into the field as we also made euro-rack modules.
First up: I don't want to scare you off from this, but just want to give you a realistic perspective so that you go into this knowing what you are getting into. Making synths is hard and it's expensive. As far as electronic projects go, making a synthesizer is up there on the list. I've repaired powerplant turbine controller circuitboards that were simpler than some of the synths I've owned. This isn't to say, "don't do it!" but, expect to learn a lot of fundamental and intermediate stuff before you ever have something like a fully-featured synth that you built in your hands.
It's also expensive. A cheap synth prototype is going to cost a couple hundred bucks, easy, while a more fully-featured prototype could cost into the thousands to produce, and that's just to build one working prototype. If you want to make a run of products you're going to need money up front, and not a small amount. So, just be prepared for that inevitability.
One final note is that my perspective is broad (digital and analog) but is rooted in analog electronics because that's where I started. This isn't the only path you can take to get to where you want to go but honestly in my opinion, even if you're going to go mostly digital later, you need to understand analog.
If you have never messed with electronics much before I highly recommend the Make: Electronics book. I'm a hands-on person and this was the most effective book I found that let me study electronics fundamentals the way I wanted to; by making stuff! No matter which direction you go on (digital, analog, hybrid, DSP, SID, etc) you're going to want to know how to pick the right resistor, or how to pop an LED into a circuit, and this book will teach you that.
Solid follow-up books from there are Make: More Electronics, Practical Electronics for Inventors, How To Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic, and The Art of Electronics. All of these books are good books that touch on different concepts you will find useful, so I encourage you to look through them and decide for yourself which of these interests you.
Around this same time, I'd encourage you to start getting into kits. Honestly, before you build anything synth, I'm going to recommend you build some pedals. Effects pedals are fun and rewarding to build without being too hard. Start with a distortion circuit and work your way up from there. Once you can build a delay pedal without freaking out, move on to euro-rack kits, or other synth kits. While you're building these kits, don't just build them, play with the circuits! Try swapping components where you think you can, or adding features. One of my first kits was a distortion pedal with a single knob, but by the time I was done tweaking on it it had five knobs and two toggle switches!
Once you're feeling somewhat comfortable with electronics, then you can dive into the holy grail of analog synth design: Make: Analog Synthesizers this amazing book was written by the brilliant Ray Wilson who recently passed away. His life's goal was to bring the art of building analog synths into the hands of anyone who wanted to learn, and there is no better place to receive his great wisdom than this book. You should also check out his website Music From Outer Space along the way, but the book covers so much more than his website.
If you make through most or all of those resources you are going to be well-equipped to take on a career in synth-building! I'm personally still on that last step (trying to find the time to tackle Make: Analog Synthesizers) but hope within the next year or two to get that under my belt and start diving in deep myself. It's been a fun journey of learning and discovery and I wouldn't trade the skills I've gained in electronics for much.
Hope this helps, good luck!
The Art of Electronics 2nd Edition
I have had good results with this book.
Practical Electronics for Inventors
If youre asking a question about a resistor and an LED, I bet you will have more complex questions about EE topics as you go forward. The book is good for engineering minds that havent studied EE in my experience. Plus the book is pretty cheap for the amount of knowledge inside.
Griffiths for Quantum Mechanics and E&M
Taylor's Classical Mechanics
Kittel & Kroemer for Statistical Thermodynamics
These are the only ones I can attest to personally, they're for undergraduate level understanding. Kittel&Kroemer can seem dense and difficult to understand at first, but once you work through problems and spend time on each chapter, it will become apparent how efficient the book is.
Personally, I think the best place for a lay-person to start getting a technical grasp of electronics is from the "Navy Electricity and
Electronics Training Series" (NEETS) modules. The modules don't always describe the electrical behavior in a rigorous physics/engineering based way, but instead, they provide more practical explanations and applications. The best part is that they are freely available here.
As a next step, the standard go-to book is The Art of Electronics, which while it is a little pricey, covers a greater breadth of topics at a greater depth.
edit: typo.
It's a fantastic book. No need to get all of them though, this is a pic of the third edition (2015), the second edition (1989), and the first edition (1980). You can skip the first and second.
The Art of Electronics. Otherwise, his textbooks should suffice.
I would say the Art of Electronics is great for people who don't have an exceptional math base. So in that sense yes it is good.
I've always found however that the Art of Electronics is not as great as a book to read from front to back. To me it is better as a reference text.
To know what else to recommend I would need to know what exactly your skill level is. The first book where I truly began to learn electronics in university was Sedra and Smith's Microelectronic Circuits. For the most part the math is not too difficult, however it is still university level so it helps to know at least basic calculus. I think you could probably get by without calculus however for at least the early chapters (first half or so) which comprises a first course in electronics.
Well, electronics is a huge field, and especially if you're going to get into software radio, basic fundamentals of amplifiers and modulation techniques is a must. Don't get discouraged though, internet is abound in information.
Here are some books that may help to start:
The Art of Electronics
Especially if you can get the used Cambridge Low Price Edition. Either way, it's a good book for fundamentals, a classic too.
This book is ok:
Communications Receivers
For general electronics knowledge, some undergrad EE textbooks are solid gold.
Here's one that's great:
Circuits, Devices and Systems
Edit:
Another excellent resource for folks dabbling in electronics are these free simulators:
Paul Falstad's Circuit Simulator
Hades
The above are great before one gets to dip into SPICE.
Thanks!
link for anyone interested: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
Buy yourself of copy of the art of electronics. Pick one or two topics from that book every day and read about them. It covers pretty much every aspect of EE without going into an insane amount of detail. Use that to narrow your focus once you find something that really interests you. EE is a huge area of engineering and you’re not gonna like all aspects of it but the art of electronics is a great start.
The Art of Electronics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521809266/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_FeY5BbNKDNXSF
Edit: to add on to this. Adafruit has a ton of more entry level friendly tutorials and stuff. Find a component on their store and they’ll have tons of projects and tutorials using those components. They don’t get much in to how it all works. You’re going to have to read for that. Kahn academy is pretty good at explaining stuff too.
Introduction to Electrodynamics
When I took my electronics class I completely hated Sedra and Smith during the first half of the semester. As things began to make sense and my time playing at the lab increased I finally understood how awesome the book is.
Learning electronics is a lot like music. There is an insane amount of information, but if you get an economic working knowledge under your belt, you can really do some amazing things. In order for you not to get lost in the rabbit hole, I will provide you these methods of learning practical hobby electronics.
First, is simply just a suggestion. There are two "domains" of electronic thinking and analysis: digital and analogue. Fuck analog right in its dumb face. The math used in analog is fucking super duper hard, and analog circuits are prone to interference problems. Digital is where you want to be. It's vastly simpler to use programmable digital parts, and analyze digital circuits. Don't get lost in AC equations of capacitor, or the god damned transistor equation (seriously, fuck that. )
Okay here is how I learned hobby digital electronics:
First buy this, and go through all the examples in the workbooks. When you learn electronics you 100% HAVE TO DO HANDS ON LEARNING! DONT LEARN IT FROM A BOOK! MAKE CIRCUITS!
https://www.amazon.com/Radio-Shack-Electronics-Learning-20-055/dp/B00GYYEL8I
At the same time, read this (which is a good topical explanation, and free):
http://jacquesricher.com/NEETS/
And buy and read this (which is an EXCELLENT formal introduction into the physics):
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336
Also you are going to learn how to program, which is an entirely different topic. Programming and hobby electronics make you a master of the universe, so it's worth it. I learned programming in the electronics domain and it was awesome. I made a microcontroller FM synthesizer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TvuzTK3Dzk
So basically, the way I learned programming in general was self-teaching with books. Again, you have to do it hands-on. Actually complete the examples in the books, and you'll be fine.
First, learn procedural c programming using C primer plus. Buy an older version so it'll be super cheap:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0672326965/ref=sr_1_3_twi_pap_1_olp?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465827790&sr=1-3&keywords=c+primer+plus
Next, learn Object oriented programming using head first java. They do a great job of tackling OOP, which can be a difficult thing to learn.
https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Java-Kathy-Sierra/dp/0596009208/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465827860&sr=1-1&keywords=head+first+java
You're overwhelmed because they're deep topics. But, seriously, its the most fun shit ever. You'll love learning how to do it.
No, neither this book nor The Art of Electronics is good for beginners. I recommend Practical Electronics for Inventors. (Ignore the "Inventors" part, the book has nothing to do with that.)
I did learn all of this stuff from experience. Honestly, I had a little bit of a tough time right out of college because I didn't have much practical circuit design experience. I now feel like I have a very good foundation for that and it came through experience, learning from my peers, and lots of research. I have no affiliation with Henry Ott, but I treat his book like a bible . I refer to it just about every time I do a board design. Why? because it's packed with this type of practical information. Here's his book. I bought mine used as cheap as I could. At my previous job, they just had one in the library. Either way, it was good to have around.
So why should you care about electromagnetic compatibility (EMC)? A couple reasons:
Anyways, it's definitely worth looking at and is a huge asset if you can follow those guidelines. Be prepared to enter the workforce and see rampant disregard for EMC best practices as well as rampant EMC problems in existing products. This is common because, as I said, it's not taught and engineers often don't know what tools to use to fix it. It often leads to expensive solutions where a few extra caps and a better layout would have sufficed.
A couple more books I personally like and use:
Howard Johnson, High Speed Digital Design (it's from 1993, but still works well)
Horowitz and Hill, The Art of Electronics (good for understanding just about anything, good for finding tricks and ideas to help you for problems you haven't solved before but someone probably has)
Last thing since I'm sitting here typing anyways:
When I first got out of college, I really didn't trust myself even when I had done extensive research on a particular part of design. I was surrounded by engineers who also didn't have the experience or knowledge to say whether I was on the right path or not. It's important to use whatever resources you have to gain experience, even if those resources are books alone. It's unlikely that you will be lucky and get a job working with the world's best EE who will teach you everything you need to know. When I moved on from my first job after college, I found out that I was on the right path on many things thanks to my research and hard work. This was in opposition to my thinking before then as my colleagues at my first job were never confident in our own ability to "do EE the right way" - as in, the way that engineers at storied, big companies like Texas Instruments and Google had done. Hope that anecdotal story pushes you to keep going and learning more!
Mostly YouTube videos and online articles. One book in particular I do recommend however is "Practical Electronics for Inventors". Tons of great information, but may be a bit too much if you're a complete noob.
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541
These websites also have lots of great info:
http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/
https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/
Best online resource: All about circuits
Best Book: Art of Electronics
Best starting projects: Working with the basic stamp (though any other microcontroller kit would work just as well)
It was called "The Art of Electronics"
Here's the Amazon link.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521809266/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_yd.UBbKSAF1SH
assuming you have all the fundamental physic, you can start with the textbook from allaboutcircuits's textbook. A introduction to electronic book. It is about 2000 pages covering all basics of electronics. I think it is a great read and easy to understand, written for beginners.
After that you should read Make:AVR programming. It is quite enjoyable read and I read it in 2 sitting. A computer engineering book specifically targeting microcontroller. And as the name imply, it is about 8 bit AVR which is easily the most popular arduino variant. It covers a lot of detail on microcontroller basics and underlying electronic concept and working principles.
To supplement the above book, read a atmel datasheet on one of their microcontroller (atmega328 is a good choice).
For optional knowledge you can try Make's Encyclopedia Of Electronic Components It basically covers all electronic components and introduce you to it. I didn't like too much because you cant read it as a book but should use it as a reference to a particular component you are interested it. It is a great way to broaden your scope on what components is available to you.
Then for the advanced stuff you can read the The Art of Electronics By many it is consider the holy grail of electronic textbook. But I think it is difficult to read without an formal EE education.
In India at least, we have official Indian editions of American textbooks. The only difference is the quality of paper used, binding and print quality, and the fact that the textbook is b&w. But this doesn't matter, and obviously the 75% price drop is more valuable. Good deal.
Edit:
For example, Indian ed vs American ed
I polled Reddit once, asking which books everyone would recommend. This one was by far the most suggested, followed by Practical Electronics for Inventors. I was gifted both last Christmas, but still haven't found the time to open them up. I'd like to go on a vacation somewhere cozy, and just power through this one.
The "... for Inventors" book is more something that you'd reference on an as-needed basis. Not as much teaching and instruction as this one.
David J. Griffiths: E+M book, QM book.
Chances are you recognize him now?
Old retired guy here......
On my bucket list, I thought I'd take a shot at learning some physics from the bottom up. Here are some observations from someone who tried to learn it without any worries about needing it for a major or trying to get into grad school.
First, elementary physics labs stink. Sometimes you get stuck with a bad lab partner. Other times the equipment is in really bad shape and simply will not work so that the experiment will do what it is supposed to do. If you get a lab assistant who does not know what he/she is doing - and there are quite a few of those - you can forget about a decent lab experience.
Second, intermediate physics labs can be great. I was teamed with an undergraduate I still refer to as Mr. GoldenHands. He could make any piece of lab equipment do what he wanted it to do and what it was supposed to do. I would do calculations and draw graphs while he got the data out with only a little help from me. Furthermore, the lab assistant we had was actually a full professor of physics who was an experienced experimentalist. What my partner did not know about the equipment, he did. Great course.
Physics exams are unnecessarily hard. In a Mathematics exam, students are usually asked about material they have some shot at solving. They will be asked for definitions or statements of theorems that they have seen. They will be asked to answer questions about material they already have seen. In a physics exam, you will get a question completely out of left field that seems to have no relation to anything you have studied previously. No wonder average grades on exams sometimes in the thirties or forties.
Physics professors in undergraduate classes frequently have curricular tunnel vision. "This is the mechanics book. I will go through the book chapter by chapter frequently skipping chapters I do not like. If somebody ask me a question I can not answer such as 'What is the difference between the Lagrangian and Newtonian formulations of mechanics and why is one preferable to the other?' I will brush it off."
(I actually asked this question and got brushed off.) Don't do that!
SLOW DOWN!!!! Physicists seem to be very interested in moving through a course at a breakneck pace that does not allow for any time for internalizing a subject. I'll give an example. Look at Introduction to Electrodynamics by David Griffiths. On page ix of the third edition, Griffith's says that the book can be covered "comfortably in two semesters." A little later, he talks about one semester courses finishing chapter seven. OK. I took a one semester course from that book. The professor skipped chapter one - it was only mathematics, so that was ok by me - and then went like a house-afire and ended the first semester at the end of chapter 10. He did not make any attempt to make the material intuitive. (I had a terrible time with current density.) He just motored through it symbol by symbol and expected everybody to understand. We didn't. (I am going to take another course in electrodynamics at another university some day just so I can understand Maxwell's equations. For me there is nothing riding on this except intellectual curiosity. For other undergraduates, the type of course I just described was a killer.)
I'll stop now but I am sure there are other who could chime in with other problems.
Bottom Line: I like physics and I intend to learn more, but physics teaching should change.
It seems to me that introductory electromagnetism is, physically, very simple.
If the subject is difficult, I suspect it has more to do with the math than the physics. Unlike introductory mechanics, most problems in E/M rely heavily on vectors and vector calculus (and for many students E/M is also a first introduction to other more sophisticated mathematical ideas, like Laplace's equation and coordinate transformations).
As far as introductory level books go, though, I think Griffiths handles the added mathematical rigour of E/M quite well. Griffiths explains his math in great detail throughout the text, and chapter 1 is a thorough and complete, but straightforward and simple, treatment of vector calculus; I recommend that you study it in great detail (and work many problems) before continuing to the physics. Preparation in linear algebra is probably also helpful as well.
Also, keep in mind that there are several approaches to electromagnetism. As I recall, Griffiths develops the theory more or less historically, and only makes the connection with special relativity in the final chapters. If you want to look at the ideas from another angle, you could try a book like Purcell or Schwartz, which use special relativity to derive magnetism as a theoretical, rather than experimental, result. Personally, I find this approach more elegant, interesting, and even a little easier; nonetheless, understanding both approaches is important in the long run.
Edit: By the way, another book to consider is Shadowitz (I have only read the first 5 chapters, and I still recommend it on that basis alone). Shadowitz develops the basic theory very logically and consistently: chapters 2 through 5 cover the divergence and curl of E and B (one chapter each). At times the explanations are lengthy, but this might be useful for a struggling student.
You have to "bootstrap" somewhere. At the VERY bottom is generally NOT a productive or practical way to do it. We used to have a joke in EE school: "If want a good laugh, ask a physicist to design a circuit for you". The reason it's funny is they'll start designing from quantum mechanics or Maxwell's equation as they usually don't ever learn all the tricks we have in EE to "short-circuit" the process.
Basically start with analog circuits (Ohm's law) for DC, advance to AC and then to circuits and systems. You can go deeper but at the start frankly most people will get wrapped around the axle and give up first.
Everything from Grand Unification up to your iPhone is built on approximate models with assumptions that are not strictly correct all of the time if ever. In electronics you have circuits bounded by Quantum Mechanics and Maxwell's Equations as "actual physics". You can't actually use these for 99% of anything practical so these are not the best starting points.
Instead you use approximate models like Lumped Equivalent Model (which is what resistors, capacitors and inductors are: that resistor in your hand - it's not real - just an approximation). But you don't really want to learn that up front.
However if you want a reference that goes into the physics of electronics I'd recommend The Physics of Information Technology. Not cheap so borrow it from a library first.
But ONLY use it when you get that itch to naively dig into the physics for a quick dip or overview or orientation. Otherwise use regular electrical engineering (EE) intro analog circuit textbooks or something like Horowitz' Art of Electronics
Unless you have a physics or engineering degree TPIT will still go straight over your head mostly (the author is an MIT professor and he relatively gentle by BSEE/BS Physics standards on the math but it's brutal if you haven't had several years of university math).
The Art of Electronics, 2nd Edition. You can easily find free pdf versions of the book online just by typing "the art of electronics pdf" into google. Or you can purchase the book on sites like amazon for ~$100.
Get a practical electronics book right off the bat if you are into electronics. Something like this (or perhaps this):
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336?ie=UTF8&keywords=electrical%20engineering&qid=1460691202&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1
Also note the price-tag. This book is a gem.
University textbooks often don't have the right mindset to them and now that I've finished my degree and out in the workforce I'm realizing this. You want a book that will actually teach you how to build something. The field of EE also loves to apply a whole bunch of meanings to a few terms, for example "electricity" and "grounding", which can very easily confuse and mislead beginners. Practical books tend to address these things a bit better in my opinion. This applies to any field - I'm an Industrial Engineer (power, motors, control, safety) and also own a book of this type on my field - here in Canada we have Techs and Engineers. The Techs tend to learn how to actually do things, and these are the types of books they read.
Regarding textbooks: something I've only discovered recently is buying Eastern Edition textbooks as they're much cheaper and essentially the same thing.
Author of two widely used undergratuate physics texts: one for Electricity and Magnetism and one for Quantum Mechanics. He also authored the somewhat-less-widely used (perhaps mainly because it's a specialist subject in most undergrad programs) Introduction to Elementary Particles.
I'd like to give you my two cents as well on how to proceed here. If nothing else, this will be a second opinion. If I could redo my physics education, this is how I'd want it done.
If you are truly wanting to learn these fields in depth I cannot stress how important it is to actually work problems out of these books, not just read them. There is a certain understanding that comes from struggling with problems that you just can't get by reading the material. On that note, I would recommend getting the Schaum's outline to whatever subject you are studying if you can find one. They are great books with hundreds of solved problems and sample problems for you to try with the answers in the back. When you get to the point you can't find Schaums anymore, I would recommend getting as many solutions manuals as possible. The problems will get very tough, and it's nice to verify that you did the problem correctly or are on the right track, or even just look over solutions to problems you decide not to try.
Basics
I second Stewart's Calculus cover to cover (except the final chapter on differential equations) and Halliday, Resnick and Walker's Fundamentals of Physics. Not all sections from HRW are necessary, but be sure you have the fundamentals of mechanics, electromagnetism, optics, and thermal physics down at the level of HRW.
Once you're done with this move on to studying differential equations. Many physics theorems are stated in terms of differential equations so really getting the hang of these is key to moving on. Differential equations are often taught as two separate classes, one covering ordinary differential equations and one covering partial differential equations. In my opinion, a good introductory textbook to ODEs is one by Morris Tenenbaum and Harry Pollard. That said, there is another book by V. I. Arnold that I would recommend you get as well. The Arnold book may be a bit more mathematical than you are looking for, but it was written as an introductory text to ODEs and you will have a deeper understanding of ODEs after reading it than your typical introductory textbook. This deeper understanding will be useful if you delve into the nitty-gritty parts of classical mechanics. For partial differential equations I recommend the book by Haberman. It will give you a good understanding of different methods you can use to solve PDEs, and is very much geared towards problem-solving.
From there, I would get a decent book on Linear Algebra. I used the one by Leon. I can't guarantee that it's the best book out there, but I think it will get the job done.
This should cover most of the mathematical training you need to move onto the intermediate level physics textbooks. There will be some things that are missing, but those are usually covered explicitly in the intermediate texts that use them (i.e. the Delta function). Still, if you're looking for a good mathematical reference, my recommendation is Lua. It may be a good idea to go over some basic complex analysis from this book, though it is not necessary to move on.
Intermediate
At this stage you need to do intermediate level classical mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, and thermal physics at the very least. For electromagnetism, Griffiths hands down. In my opinion, the best pedagogical book for intermediate classical mechanics is Fowles and Cassidy. Once you've read these two books you will have a much deeper understanding of the stuff you learned in HRW. When you're going through the mechanics book pay particular attention to generalized coordinates and Lagrangians. Those become pretty central later on. There is also a very old book by Robert Becker that I think is great. It's problems are tough, and it goes into concepts that aren't typically covered much in depth in other intermediate mechanics books such as statics. I don't think you'll find a torrent for this, but it is 5 bucks on Amazon. That said, I don't think Becker is necessary. For quantum, I cannot recommend Zettili highly enough. Get this book. Tons of worked out examples. In my opinion, Zettili is the best quantum book out there at this level. Finally for thermal physics I would use Mandl. This book is merely sufficient, but I don't know of a book that I liked better.
This is the bare minimum. However, if you find a particular subject interesting, delve into it at this point. If you want to learn Solid State physics there's Kittel. Want to do more Optics? How about Hecht. General relativity? Even that should be accessible with Schutz. Play around here before moving on. A lot of very fascinating things should be accessible to you, at least to a degree, at this point.
Advanced
Before moving on to physics, it is once again time to take up the mathematics. Pick up Arfken and Weber. It covers a great many topics. However, at times it is not the best pedagogical book so you may need some supplemental material on whatever it is you are studying. I would at least read the sections on coordinate transformations, vector analysis, tensors, complex analysis, Green's functions, and the various special functions. Some of this may be a bit of a review, but there are some things Arfken and Weber go into that I didn't see during my undergraduate education even with the topics that I was reviewing. Hell, it may be a good idea to go through the differential equations material in there as well. Again, you may need some supplemental material while doing this. For special functions, a great little book to go along with this is Lebedev.
Beyond this, I think every physicist at the bare minimum needs to take graduate level quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and statistical mechanics. For quantum, I recommend Cohen-Tannoudji. This is a great book. It's easy to understand, has many supplemental sections to help further your understanding, is pretty comprehensive, and has more worked examples than a vast majority of graduate text-books. That said, the problems in this book are LONG. Not horrendously hard, mind you, but they do take a long time.
Unfortunately, Cohen-Tannoudji is the only great graduate-level text I can think of. The textbooks in other subjects just don't measure up in my opinion. When you take Classical mechanics I would get Goldstein as a reference but a better book in my opinion is Jose/Saletan as it takes a geometrical approach to the subject from the very beginning. At some point I also think it's worth going through Arnold's treatise on Classical. It's very mathematical and very difficult, but I think once you make it through you will have as deep an understanding as you could hope for in the subject.
I started with circuit bending. I took a student-taught class as part of the Oberlin College ExCo, which is the Experimental College, where any student can teach a class for a single credit, provided they can demonstrate to a faculty panel that they have something to teach and a plan on how to teach it. That got me started on instrument building, and also on circuit design. I worked on that as a hobby for several years, until eventually I was friends with some people who were getting into Eurorack manufacturing: the 4MS crew, when they were still in Austin. Ralph and Dan encouraged me to move from bending (and breaking) toys into creating circuits, and gave me a few good starting tips (and copies of a few Forrest Mims books, which are absolutely invaluable). Another year or two after that, I was talking with Mickey, and he mentioned that he had the good problem that his modules were selling too fast, and he was bored of soldering, and wanted more time to design. I piped up quick. "I know how to solder! I'm very good at it." The second part was a lie. It's true now, though! Everything more advanced that I know about circuits I've learned from Mickey, the internet, and a bit more book learnin', especially from The Art of Electronics. I told the story of getting started on the pedal (which was my first commercial pedal) elsewhere in this thread.
The biggest hiccup was finding ROHS compliant vactrols! But we're cool on that now. Thanks, XVIVE!
Understanding a circuit does require understanding the fundmantal building blocks. For that, there is no better guide than the Art of Electronics. While you might find a guide that says, "this circuit works with a common emitter amplifier," you aren't going to find guides that alway explain those fundamental circuits.
That's where AoE comes in. All of the building blocks are explain in plain simple language. It is worth every penny and I recommend everyone who is interested in circuit design to have a copy. If you can get a good deal on the 2nd edition (e.g. half the price of the 3rd), then go that route. The vast majority of the information is still fine on the older book.
This book used to be/still is what people swear by.
This should NOT be the first book you buy and open, it is too intense to start with. However, it should be something you look at in your quest to understand it all.
The Art of Electronics
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
TCP/IP Illustrated, Vol 1-3, W. Richard Stevens.
The Art of Electronics 3rd Edition, Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill.
Gravitation, Charles W. Misner, John Archibald Wheeler, and Kip Thorne.
https://contextualelectronics.com/ by /u/Chris_Gammell
https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-electronics-1-basic-circuit-mitx-6-002-1x-0
https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-electronics-2-amplification-mitx-6-002-2x-0
https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-electronics-3-applications-mitx-6-002-3x-0
https://www.edx.org/course/embedded-systems-shape-the-world-microcontroller-inputoutput
The Art of Electronics https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0521809266/
Learning the Art of Electronics: A Hands-On Lab Course https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0521177235/
A couple of recommendations:
First, there are the classic Forrest Mims books they are the quintessential beginner level books. Radio Shack used to sell them. They are very introductory and tend to be rather brief for easy consumption. I'm not a huge fan of the style personally but others LOVE them a lot. Many many many hobbyists and engineers got their start with these books.
Another option I like a lot is Practical Electronics for Inventors, 3rd Ed. by Paul Scherz and Simon Monk. This book is a great beginners book that will take you nicely into circuit theory and things like that. Not as advanced as an academic tome but advanced enough for you to learn a good amount and establish a solid foundation.
Lastly, there is the very advanced Art of Electronics 3rd Ed. by Horowitz and Hill. This is the classic introductory text for engineers and hobbyists alike. It is very math heavy but you will have a very very good understanding of what's going on.
One non-book recommendation is the AllAboutCircuits online textbook tutorial. It is pretty well enumerated and detailed, though it is a bit lacking in sample problems. A great free resource that you can start learning now.
Beyond this, once you get a solid foundation. You can start focusing in specific areas like digital, power, precision measurements, etc.
If you can get your hands on a copy of 'Fundamentals of Power Electronics' read chapter 12. The chapters on magnetics design are extremely helpful if/when you start winding your own transformers and inductors.
Build a couple of kits from Velleman. Buy an Arduino and play with it. Pick out one of these books and follow it in your lab. Purchase a copy of Practical Electronics for Inventors.
Electrosmash has some great analysis articles on some classic pedals. They get into different components and design choices in exacting detail. If you don't know anything at all about electronics, a lot of stuff will be a mysterious (what's an op amp??) until you read about a specific part (oh, it's a miniature integrated circuit with some transistors that lets you amplify a signal using a fixed gain set by some resistors). But seeing the parts in context will give you an idea what they're doing. A lot of electronics guides focus on on the abstract mathematical relationships between components, which are important but don't give you the "what's this do" information you might be looking for. Practical electronics for inventors is a good book that covers fundamentals with common examples.
Hey buddy!
I'm a college senior studying computer engineering (the hardware side of computer science). I'm about to hook you up.
For the circuits and electronic components. This book is so good we used it for two of my classes. Oh and it is relatively cheap. It also explains the physics in a really approachable way.
You are going to need to learn to program in C, This game is free and is a great place to start!!
You are also going to need a good, cheap source of electronic components. Mouser is what I use.
In short here is your checklist!
I'm taking E&M now and we're using Griffiths. I'm not totally for sure, but I think it's the standard text for E&M.
IMO schematic capture is just not the way to go. The applications of FPGAs are just too big these days for that low-level approach. (I am making a distinction between gate-level schematics and high-level descriptions, where you are describing huge blocks of complexity).
If you are doing small circuits that you would define by gates, you might even be better off doing it with discrete logic chips.
https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Art-Electronics-Hands-Course/dp/0521177235/
For small circuits in HDL, you can use free simulators.
Also I'm not sure what you mean by "older version of the programming language." Older chips sometimes mean you have to use the older development environments but the languages VHDL vs. Verilog or System Verilog is not really about old-vs-new.
Some people like this book: Art of Electronics
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
It's not synth-specific, but definitely get yourself a copy of Horowitz and Hill's textbook "The Art of Electronics". I've yet to meet a synth-head or electrician lacking one. This'll tell you all about op-amps, fundamental building blocks of filters, oscillators, and other complex elements, and even power electronics if you're interested in power supply design. (No exaggeration, it starts and Ohm's law and ends with complex filters, PLLs, and how to program your new discrete-digital computer in assembly.) Again, not synth-specific, but the book explores how all of these things may be used in application. This'll help you develop intuition to break down complex synth diagrams and how exponential converters work, for example.
I haven't picked up a copy, but I've heard nothing but good things about The Art of Electronics. Apparently it's very design-oriented and light on the math rape.
Pretty expensive, but finding a pdf may be possible.
http://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Vol-Berkeley-Physics/dp/0070049084/
You've demonstrated you don't know how an electrical load works, which is similar in DC and AC, based on your comments. Get through something like this before you tackle anything AC.
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336
You can cause damage with DC stuff, but usually you'll pop ICs or other discrete components before anything too terrible happens. Mess around with AC and get it wrong and you've started a house fire or electrocuted yourself.
[when the hat is phat] (https://www.amazon.ca/Microelectronic-Circuits-Adel-Sedra/dp/0195323033)
A lot of my professors put their video lectures on youtube now so those are a lot of great videos to watch, but I'm not sure on the rules of whether or not I'm supposed to share them so I can only link the ones that have public Youtube channels.
For Electronics (BJTs, MOSFETs, Feedback networks and things like that) you're gonna want to eiter download or buy a copy of this book (https://www.amazon.com/Microelectronic-Circuits-Electrical-Computer-Engineering/dp/0199339139). It's a pretty easy to follow text that is great for learning all the basics of micro electronics. Most universities use is so there are a lot of lectures using that text as reference.
For Digital systems (El E 235), and some useful Engineering matrix math and probability (Engr 310) on this channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf4G95tHQPnphwpfrkzelgA
and https://www.youtube.com/user/OleMissVLSI (EL E 385 for computer architecture and the like)
For basic circuits this channel is good.
https://www.youtube.com/user/RebelsLoveCircuits
Programming is best learned on codeacademy.com unless you want to learn C or something lower level, in which case i'm not too sure where to do that other than a course or reading a book online.
For your basic math and calculus you'll want
https://www.youtube.com/user/patrickJMT (the real mvp)
and Kahn Academy of course.
Then once you've gotten down the Laplace Transforms and understand the Laplace domain and Frequency domains, you can go onto my favourite topic in El E which is control theory. For that you're gonna want:
https://www.youtube.com/watchv=oBc_BHxw78s&list=PLUMWjy5jgHK1NC52DXXrriwihVrYZKqjk.
I'm not really sure what else there is, but If you can think of any specific topic I can try to find the best material I remember using.
Maybe try applied math programs. Some of them seem to have astrophysics faculty https://www.princeton.edu/gradschool/about/catalog/fields/applied_mathematics/. You'll probably have an easier time getting in with your background and can take the math GREs. In a physics BS you would at least have the knowledge of these books:
http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-John-R-Taylor/dp/189138922X,
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-4th-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396384599&sr=1-1&keywords=griffiths,
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Quantum-Mechanics-David-Griffiths/dp/0131118927/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396384599&sr=1-2&keywords=griffiths,
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Thermal-Physics-Daniel-Schroeder/dp/0201380277/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396384625&sr=1-1&keywords=schroeder+statistical+physics.
The more you know from those books, the better. Although an applied math program, probably wouldn't expect you to have read all of them. Also try x-posting to /r/askacademia. I'm sure someone there could be more helpful.
John Taylor's Classical Mechanics and David Griffith's Introduction to Electrodynamics might be more your speed. They've been the texts for my Classical Mechanics and E&M courses.
This should keep you busy, but I can suggest books in other areas if you want.
Math books:
Algebra: http://www.amazon.com/Algebra-I-M-Gelfand/dp/0817636773/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251516690&sr=8
Calc: http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-4th-Michael-Spivak/dp/0914098918/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356152827&sr=1-1&keywords=spivak+calculus
Calc: http://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Dover-Books-Mathematics/dp/048663518X
Linear algebra: http://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Modern-Introduction-CD-ROM/dp/0534998453/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255703167&sr=8-4
Linear algebra: http://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Dover-Mathematics-ebook/dp/B00A73IXRC/ref=zg_bs_158739011_2
Beginning physics:
http://www.amazon.com/Feynman-Lectures-Physics-boxed-set/dp/0465023827
Advanced stuff, if you make it through the beginning books:
E&M: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-Edition-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375653392&sr=8-1&keywords=griffiths+electrodynamics
Mechanics: http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Dynamics-Particles-Systems-Thornton/dp/0534408966/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375653415&sr=8-1&keywords=marion+thornton
Quantum: http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Quantum-Mechanics-2nd-Edition/dp/0306447908/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375653438&sr=8-1&keywords=shankar
Cosmology -- these are both low level and low math, and you can probably handle them now:
http://www.amazon.com/Spacetime-Physics-Edwin-F-Taylor/dp/0716723271
http://www.amazon.com/The-First-Three-Minutes-Universe/dp/0465024378/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1356155850&sr=8-1&keywords=the+first+three+minutes
The textbook Introduction to Electrodynamics is a fantastic book. We used it for a couple of our E&M courses. See if you can find a pdf online of it somewhere and have a look through it. The previous edition (3rd) is also fantastic, if you can find it online as a pdf or on the cheap somewhere.
Understanding vector fields very well was key, in my experience.
While it looks kind of scary by its size and thickness I like The Art of Electronics (https://www.amazon.ca/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524591686&sr=8-1&keywords=the+art+of+electronics&dpID=51oDPY4SbfL&preST=_SX198_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch) with its lab companion volume (https://www.amazon.ca/Learning-Art-Electronics-Hands-Course/dp/0521177235/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1524591686&sr=8-2&keywords=the+art+of+electronics&dpID=51DvCTSt%252BeL&preST=_SX198_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch).
I also highly recommend Learning the Art of Electronics student manual as well, if you're still getting into electronics.
In my experience, I consult this book just as much as AoE.
I was thinking about using Designing Analog Chips by Hans Camenzind along with The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz as a guide for projects to do. I also recognize its important to know to design digital electronics (even though it may not necessarily be my strength) and know how to do research if I do end up doing the PhD so I was also looking into these books: link 1, link 2, and link 3. Are there any other books I should look into?
Amazon have April 30th 2015. http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/
The Circuit Designer's Companion was a great resource when I was getting started. I've got the second edition and still use it from time to time. I think they're on the third edition now. ISBN 0-7506-6370-7
The "Bible" of power electronics is Fundamentals of Power Electronics and the included slides are here
For Calculus:
Calculus Early Transcendentals by James Stewart
^ Link to Amazon
Khan Academy Calculus Youtube Playlist
For Physics:
Introductory Physics by Giancoli
^ Link to Amazon
Crash Course Physics Youtube Playlist
Here are additional reading materials when you're a bit farther along:
Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences by Mary Boas
Modern Physics by Randy Harris
Classical Mechanics by John Taylor
Introduction to Electrodynamics by Griffiths
Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by Griffiths
Introduction to Particle Physics by Griffiths
The Feynman Lectures
With most of these you will be able to find PDFs of the book and the solutions. Otherwise if you prefer hardcopies you can get them on Amazon. I used to be adigital guy but have switched to physical copies because they are easier to reference in my opinion. Let me know if this helps and if you need more.
As an electronics engingeer, purchase a copy of "The art of electronics"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0521370957/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1321710457&sr=8-1
This book, although expensive, covers almost everything you would learn pursuing a degree in electrical or electronics engineering. Its a great bench reference book when you need it.
The trick is find an area of electronics that interest you. The Arduino is a great place to start.
Okay, I think i may have came across a great source for those who want to learn more about video.
Video Tutorials
Also some books I would suggest for those who are at least somewhat knowledgeable of electronics:
Active Filter Cookbook
CMOS Cookbook
Art of Electronics
​
I would also highly recommend brushing up on your math, if you want to build more advanced electronics. It's not impossible to learn, just take your time.
Embedded Systems: Introduction to Arm Cortex-M Microcontrollers , Fifth Edition (Volume 1) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1477508996/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_lEcJBbGEZ1DE5
Digital Design and Computer Architecture: ARM Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0128000562/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_aFcJBb49BEQFE
The Art of Electronics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521809266/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_AFcJBb6P452VQ
https://www.publishing.umich.edu/publications/ee/
Troubleshooting Analog Circuits (EDN Series for Design Engineers) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0750694998/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_MGcJBbHN2BD9G
Should help your for microcontrollers
It sounds like you're ready for The Art of Electronics.
http://smile.amazon.com/dp/0521809266
Third Edition
The Art of electronics is a pretty good overview.
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-David-J-Griffiths/dp/1108420419
​
a standard text used for physics majors E & M courses at many schools in the States
​
What you're looking for is hobbyist electronics more than engineering. I'd suggest checking out a hackerspace like Pumping Station One. They're sort of community workshops that allow you to use their equipment and attend more informal classes/events.
If you'd like some books that are a good starting point I recommend Make Electronics and Practical Electronics for Inventors
Almost done with the program, if you want to just pass course 101 then you only need https://quizlet.com/BMET101 (EDITED: wrong link previously)
and
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtz1snimkmSqHtOzvTGIup-qqxy_TmTXV
​
if you want a more in-depth understanding then I would recommend something like
Getting started in electronics by Forrest Mims
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/electrical-engineering (up to Electrostatics section)
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541/
​
Arduino is a great learning tool and to go from idea to finished project is quite fast. I definitely recommend starting with arduino and see if you like it. If you continue, you'll find that you have to purchase an arduino for each project you start, which can get quite expensive, or you'll be ripping apart old projects to get the arduino.
I purchased arduino and a few shields, but I felt like I really didn't know how everything was working electronically. I really enjoy programming, learning about electronics and making devices, so I decided to stop using arduino and just use the atmega microcontroller, which is the MCU that arduino is based on.
If you wanted to go this route then I would suggest buying an AVR ISP mkii programmer and downloading atmel studio. It's much easier to program the chips than any other method I've tried. Less fiddling. If you have experience in C programming then it will be really easy.
This is the best beginners tutorial I've found for atmel AVR:
https://www.newbiehack.com/
This book is an excellent follow up to that tutorial:
http://www.amazon.ca/Make-Programming-Learning-Software-Hardware/dp/1449355781/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398472387&sr=8-1&keywords=make+avr+programming
A good book on electronics - 1000 pages:
http://www.amazon.ca/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336
digikey.ca or .com has lots of parts and next day shipping for $8.
how to make an arduino on a bread board:
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Standalone
Breadboard, Schematic and PCB layout software
http://fritzing.org
Soon you'll be etching PCBs at home
The Make books for electronics will get you a decent groundwork for the practical application side of things. Practical Electronics for Inventors will you get you covered on the theory side of things.
https://www.amazon.com/Electrical-Engineering-101-Everything-Probably/dp/0123860016
"Electrical Engineering 101: Everything You Should Have Learned in School...but Probably Didn't"
Find it in a library or pick it up. Solid review book that discusses concepts and reasoning but isn't just a bunch of problems. Chapter 0 and 1 alone have paid for the book many many times over in my career.
Pickup an old (two or three revisions back) FE study guide. The PPI books have tons of review books but the FE is very thorough.
Check out https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/education/ . Find some blogs that discuss the specialty that you are wanting to pursue.
When interviewing, make sure you speak through your thought process. People want to get an understanding of how you approach problems.
Being a EE fits many problems that people are looking to hire for. Don't limit yourself.
Godspeed, Good luck (you make your own) and good hunting.
If everyone just got this book, their lives would be simple. Most of what you need to know to tune a PID is in here.
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Control-Engineering-5th-Edition/dp/0136156738
What level do you want it pitched at? The Wikipedia article is pretty good, and there's always Griffiths Electrodynamics.
David Griffiths' textbooks on E&M and quantum mechanics were easily the best textbooks I had as an undergrad. Clear, concise, refreshingly informal, and even a dash of humor.
I recommend Griffiths' Introduction to Electrodynamics.
You will find it difficult to escape vector calculus in understanding electromagnetics, but Griffiths begins with a quite clear refresher of what you need to know. He continues into electrostatics and magnetostatics, then to electrodynamics, EM waves and radiation, and finishes with relativistic electrodynamics. He also has an informal, conversational style. The text suffers a bit from putting necessary concepts in the exercises, some of which can be quite difficult.
The Amazon reviews will say much more than I have - also look at the reviews for the 3rd edition (which I have, and which has been out for longer).
I highly recommend David Griffith's Introduction to Electrodynamics. It is a classic undergraduate text in electrodynamics. His style is a bit wordy, but I feel it complements all of the mathematics well. It begins with a good overview of vector calculus which is necessary to do college level E&M, so the text is manageable even if you haven't been exposed to calc 3 yet.
Answer key:
(a) 8/3, assuming no momentum loss to the air.
(b) 64/9, treating the stings as massless ridged rods.
This is nowhere near as bad as physics problems get. You want to see tough look at this book.
This doesn't answer your question, but for some classes, there are very standard texts. It's anecdotal, but every single recent physics graduate student I've met used Jackson for electricity and magnetism (http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Electrodynamics-Third-Edition-Jackson/dp/047130932X). There are other texts out there I'm sure, but Jackson is by far the most common.
There are incompetent physicists, and there are incompetents who call themselves physicists. This response which says "experimental data is not to be debated" is representative of a field not just in crisis but about to experience an extinction event due to the truth of classical physics. If you want to really understand the depth of the problem in modern physics -- the fracture of reality and experiment - lots of math, little reason - read this essay.
Loud public pronouncements that show you don't understand something GUISED as a debate is DAMAGING. These posts are best to be ignored but I have encountered physicists who do google searches and come across people like "CSurveyGuy. " They actually seize his lampoon logic as justification that the hydrino is not worth a look.
There are all levels of people in every field - medical school grads, practiced family doctors, and neurosurgeons - a "doctor" is meaningless as to whether you can be taken seriously. Saying "I'm a physicist" is meaningless. Let's help clarify the prereqs to Mills.
- You need Jackson textbook level E&M to tackle Mills. This is graduate level E&M and many quantum physicists aren't up to speed on it. Since the electron is electromagnetic you need advanced E&M. If you don't have it, go back to school.
- You need strong intuitive capacity. Surprise, surprise, most physicists can't "see" new architectures very well. Brett Holverstott has done a masterful job read hi book for a start. Remember, special relativity was first published in 1905 (interestingly the year the Wright brothers first flew continously and only 10 years early Lord Kelvin physicist of the day said "flight of heavier than air objects is impossible."). Einstein's work was not "seen" nor accepted by ACTUAL elite physicists (not CSurveyGuys heckling in the town square). Proof? In 1931, "100 Authors Against Einstein" is published ( https://archive.org/details/HundertAutorenGegenEinstein ).
- You need to work very hard. Mills flat out has the most powerful intuition we've probably seen for nature in a long time. He "sees" things as obvious that aren't because he imagines nature. He designed the electron architecture - literally imagined reality - and then proved it works - the electron has spin etc. The electron solution is probably the Taj Mahal of science, if you will.
​
Many physicists are plug and chug quantum physicists who use the theory to crank out some marginal results. They don't have any vested in the truth, and may believe we cannot even find the truth about physical reality (it's unknowable to them - the uncertainty principle).
"CSurveyGuy" (and the bucket of similar internet dwellers) may want to actually solve something using this new theory - rather than flailing in public his lack of understanding. Statements like "big, horrible problems, like violating known rules of math" means this person is likely a time-waster. Reddit is not the place to do science.
If anyone is interested in an actual real debate on the theory - read "Reconsidering the validation of multi-electron standard quantitative quantum mechanics" by Dr, Jonathan Phillips (he is on the Navy's Energy Academic Group and his resume speaks for itself). Which is an all out attack on quantum mechanics that it isn't even a valid theory, as it is a jumble of theories none of which validate against experimental data. You can't read the abstract, you have to actually read the details. In that paper, near the end he says that CQM (Classical QM- i.e. Mills theory) DOES appear to be a valid theory since it matches energy levels of electrons and distinguishes them, and matches the experimental data that is the focus of the paper.
Addressing a smattering of other points
- Dr. Randy Booker was chair of UNC's physics department. The UNC chemist there Dr. Rick Maas said the "experimental data is so convincing it is time to stop the bickering about the theory". See the BBC Focus Article "Water Power" from 2005.
- 3 body problems go away because of the architecture of the atomic electrons
- Rathke was fully discredited by Mills who showed Rathke made mathematical errors that nullified all arguments. Since it has been 14 years since this all occurred the case is closed. Rathke was an ant who got crushed by a giant. The almost comedic part of this is that even Nobel laureates - who I have contacted - said they "haven't had time to look into the experimental evidence." A total revolution in science, but "my dog at the homework" type responses.
Since these back and forths won't end. It is best to disengage from internet "physicists" unless they talk about facts, not histrionic claims guised as "debate". I am sure if you took a Family Physician from the 1800s and brought him here today to talk about cloning sheep - he would flatly deny it is possible, and would rail against the theory, and would be an emotional mess because the world has changed. Physics was ripe for disruption - everyone admits that - and now we all play catchup.
Feynman's Lectures (vol. 2, chapter 13) discusses this connection. See also the book by Melvin Schwartz, Principles of Electrodynamics.
For those that want a great physical book, i'm sure many will agree, The Art of Electronics is a must have.
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210174245&sr=8-5
if you look hard enough, you can find a pdf
Big fan of this one
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-Scherz/dp/0071452818
I bought the official kit a few months ago and I finished all the projects.
Its an good kit. It got me started but I really wanted more in depth explanations.
Another great resource is Sparkfun. They sell kits which are very well documented and provide lots of other information
> code things into real life seems like a blast
It is! :-) And it's so easy compared to starting with a bare microcontroller.
> 0 experience whe nit comes to working with hardware
Kits usually explain a bit about resistors and such, but I'd strongly recommend to also pick up a beginner electronics book. These are simple and fun to read! :-)
 
> sensors and motors and stuff
> laserpointer
Laser modules cost $0.15 or so at Aliexpress, Servos $1... Everything is so inexpensive it's great to build all sorts of crazy machines ;-)
 
> What arduino
Most guides and books will probably talk about the UNO. You can get a compatible board for around $3, but a Nano also works in the same fashion and sits nicely on a breadboard.
For the UNO, you have all sorts of modules/shields, but there's nothing you can't hook up to one of the smaller boards.
Also order an ESP8266 based board, like the $3 Nodemcu or D1 Mini. The ESP8266 has wifi built in and can run stand-alone, as it's a microcontroller with more memory as the UNO/Nano :-) But it's 3.3v, has only one analog input, and it's a bit more work when starting out.
 
> What
You could get a kit if you would like all sorts of sensors and modules.
The Chinese starter kits are super cheap ($22 with UNO compatible, $26 with MEGA). As Aliexpress links often trigger the spam filter, search for 1207150873 or 32543887265.
The differences are subtle, some kits lack the ultrasonic sensor (<=$1), etc.
What's also a LOT of fun is a 2wd robot car kit, you can get them for $15 or so. Two geared motors, dual H-Bridge, put an Arduino + Ultrasonic sensor on it, and with ten lines of code, it will be an obstacle avoiding car or line follower ;-)
&nbsp;
These kits usually don't have great instructions. If that's what you want, get the official Arduino starter kit, or something from Sparkfun, Adafruit etc.
The Arduino site, instructables, and all kind of blogs have examples for almost every module/sensor/device you can find :-) Find a good guide, such as t
h
[e](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYutciIGBqC34bfijBdYch49oyU-B_ttH
)
s
e, and see if that would work for you.
&nbsp;
The only down-side when going with the compatible Arduino boards: You will have to install a different driver manually (oh noes).
&nbsp;
If you don't have one already: A soldering iron.
I know, when starting, soldering sucks. You want to do everything on a breadboard, reservable. But I found out way too late how great and time saving soldering is once you use a decent soldering iron ;-) Most will recommend something like FX888D or better, but a $15-$20 adjustable soldering station can work as well for the occasional soldering job. And there's a soldering comic :-)
&nbsp;
A multimeter is a must-have as well. $3 ones work for simple resistance and voltage readings. For high voltage / high current tasks, they might burst into flames and double as fire-starter, ideal in the cold winter time.
Part testers for $15 can be neat, they identify parts (is this a NPN or PNP transistor... or something else?).
Cheap regulated $20 power supplies can be nice as well.
&nbsp;
Edit: Bunch of capacitors, resistors, transistors (Bags of 100-500 for $1-$2 via ebay), and whatever sensors you need ;-)
&nbsp;
Sorry for the long post :-) It's always difficult to tell how much experience and equipment someone already has.
Scherz - Practical Electronics for Inventors
I have the second edition and keep it at my desk for stuff. It's awesome.
Read read read and experiment!
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336 is one of my favorite books that explains in great detail the workings of components, without getting overly mathematical. (Math is critical in understanding the behavior, however.)
Then get a basic scope/dmm (or get access to a lab) and build circuits to exercise your knowledge. It won’t work on the first couple tries, but google is your friend, and thats when the learning really materializes — when you understand why something didn’t work, and when you understand how to fix it.
Youtube is a great reference too. Here are some channels I’m subscribed to. Good luck!
https://www.youtube.com/user/w2aew
https://www.youtube.com/user/engineerguyvideo
https://www.youtube.com/user/LearnEngineeringTeam
https://www.youtube.com/user/sutty6
https://www.youtube.com/user/msadaghd
https://www.youtube.com/user/EEVblog
White noise posting here.
Obviously not everything in there...but both do a really good job at pointing out not only typical circuits + intuition, but also on what common configurations of passives do and what they are used for. Sometimes you can look at some circuit and there are three or four resistors/caps/inductors that don't seem to do anything but touch the ground rail...figuring out what those do is very handy as well, and those links to a good job at helping you sort that out.
I threw myself in at the deep end. The first thing I built was a basic 4 bit CPU out of TTL logic. Took 4 years to get it working in 1983. No regrets doing it. Looks like you've picked an interesting project though.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071771336/
This is a good book that covers just about everything you need to know including theory, construction, part selection etc. I'd give that a good read or at least scan the relevant sections before jumping in. Expect to spend a month or so on it (no joke - this is a big subject!) It's pretty cheap for the size of it (8x10" and about 2.5" thick) and the information is really nice. There are some math heavy bits but you can work through these easily enough. Some people will recommend The Art of Electronics but controversially I'm not much of a fan.
Breadboards are dicks as a rule. Some of the time they're ok, some of the time they're not. They have various side effects on some classes of circuits and some higher frequencies. If you're going to buy one I'd buy a good one. 3M make the best ones but they're damn expensive. Wisher make the next best ones. The rest are pretty crap to be honest and are probably a liability. If you're doing high frequency stuff i.e. RF or anything, sometimes it's just better to solder the stuff "dead bug" style mid-air over a PCB blank when prototyping.
Any questions, just ask :)
The guys over at www.circuitlab.com are building a really awesome, free, in-browser schematic drawing tool and simulator.
Practical Electronics for Inventors is also a good mix of theory and telling you what you need to know to make things blink.
I used Griffiths for my upper level Electro & Magnetostatics class.
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-3rd-David-Griffiths/dp/013805326X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1314035153&amp;sr=8-1
Also I know the university I'm at uses the Griffiths book for Quantum Mechanics, however I have not taken the class.
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Quantum-Mechanics-David-Griffiths/dp/0131118927/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1314035153&amp;sr=8-2
Disclaimer: I am a math major.
Here is a link to a pretty thorough course in beginning analog circuits. I don't know how much you would get out of it seeing as you would probably know most of it from being a physicist, but it's there for reference. The next step up would be this book by Sedra and Smith. It will start off with Thevenin and Norton equivalents and work up from there. The book is very large and contains damn near everything you need to know about analog circuits (even has a chapter on semi-conductor physics :)). If you have any interest in digital circuit logic you can go here. Also, I think I see an Arduino in the article picture. There is plenty of documentation on their website. If you want to know more about microprocessors in general, Amazon has a long list of books that could probably suit your needs. Hope that helps! :)
If it's the Sedra and Smith book I'm thinking about, probably because it's an integrated circuits book, which would be totally inappropriate for a beginner.
Hey, good luck on this! I made the opposite swap: studied physics as an undergraduate, then studied mathematics in grad school. I'm now a professor in a math department, though I still do some (mildly) physics-related work. Since nobody else has answered yet, I'll say what I can:
The amazon page also suggests a quantum book and a mechanics book; those seem pretty reasonable choices as well. With respect to the math, the background for doing physics research is quite different from what most math majors get. Physicists do a lot of PDEs, ODEs, calculus of variations, and differential geometry. This is pretty serious stuff.
I would say start with Griffiths Electrodynamics, and maybe a calc book, then go from there.
Griffith's EM book is one the undergrad classics. His book was designed for physics majors mainly but the basics are the same regardless of the major.
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-Edition-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562
If you prefer books, the standard University book on the topic is David J. Griffiths "Introduction to Electrodynamics", which also takes you through vectors and vector calculus. Very readable. As it is probably one of the most widely used books it should be easy to find used for almost no money.
Here's a good primer to the physics of the neural nets you'll be encountering in the wiring as well; required if you're going to be doing some logic-level debugging (which is pretty much all the time if you want to go beyond the usual Swedish teutonic - which is why you're here, right?)
These aren't websites, but The Art of Electronics and its companion Learning the Art of Electronics are often referred to as learning resources, for good reason.
&#x200B;
There are of course web sites that teach you electronics, but not on the level these two books, imho. If you don't want to buy books, then I'd recommend you to go watch bigclivedotcom and EEVblog, they have some great content. There are lots of other YT channels with similar content.
Also look for the student lab manual that accompanies the 3rd edition of AoE. This book makes AoE much more approachable. Be sure it's the 2016 edition.
Ah! I remember that.
There was a gold and a silver version. Striped lettering.
Found it:
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill is one of the classic texts to learn electronics.
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
That will help with electronic circuits. For basic passive networks, any book on linear electrical circuits would be ok.
Get yourself a copy of The Art of Electronics: by Horowitz & Hill.
https://imgur.com/a/8bLY4pw
and
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
It is a good text; I think you can answer your own question just by looking at the table of contents, which you can find here:
&#x200B;
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
&#x200B;
These chapters describe the building blocks of basically any modern circuit - although you probably won't be able to assemble your own microprocessor from scratch by reading this text since that would require a lot of knowledge of CMOS production techniques.
Start reading here.
Pick a project, try it, break it, learn from it, then do it again.
Also, if you need a reference, The Art of Electronics is the bible of electronics.
Save your money and get this. I think it's admirable that you're trying to learn electronics through building something, but just adding a random capacitor to an amp is going to do more harm than good. Caps can carry a charge too and can zap you if you're not careful. So please be careful and study a little before experimenting things which can cause you bodily harm. When you've learned a little bit, ditch the computer power supplies and build/buy a power supply specifically for audio applications. diyaudio.com specifically has a section for power supply design.
The Art of Electronics
The Art of Electronics Student Manual
The Arcade Manual Archive
PINBALL MACHINE MANUALS
This one isn't cheap, but: http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1279561376&amp;sr=8-1
It's A to Z how analog and digital electronics work. It builds the knowledge intelligently, without skipping steps, and even gives you the math you need to engineer the circuit.
Edited to add: under $20 for a used comb-bound version. I retract my "not cheap" and change it to "not free"
> Lotfi Zadeh in his 1965 paper which I am looking at right now, specifically used the term 'binary fuzzy relations' and not 'boolean logic' to describe the reduction of full fuzzy logic to the two-value case.
Uh huh.
What a reasonable person would get from that is "he must be talking about something else."
What you got from that is "I just looked at one paper with a different title. That must mean you're talking about this other thing and you're wrong!"
Stop being stupid, please. Binary fuzzy relations and boolean fuzzy logic are different things.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fiel2%2F1022%2F7759%2F00327527.pdf%3Farnumber%3D327527&amp;authDecision=-203
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/979737741-43493136/content~db=all~content=a713811231
http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200117/000020011701A0530818.php
This is the part where you pretend that even though you found one paper with a different title and pretended that was evidence I was wrong, now that I've found three other much more modern papers involving that title, suddenly paper titles don't matter.
> to describe the reduction of full fuzzy logic to the two-value case.
That's not what boolean fuzzy logic is, though.
> Since he's the one defining the field
Maybe you didn't know this, but there are a lot of other people working in this field than the one guy you know about, and one paper from 1965 doesn't mean that in the 45 years since, nobody's come up with anything else.
> try not to lecture me about right and wrong.
Tu quoque, clown.
> And binary logic has been a term used in electrical engineering for a very long time for two-state logic.
No, it hasn't. EEs have to implement this difference at the chip level. Basically all CPUs support both bitwise and boolean logic at the instruction level.
You're just making shit up to sound correct. You cannot cite even one EE textbook making this mistake.
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
Page 61. So sorry. Maybe you can find an EE book making this mistake, since I just showed you arguably the canonical intro to EE text, and gave you the specific page number on which that book says you are not correct?
No, of course not. Because you don't actually own any EE books and don't have any way to check.
For all your talk of lectures about right and wrong, citations are brutal. Try one some time; you might be more effective as a result.
You'll need to know basic analog electronics first, and then apply it to learning about logic gates. Otherwise you'll have trouble understanding things like totem poll versus open collector or open drain, why you need pull-up resistors, why there are limits to fan outs, and why unconnected CMOS inputs can make the chip cook.
The Art of Electronics will cover practically everything you need for your project including analog circuits, digital circuits, logic and even MCU's. I've yet to meet an electronics person that didn't have a copy. If your mathematics isn't strong you'll love it, and if your mathematics is strong it'll build your intuition.
this book was kinda like the engineering bible when I was in school. Explains things in an easy to understand manner:
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1426750522&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=the+art+of+electronics
Try 'Practical Electronics for Inventors' by 'Paul Scherz'. This book is awesome. It is quite cheap too.
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541
You can also try 'The Art of Electronics'. Its 3rd edition was released a year back I think. It has an informal style, so, I suppose you'll like it.
https://www.amazon.com/d/cka/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/0521809266
This site is also good.
https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/
Div Grad Curl and all that
The Art of Electronics
Here are several textbooks on the subject which I used back in the day and still have a proud spot on my bookshelf:
Acoustics by Beranek (classic acoustical engineering theory from an MIT professor)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/088318494X
The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill (for low level lessons on circuit components like DACs and op amps)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521809266/
Introduction To Electroacoustics and Audio Amplifier Design by Leach (more theory by a professor) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0757572863/
JBL Audio Engineering for Sound Reinforcement (practical applications) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GQZQ8UE/
One of the better online resources for getting from zero to basic understanding is the Navy Electricity and Electronics Training Series.
http://www.fcctests.com/neets/Neets.htm
For something with more rigor and much more depth. one could do worse than "The Art of Electronics" by Paul Horowitz, Winfield Hill. But that might not be basic enough for some.
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/
Specifically, http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1453081730&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=art+of+electronics
High Speed Digital Design: A Handbook of Black Magic is supposed to be a great book on the subject but the frequencies you're working at don't really qualify as anything approaching "high speed". I really don't think you'll have any issues. The wavelength at 100 kHz is 3 kilometers so you're nowhere near having to worry about transmission line effects.
Make sure to adequately decouple every power pin at the chip to deal with the switching transients from the FETs otherwise you'll see a lot of ripple on your supply lines which can cause problems. ADI generally uses a 1 uF and 100 nF capacitor in parallel (IIRC) in their application circuits and I tend to think they know what they're doing.
Is your copper pour grounded? I wouldn't be very worried about coupling noise into your logic traces because 400 Hz is such a low frequency but I suppose it's possible.
ADI publishes a guide called "PCB Board Layout and Design Techniques" that goes through things like proper grounding but I didn't have any luck trying to find it on Google. The Circuit Designer's Companion is an excellent book that also covers the same material with a lot more depth.
> What do my motor controllers need to be rated for?
However much you plan to put through the motors. If you think the motors might stall, and you need the controller to survive that, then you need a controller that can supply the full stall current of the motor.
On the other hand, if you don't think you'll need that much current, and just want to protect the controller from frying due to over-current, then that's what fuses and/or circuit breakers are for. E.g.: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Push-Button-15-Amp-Circuit-Breaker-DC-AC-Circuit-/370274362810
> Before I used simply linear Voltage Regulators, that didn't work out so well and was very wasteful. What else could I use?
Sounds like you already know the answer: a switching regulator. In your case, a buck regulator because those are the ones that step down. There are a million trillion gazillion places that sell these, but I tend to recommend: http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/2110
> Is there a book or some other resource someone could point me to where I can find some how to deal with high currents?
The general term for when you are working with high voltages and/or current is "power electronics". I have no experience with it myself, but this book has been recommended by other people before: http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Power-Electronics-Second-Edition/dp/0792372700
I don't know about Jackson's book. I read Griffiths and he was great. I would strongly recommend Griffiths for clarity and reading comprehension. He would generally tell you outright what stuff was important and what wasn't.
Here is his book
I really like this book.
Practical Electronics for Inventors, Fourth Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_7BfADb7106476
Practical Electronics for Inventors is really good. Very accessible, but still comprehensive and as the name implies, practical. Best of all it is 20 bucks.
Maybe something like this?
http://vetco.net/products/300-in-one-experimenter-kit
I'd also recommend the following books:
Practical Electronics for Inventors:
www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1259587541
Make: Electronics:
www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1680450263
Make: More Electronics:
www.amazon.com/dp/1449344046
Personally I love Practical Electronics for Inventors. It is massive and covers the basics as well as so many different subdisciplines that you can pursue. Also to my surprise it is only $20.
But more practical advice would be to research your university’s EE course path and read through the course syllabi. Find out what topics are covered in the core/required courses. See what electives you think you’d be interested in. Consider buying 1st edition (cheaper) versions of one or two or more of the textbooks that are used in those courses.
This one is also good. I've gone through both of them.
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541
I would recommend Practical Electronics for Inventors. This book is awesome for all electronic concepts. Plenty of examples and working problems. Here’s a link on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=electronics+book&amp;qid=1567720843&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-1
The transistor acts like a switch, when the GPIO pin goes up (current applied to base), the transistor opens and high current flows between collector and emitter. If you are interested in understanding and learning more, I can recommend you a book (it helped me A LOT): Practical Electronics for Inventors. It explains this and much more in words that most would understand
and doesn't go into the math or formulas that explains how it works. You'll learn to use IC, transistor, diodes, to create your own schematics, etc.There was some book I bought a while back that I thought was good as a basic reference, forget what it was called though. I think it was this one
Might be worthwhile picking up a copy since it's only 20 bucks.
Edit: Also, I learned most of what I did out of sheer necessity - as in I wanted to build something that required hardware and I incrementally learned what I needed to get it built. Doesn't provide the most solid foundation, but I always found hands-on to be the fastest way to learn things especially when supplemented with actual reading material
>very good book to get up to speed on hardware.
Yes, with analog cirquits, transistors and op amps. Sure you can build gates with transistors. But why should they buy a book with 1100 pages if they only need about 250? EDIT: and with no mention of any HDL or FPGAs at all; if the software engineers were really that much interested in general practical electronic cirquit design including digital and Verilog programmable logic then I would rather recommend this book: Practical Electronics for Inventors by Scherz and Monk.
Get yourself a minor in mechanical (or possibly even seismic if your school offers it). Opens up anything dealing with transducers or how sound waves behave in a medium within a space.
Maybe pick yourself up a copy of Modern Recording Techniques to get a feel for what's going on hardware wise in the field. If you want to do more with the actual acoustics side of it, then grab Master Handbook of Acoustics. As a former EE major (I split before I graduated), I've also found Practical Electronics for Inventors handy to have around, even if only as a quick reference for things. Even has some theoretical refreshers in there if memory serves me correct.
If you find that you want to get into working with instrument amplification, then I'd recommend picking up Ultimate Bench Warrior since, to my understanding, tube circuits aren't really dealt with at the university level anymore.
Hope at least something in here is helpful.
Hey there! Welcome to the hobby!
For reading, I recommend Practical Electronics for the Inventor. If you're brand new and want something a bit less dense, the Make series is a good place to start.
The box you've got looks a lot like a component kit a friend of mine gave me. He tried the electronics program at ITT before they went under and this is what they gave him. It's got some nice stuff in it and it's great for a beginner.
Now, you want to know what's in there? Google is your best friend. Everything has an identifying code on the side. Punch that into the search bar and 90 percent of the time you'll find everything you need to know about it. It's tedious, but it's the way of things.
Good luck and have fun!
The defacto bible is "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill which still sells for $100 even though the latest edition is from 1989. It is a thick book, but is better than most textbooks IMHO. They refer to many part numbers that are long past gone, but it should give you the vocab and keywords for you to search out the current parts.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1342471024&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=art+of+electronics
Other than that, if you want more beginner books - look at Make: Electronics
http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1342471247&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=make+learning+electronics or the Forrest Mims books
As far as power supplies specifically, I believe I found a couple of howto webpages that described the basics - I'll edit this post if I find them again.
A very good introduction to electronics and circuits is The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill. There is an accompanying lab manual that takes you through building some cool circuits.
This is often referred to as "The Bible" and is a common text for undergrads in physics. I still use it as a PhD student.
There are tons of books for learning basic Electronics. Any one of them will give you the basics, but you won't be able to get your EE degree in 2 weeks.
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Basic-Electronics-Softcover-arrl/dp/0872590828/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1335460522&amp;sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-Electronics-Forrest-Mims/dp/0945053282/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1335460522&amp;sr=8-7
This book will show you all the stuff you don't know yet (because I seriously doubt you could read this book in 2 weeks and have an understanding of what is in it):
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1335460573&amp;sr=8-1
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.
It's best to learn by doing, but sometimes those kits don't cut it. Like others, I recommend toying with a breadboard, but I also think getting your hands on these books will also help. They're beginner's books, are easy to follow, and have some interesting circuits to play around with. Additionally, there is a tiny bit of theory in it. If you want to go hardcore into the theory without having to do much math, go for the electronics bible, Horowitz and Hill.
If cost is a concern for your prototype, there's OSH Park. They pool and panel orders and make the boards at a place in Illinois I believe. I haven't used them yet, but will be placing an order in a couple days. For layout help, you might ask on the EE stack exchange site or the Sparkfun forum. Before laying out your board, be sure to set the design rules in your software to those from whichever fab you select. Here's a comparison of boards ordered from OSH Park and two other inexpensive options.
The Art of Electronics has a section on board layout, and there are a bunch of application note PDFs out there from semi companies:
For Reduced EMI
These guides are specific to certain microcontrollers, but still have good info:
As someone who recently transitioned a prototype from Arduino/breadboard to a custom board, I'd also suggest you take a look at ARM if you aren't tied to Atmel. The performance for STM32 and Stellaris chips is great considering the cost, and they are almost price competitive with PIC and Atmel chips. TI has a Stellaris launchpad board now, and ST has several cheap eval boards. There is a gcc toolchain for ARM, and the MikroE ARM compiler is a reasonably-priced commercial option (demo up to 8k program space).
What software are you using for layout?
Ahh... then, that being the case, if you're a novice with electronic theory, then I highly suggest this book: The Art of Electronics.
"The Art of Electronics" is a good option. They approach circuit design from a practical standpoint.
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
The Art of Electronics - The EE bible
ARRL Handbook - Great for analog and RF circuit knowledge, but tons of general stuff too.
How to Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic - For hands on, real world circuit diagnosis. I've been doing this a long time and I still learned a lot from this book. This book will save you a lot of magic smoke.
Okay, you're definitely at the beginning. I'll clarify a few things and then recommend some resources.
I feel like I've gone off on a few tangents, but just ask for clarification if you want. I'd be happy to point you towards other resources.
If you really want to learn electronics I recommend the book "The Art of Electronics" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1456842742&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=art+of+electronics)
I know it's a bit pricey but it's the most complete book i have read and also very easy to follow. It's magnitudes better than any school litterature I have used.
I still use it as a reference in my work as a electronics engineer.
Coax publications! Their books are decent, I wouldn't say the best, but decent. I'm 2/3rds the way through studying for my Advanced as well and I've found it very helpful. Nice thing with their books is access to a practice exam site that got me through my Basic Qualification exam.
Full disclosure I have a computer engineering degree and have a pretty strong background in electronics as well, so I'm able to fill in some gaps. I've found a couple of errors or gaps in the edition I'm studying from. So I'd possibly recommend some supplementary material. Good book for electronics if that's the area you're struggling with is The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill: https://www.amazon.ca/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1542256671&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=art+of+electronics
Beyond that study and good luck! I'm hoping to take my test early 2019. Been distracted with getting my HF station up and running.
OK, you seem like you are trying to learn, and are asking questions, that is a good thing, and even if someone cringes at your terms, that's OK, you have gotten some good links for the terms and how to use them. Don't be put off.
Now I am going to recommend you see if you can get The Art of Electronics 3rd ed and Learning The Art of Electronics, get the ones with the gold covers. They are expensive, but you will learn huge amounts by working through the Learning book. When I was teaching college labs, I would recommend students get these books (2nd ed at the time). You can find all this information online, and you can learn it that way, but these books are excellent and well worth the cost if you can pull it together.
A humbucking pickup is vital if you use a lot of amplifier gain, because otherwise your sound will be drowned in noise. In every other respect, the tonal character of a humbucker can be exactly matched by a single-coil pickup by tweaking the resistance, inductance and capacitance. You don't even need to use a traditional pickup design - Lace Sensors and Fishman Fluence pickups achieve traditional single-coil and humbucker tones using a radically different approach.
You should ignore the vast majority of what you hear about "tone". Only a tiny handful of guitarists know enough about engineering to understand guitars, amps and effects. The guitar world is full of superstition and rumour, because people are trying to discuss moderately complex engineering issues without the necessary knowledge to make sense of it.
If you really want to understand how a guitar works, I recommend the book Technology of the Guitar by Richard Mark French. You'll need little more than high school math to understand it. For amps and pedals, The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill covers everything you need to know.
Failing that, keep in mind two things. Firstly, trust your ears and experiment - if it sounds right, it is right. Many of the greats of guitar have done very weird things. Brian May made his guitar out of plywood and bits of scrap oak. Dave Davies accidentally invented heavy metal by slashing his speaker with a razor blade. EVH's legendary frankenstrat is a grotesque mess built from b-grade parts, but Fender sell a custom shop replica for $25,000.
Secondly, ignore dogma. American guitar factories don't have a secret pixie dust that makes their guitars better than Korean or Chinese guitars. Wood doesn't magically sound better if it was sawn up in the 1950s. Don't take anything a guitarist says as gospel, because they're probably just repeating something they heard.
It's difficult to tell without seeing it, but "Learning the Art of Electronics" looks like a book to accompany "The Art of Electronics". If you're a beginner, The Art of Electronics might be a bit overwhelming. My recommendation as an absolute starting point is Getting Started in Electronics by Forest M. Mimms. It's old and used to be sold at Tandy, but it gives a really quick and simply overview of the basics, and you can get the 3rd edition here for free:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5jcnBPSPWQyaTU1OW5NbVJQNW8/edit
If you're still interested after reading Getting Started, it's probably appropriate to move on to either The Art of Electronics http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=0H11CKC3J5KJMF8BHHA8
or the much cheaper Practical Electronics for Inventors (as mentioned elsewhere - 4th edition is out in April)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1452851192&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=practical+electronics+for+inventors
$108 Pre-Order at Amazon.
I think it is dependent on the field. For several areas in experimental astronomy you deal with extremely large datasets. Advanced statistical methods and 'machine learning' can be very valuable tools. Whereas for someone studying solid state experiment this would be a waste of time. Better time would be spent on learning the physical hardware and electronics and noise (I think, never done solid state myself). Although you would be surprised, I knew someone who was using neural networks for a project involving solid state and transitions.
As a whole, compared with theorists, you may want to develop a better understanding of statistics, computing/programming, electronics, hardware, and several fields I'm not thinking of. However which of those are most applicable depends on the work you are doing. Although a solid foundation in statistics is most likely useful for all scientists.
To add a text, The Art of Electronics is practically an experimental bible for many people.
Changes in the 3rd edition.
$80 on Amazon.
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/ This might be a good place to get started, I am taking a physics electronics advanced lab as an undergraduate in physics, and I have found this textbook to be pretty useful. Also Hororwitz's the art of electronics is probably the best text on electronics, however very dense (1200 pages). There is definately a lot to learn, and this is just getting you started in the electronics of it... idk specifically about tube amps though, but understand circuits is probably going to be a must
link to buy horowitz: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521809266/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687442&amp;pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&amp;pf_rd_t=201&amp;pf_rd_i=0521370957&amp;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_r=0PSJGQA7WTQYDCZ7632X
Art of Electronics, Horowitz & Hill
I also recommend The Art of Electronics. Another great one is The Fundamentals of Power Electronics by Erickson and Maksimovic. If you have access to ieeexplore, Maksimovic has some awesome papers on there.
EZ
If you're feeling ambitious I'd go with https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-John-R-Taylor/dp/189138922X and https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-David-J-Griffiths/dp/1108420419/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1520528734&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=griffiths+electrodynamics
The guide is pretty good considering that most of them suck. It contains like 10 small example projects, but won't teach you everything.
This is a good book to get eventually but you don't need it right away: Practical Electronics for Inventors, Fourth Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/ Its like a textbook for about $20 except it has a lot more practical how to info.
There are lots of tutorials online about using the RPi and Arduino, especially by Adafruit and sparkfun.
As a student, I can recommend "Practical Electronics For Inventors, Fourth Edition" by Paul Scherz, accompanied by the occasional youtube video and reddit question :)
You can buy it from Amazon here
I havent read any others, so I cant compare the quality, but you can go through it like a book and be able to understand everything. You may run into some problems in the real world that requires some fairly advanced calculus, which the book doesn't cover. (It does cover where to apply it, just not how). It is really extensive (1256 pages on my desktop e-reader), so if you have an idea for something specific you want to build, there might be something more efficient out there :)
I would think that not a lot of electronics books, if any, explain the math in full, so I would suggest that you find an online source for whatever specific piece of math you've run into. I can recommend Kahn academy.
Good luck :)
Good idea. I did an "electronics for scientists" class from the physics department when I was an undergrad. Can't remember what book we used, I think it was by a guy at Duke University maybe. It was a good starting point, covering LRC circuits, transistors, and opamps.
Edit: It's this book: https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Electronics-Lloyd-R-Fortney/dp/0195178637/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1469462772&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=Fortney+electronics
Horowitz and Hill is a really good reference. I have another book on my reference shelf, I think it's this one: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1469455654&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=electronics+for+inventors
Here is a great website with some circuits that are common building blocks of instrumentation:
http://www.ecircuitcenter.com/
(see "Circuit Collection" link).
Finally, Linear Technologies has a free version of Spice called LTSpice that you can use for circuit simulation on Windows (hope I'm not violating any rules on commercial stuff; I just happen to use it and like it). If you use Linux, there is a package called gEDA that has a schematic entry tool and a version of Spice. I haven't used the Spice tool yet from that package, but it's probably good.
There's a book called the Practical Inventors Guide to Electronics: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541/
I really liked Getting Started in Electronics by Forest Mims: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-Electronics-Forrest-Mims/dp/0945053282/
I am in a similar boat like yourself and found the following useful.
He sounds a lot like me. I hate clutter. I would recommend this.
If he already knows all that, then this.
If he already knows all that, then he's set for life and you can probably just stop getting him gifts now.
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541
If you want to get a good overview of AC and DC beyond wiring circuit breakers and light switches.
As a ECE this book is awesome and only $20. Great practical as well as theoretical info. https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541
This book by Paul Scherz was recommended in one of these threads, and I've just started reading it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1259587541
It seems to cover what you're looking for... a good overview of a large number of topics. It does get into some detail, but I like it so far.
I believe there are some books that aim to introduce electronics to guitarists and musicians. I found this one with a cursory search.
This is the only book you will ever need: https://www.amazon.com/Electronics-Guitarists-Denton-J-Dailey/dp/1461440866.
https://www.amazon.com/FE-Electrical-Computer-Review-Manual/dp/1591264499/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=electrical+EIT+prep+book&amp;qid=1563027519&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-3
It isn't cheap but it prepared me really well. It gives you a pretest then an explanation of each concept and practice problems. I'd also look to make sure it's the latest edition since I took mine last year, but that's the one.
Sorry to hear your struggles to pass. I believe a part of your problem is the fear of not knowing how to approach the problem. For me, I just studied the FE Computer and Electrical Review Manual by Lindeburg. Read the review for sections that intimidated you and look up terms you don't understand and for concepts I didn't understand I did a deep dive on youtube for further intuition.
&#x200B;
Hope this helps!
I took it back in February and passed it. I used this one:
https://www.amazon.com/FE-Electrical-Computer-Review-Manual/dp/1591264499/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1481314830&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=fe+electrical
and it was ok, it will put you in the right direction. The NCEES practice test is probably the closest thing to the test you will find though. No clue if this will work for you but instead of taking it while you are in school you might wait and to take it once you are employed. My employer paid the exam fees and state licencing fees. Saved me about $300.
I've heard good things about Knight, that /u/RobusEtCeleritas recommended. I've used Serway and Jewett for my intro classes and it was pretty good.
If you're looking for more of an advanced treatment while still remaining accessible, you can check out the Berkeley Physics Course series of texts. I can only only comment directly on the second text by Purcell which is very good; and from what I've heard the others are also good reads. They are difficult to get a hold of (though that may have changed) so you may want to check your schools' library first.
Halliday & Resnick would be my recommendation. We used their Physics, Parts 1&2 when I was a student, not their Fundamentals of Physics, which seems to be a different book (and the two books were published simultaneously for a while; I was never sure what the difference was).
If you want individual books, try Kleppner & Kolenkow for mechanics, and Purcell for E&M. Those are often used in honors sections of freshman physics, since the problems tend to be a bit harder. There's also Newtonian Mechanics by A.P. French, which was used for freshman mechanics at MIT for a while (not sure if it still is). French's introductory books on Special Relativity and Quantum Physics are also good. But for relativity my favorite intro-level book is Spacetime Physics by Taylor & Wheeler.
The books others have suggested here are all great, but if you've never seen physics with calculus before, you may want to begin with something more accessible. Taylor and Goldstein are aimed at advanced undergraduates and spend almost no time on the elementary formulation of Newtonian mechanics. They're designed to teach you about more advanced methods of mechanics, primarily the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations.
Therefore, I suggest you start with a book that's designed to be introductory. I don't have a particular favorite, but you may enjoy Serway & Jewett or Halliday & Resnick.
Many of us learned out of K&K, as it's been something of a standard in honors intro courses since the seventies. (Oh my god, a new edition? Why?!) However, most of its readers these days have already seen physics with calculus once before, and many of them still find it a difficult read. You may want to see if your school's library has a copy so you can try before you buy.
If you do enjoy the level of K&K, then I strongly encourage you to find a copy of Purcell when you get to studying electricity and magnetism. If you are confident with the math, it is far and away the best book for introductory E&M—there's no substitute! (And personally, I'd strongly suggest you get the original or the second edition used. The third edition made the switch to SI units, which are not well-suited to electromagnetic theory.)
By the way: if you don't care what edition you're getting, and you're okay with international editions, you can get these books really cheaply. For instance: Goldstein, S&J, K&K, Purcell.
Finally, if you go looking for other books or asking other people, you should be aware that "analytical mechanics" often means those more advanced methods you learn in a second course on mechanics. If you just say "mechanics with calculus", people will get the idea of what you're looking for.
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.
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
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&amp;qid=1373135646&amp;sr=8-2&amp;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.
This is pretty great, especially for the price. It is sectioned off into multiple topics, but refers to the other sections as far as design is concerned. It does have some basics, but gets pretty complicated in some of the opamp sections.
I love this book. It covers a wide range of electronics design for practical use.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071771336/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_kOc4tb1KNM6BD
Thank you! I think I might buy Make: Electronics or Practical Electronics for Inventors just to have on hand as a quick reference manual.
I would do it, but with family obligations, I just don't have the time.
There are plenty of good tutorials on how to solder on YouTube. The gist of it is to heat up the components with the iron, then add solder. It just takes practice. And don't buy the cheap solder -- you'll get poor results even with the proper technique.
As far as electronics theory, I like this book as a basic reference.
When you get to building a tube amp, I would recommend modifying or refurbishing one before you go for a scratch build. Do you mean a tube hi-fi amp or a tube guitar/bass amp?
Electronics for Inventors after he's done Make: Electronics.
I remember doing 2 years of almost solid maths, thermodynamics and fluid dynamics, solids, materials etc. It was so uninspiring that I started teaching myself programming (C++) and playing around with 3d graphics (ah, good old days when Quake was the shit!)
I got good grades, but I was not a model student. So, although my 3rd and 4th year focused on 'mechatronic' subjects, I graduated not really knowing what a transistor was or how to solder anything. I was a decent programmer though.
Luckily, I got a job with a really patient, knowledgeable guy who helped me fill in the gaps. I coded stuff, but he explained how the hardware worked, I sometimes understood (or pretended, and when I couldn't figure it out later we went over it again).
I highly recommend this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336
So here's what worked for me: (eventually :) )
So, as far as practical stuff goes:
Start basic.
Bonus
Get More Practical:
Bonus:
Old computer power supplies are great if you are on a budget.
If you want to learn about electronics, I'd suggest reading "Practical Electronics for Inventors" by Paul Scherz. Truly an excellent book. You can get nearly as much out of this as you would a four-year electrical engineering schooling, but it's written so that it's totally accessible if you don't want to go that far in depth.
+1 for recommending Practical Electronics for Inventors. I highly, highly, highly recommend this book. I am currently an electrical engineering grad student and I still reference this book from time to time when working through simple circuits, either for debugging or optimization.
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336
I suggest this book
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336
For books, try Practical Electronics for Inventors by Paul Scherz and Simon Monk
and Getting Started in Electronics by Forrest Mims
As far was websites go, SparkFun have some good tutorials.
I've heard great things about this book: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336
I very much recommend this book as a basic intro to electronics. There's no need to complicate this with analogy.
I bought this 'recommended additional reading' as a student and have since loaned it to several non-EE friends who have gotten a lot out of it as well.
I can recommend you a few things, speaking as a CS/EE double major :)
For electronics I started with this book: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1369542421&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=Make%3A+electronics
It has lots of cool experiments to get you started with concepts.
Then there's this: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1369542421&amp;sr=8-10&amp;keywords=Make%3A+electronics
This will go much deeper into theory and give you a strong foundation.
Though if you want to delve right into the programming part: http://www.makershed.com/Getting_Started_with_Arduino_Kit_V3_0_p/msgsa.htm
and
http://www.makershed.com/Raspberry_Pi_Starter_Kit_Includes_Raspberry_Pi_p/msrpik.htm
MicroCenter will have the kits, and RadioShack should have the tinier parts, as well as the Raspberry Pi.
This might be a good start, Practical Electronics for Inventors:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071771336/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
It's easier than you think. Grab this book http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071771336/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1 you'll learn a lot.
Anyway, even if you learned some theory you will need to practice and practice, the more you practice the better you become.
There's a lot of tutorials online, you can learn a lot and fast.
I my self am a CS student, I design my own custom board using Cadsoft Eagle, etch it, solder it and so on...
Nothing is hard, you just need to practice. Just search a bit online and start with the easy and small tutorials.
Edit: Grab your self an Arduino Kit or buy a bunch of each component (Jameco, Digikey, Mouser, DX.com, Aliexpress.com, Sparkfun....) and the required tools (soldering iron, plier, breadboards.....)
Also, you can buy some unsoldered boards with their components and read the manual to learn more about circuits and soldering.
in the same boat myself and was reccomended this book,
Still working my way through it so no verdict on it yet,
Might be work a look for you though.
http://www.amazon.com/Electrical-Engineering-101-Third-School-but/dp/0123860016/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1381095286&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=electrical+engineering+101
This book is a must have in my opinion.
Electrical Engineering 101
I've been an electronics technician for 12 years and an engineer for 3. I still reference this book all the time when I need a review of the basics. Really awesome approach to teaching the very basics of electronics.
During my Control Systems course we used Ogata's Modern Control System Engineering. It is very comprehensive.
For example this book is $207 https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Control-Engineering-Katsuhiko-Ogata/dp/0136156738
Exact same book in Pakistan is rs. 788 or USD $7.5 http://paramountbooks.com.pk/loginindex.asp?title=MODERN-CONTROL-ENGINEERING-5e%28pb%292010&amp;isbn=9788120340107&amp;opt=3&amp;SubCat=04&amp;Cat=04004
This was literally like the first book I found on that Pakistani website and googled it. I'm sure you can find most books for dirt cheap this way.
I have this book after being recommended it for a mechanical engineering degree:
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Control-Engineering-Katsuhiko-Ogata/dp/0136156738/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1382295868&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=ogata
It has a section on frequency response and also shows how to solve things using matlab which is very useful too
I leaned control theory from the Ogata textbook during university. The lectures were useless so that's really all I used to prepare for exams. Might be a good skimmable reference if you can find a PDF somewhere.
I suspect the control theory being referenced by model-based RL might be a bit more advanced than an entry level textbook though.
Modern Control Engineering by K. Ogata is pretty much required reading for any aspiring controls engineer.
Source: my colleagues swear by him
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0136156738?pc_redir=1410585941&amp;robot_redir=1
I am using Conquering the Physics GRE as an overview, but I really enjoy anything from David Morin and David J. Griffiths for the level of questions and explanations (and in-book/online solutions manuals that go a long way towards showing you how to think like a physicist). But my "library" for preparing for the physics GRE is:
CM: Morin, Problems and Solutions in Introductory Mechanics and Introduction to Classical Mechanics
Gregory, Classical Mechanics for extra explanations and problems
EM: Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics 3e
QM: Griffiths, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics 3e
Thermo/Stat.Mech: Schroeder, An Introduction to Thermal Physics
Kittel and Kroemer, Thermal Physics
Waves: Morin, on his website are ten chapters to what appears to be a Waves book in the making
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~djmorin/waves/
Atomic, Lab Methods: Conquering the Physics GRE and any online resources I can find.
&#x200B;
If you email Case Western, they send a link to some amazing flash cards!
I've been writing for over an our... and then everything was lost because I pressed a wrong button. FML
Sorry but I won't write it all again. I will just say the main points and some links I had. Here is one regarding the whole point of the conversation.
> pμ = mvμ (this is the ratio of four-momentum to four-velocity) and is also the ratio of four-acceleration to four-force when the rest mass is constant, or, Fμ = mAμ.
There are some misconceptions here which I had all worked out... I will just say this so that you know. Basically any book about special relativity can explain this quite well. I think that Griffiths has a pretty good explanation of all that (although it's a electromagnetism book). You can look up the chapter 12.
There are some misconceptions like "So an object with zero mass means that it has no resistance to being accelerated by a force,". I won't explain all that again...
I'm really sorry and really pissed that I lost my comment, but this will have to do.
Brush up on mathematical methods for physics. Learn Linear Algebra, Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations, Multivariable Calculus, Complex Analysis, and Tensor Analysis. A good book would be this: http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Methods-Physical-Sciences-Mary/dp/0471198269/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1
Classical Mechanics: http://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Third-Course-Theoretical-Physics/dp/0750628960/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1291625026&amp;sr=1-7
E&M: http://www.amazon.com/Electromagnetic-Fields-Roald-K-Wangsness/dp/0471811866/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1
or http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-3rd-David-Griffiths/dp/013805326X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1291625100&amp;sr=1-1
Statistical Mechanics: http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Statistical-Thermal-Physics-Frederick/dp/1577666127/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1291625184&amp;sr=1-1
Quantum Mechanics: http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Quantum-Mechanics-R-Shankar/dp/0306447908/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1291625261&amp;sr=1-4
Do you know what textbooks you'll be needing next year? It might be a good idea to get a hold of them early and familiarize yourself with the material.
The go to undergraduate E&M book is Griffith's, Introduction to Electrodynamics. E&M is tough for a lot of people, so it'd be nice to have a leg up by reading through some of this book before the semester starts. Griffith's writing style is really easy to follow and he tries to guide you threw important derivations without skipping around too much. There's a reason this book is so ubiquitous in undergraduate physics.
Read This
Griffiths Electrodynamics would be a good thing to look at. It's surprisingly readable, and it could possibly wind up being your E&M textbook. In my undergrad, E&M was the "weed out" course, where those who weren't up to scratch lost interest in the physics degree, so it's good to get a head start. I wish I had started on it sooner. Maybe I'd have gotten more out of E&M as an undergrad and then Jackson in grad school wouldn't have been so hard.
When I took that class we used the same book, which I found to be one of the better ones I've used.
A lot of people seem to recommend the Sedra book
Sedra/Smith Microelectronics
You will learn more about electronics than you will ever need to know, in one book :)
> With all of that said, I feel as though I am seriously lacking in more complex electronic knowledge: solenoids/inductors, capacitors, relays
No offense, that's still the basic stuff. An EE degree would have covered all of that stuff in the 1st year.
You're still in the beginner stages if you are unable to analyze basic inductor, capacitor, and resistor circuits. You may have the math-chops for the differential-equations and get a jump-start into filter design (year 2)... but you're not yet ready to even tackle transistors or designing with op-amps yet (year 2 or 3ish).
Still, its good that you've got Op-Amp experience. That's real good, but without understanding capacitor circuits... it really makes me wonder. Ex: There are a lot of capacitors in a lot of Op-Amp use-cases. Integrator, differentiator, as well as very important filter designs.
> So what are some good resources I can use to supplement the knowledge that I already have without having to dig out small pieces of knowledge from beginners guides?
You're in an awkward position. You're an advanced beginner that is missing some fundamental knowledge due to the ad-hoc nature of studying a bit of this or that.
Fortunately, there's really no reason you couldn't just march forward in whatever interests you anyway. Go to your university's library, check out Sedra / Smith and just have at it. The basics are covered in Chapter 1 and the Appendix.
You'll of course run into issues due to your gap in knowledge, but whatever. Just pickup a beginner book and scan through the formulas you don't know as you come across those gaps. There's no reason you can't just jump into the interesting stuff when you're doing self-study.
------------
I highly suggest you start with:
It'd be advanced, but it would be far more interesting than covering the basics from a beginner book. The "practicality" of 3rd year material of EE stuff is obvious. Playing with resistors and capacitors... while important fundamentally... is kind of arcane. Its difficult to see the applicability of an LRC circuit, but amplifiers are just... grossly obvious in their applicability.
Appendix C, D, E and F are a summary of everything you'd learn from year 1 of an EE Degree. They are missing phasors and other stuff... but you'll find that these ~30 pages or so cover a huge amount of ground. They would provide you a decent starting-point to read the rest of the Sedra / Smith book.
You'll probably need to go back to a "beginner book" to learn about AC circuits and phasors. But you probably can totally just tackle Sedra / Smith right now if you wanted.
1st year super keen physics student here. I'm particularly passionate about plasma physics and I'm doing a research project this semester as well as an extension to my physics course in that field. I've already ordered a copy of Chen's 3rd edition, and have a hard copy of Fusion Physics as well as a library copy of Griffith's Electromagnetism (only 2nd edition though; worth getting the new one?)
Anyone have suggestions for texts/resources for physics along the same lines?
Cheers!
I thought of some books suggestions. If you're going all in, go to the library and find a book on vector calculus. You're going to need it if you don't already know spherical coordinates, divergence, gradient, and curl. Try this one if your library has it. Lots of good books on this though. Just look for vector calculus.
Griffiths has a good intro to E&M. I'm sure you can find an old copy on a bookshelf. Doesn't need to be the new one.
Shankar has a quantum book written for an upper level undergrad. The first chapter does an excellent job explaining the basic math behind quantum mechanics .
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-4th-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562
Sigh
See here (start on Pg. 9)
https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/ece303/Lectures/lecture28.pdf
Also here:
http://whites.sdsmt.edu/classes/ee382/notes/382Lecture32.pdf
If you want to google more, your keywords are "hertzian dipole field solution"
The gist of it is that for an oscillating current I(r), you immediatley know the auxiliary fields A and Phi (they follow the wave equation, with I as the source). From the auxilliary fields, you can immediately know E and H. (This is on Pg 8 of that second link). Actually just follow through those slides, you'll notice how the near-field terms you circled in red pops out from the equations.
Can you get through a paywall?
Here is a tutorial on optical antennas. Pretty nice, if I do say so myself ;)
Jackson's electrodynamics has a chapter on the dielectric response of metals. Chapter 7, section 5. "Frequency dispersion characteristics of dielectrics, conductors, and plasmas."
Novotny's nano optics book has a brief review of dielectric response, and talks a lot about the antenna analogy.
Third edition?
At least, that's what google says.
Surprised no one has mentioned Classical Electrodynamics by Jackson.
For practice with your problems, Schaums' guide are the best. If you feel like a badass
I was going to do something similar but the second picture was going to be this
If you want something cheap and good then I suggest "Principles of Electrodynamics" by Schwartz.
From the back: "Unlike most textbooks on electromagnetic theory, which treat electricity, magnetism, Coulomb's law and Faraday's law as almost independent subjects within the framework of the theory, this well-written text takes a relativistic point of view in which electric and magnetic fields are really different aspects of the same physical quantity."
It actually does. It starts with electrostatics, then teaches relativity, then shows why there must be a magnetic field due to relativistic invariance. It is advanced and clear. It goes into the why AND the how.
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Electrodynamics-Dover-Books-Physics/dp/0486654931
2nd the recommendation for Art of Electronics. I just watched an interview with one of the authors by Lady Ada. He was building things for his own lab and started a course for people who just wanted to be able to build circuits without becoming an EE. The companion book, Learning the Art of Electronics is completely hands-on. A practical course in analog and digital circuit building in a book.
I couldn't find the student edition for the 3rd now that you mention it, maybe it's on the way?
I did find a lab copy though https://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Art-Electronics-Hands-Course/dp/0521177235/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=GQTJS7PC2N34TFHP7PSQ
I'm sure we'd all be willing to help, but you need to ask better questions. I work in the telecommunications industry for a company that develops carrier networking products, and yet I've little idea what you're really wanting. So for now, I'll answer the question that you have asked, though I doubt you'll like the answer.
>So what I would like is some books that explain what parameters affect the energy consumption at the telecommunications infrastructure.
The parameters that effect energy consumption are resistance, capacitance, and inductance. As far as books on the subject? I don't know. Maybe The Art of Electronics?
The Art of Electronics is an oldie but is very well written and quite entertaining. It goes through just about everything to the 68000 microprocessor (think the first Macintosh and a number of other platforms). For example, transistor man.
This page explains it fairly well, I think. So do Horowitz and Hill, if by chance you have their book handy.
I have used that basic design on a few different occasions, although my triangle wave generator looked more like this one. I believe I used an LM741 for the integrator (that's the amplifier with the capacitor in its feedback loop) and the two halves of an LM393 for the comparator in the triangle wave generator + the comparator used to make the PWM. Those exact parts aren't critical by any means, and I don't see anything wrong with Paul Hills' circuit (the first link) either except the part count is higher.
Edit: If you can find an MC33030, or if you care to trawl through catalogs looking for a modern (i.e. orderable) substitute, it will do do the PWM generation for you and it even includes the H-bridge to drive a motor (or in your case, coil) up to 1 amp.
This book?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521370957/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_ehsUzb9K25VCF
I like to use The Art of Electronics as my basic reference book.
While I understand the desire to make something and see the fruits of your labor, true understanding will come best through reading and research. I mean, you could start making circuits of someone else's design and then play around with the arrangement and values of components, but at best you are really just generating a case-by-case feel of how a particular circuit operates. Doing some calculations with many sets of hypothetical circuits (rather than building a bunch of circuits and playing around and taking measurements) will be a much more efficient way to really get understanding of how these things work.
I would recommend the discrete electronics bible, Horowitz And Hill's The Art of Electronics as well as Malik's Electronic Circuits. (Edit: actually, it's been a while since I've used these books and I can't remember what scope they really cover. I know Malik is a little more advanced and concentrates on state devices like diodes and transistors. Really, a basic engineering circuit analysis textbook might be best)
You should also check out this java applet. It is surprisingly powerful and gives a really good general idea of what electronic components do ('visually' and numerically)
http://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Berkeley-Physics-Course/dp/0070049084/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1293309823&amp;sr=8-1
It's really expensive because it's out of print, but I sprung for a nice like new hardcover copy on eBay (because it's the book my school uses for the intro to E&M course) and it's pretty good (you can find it for much cheaper if you buy the Int'l edition on eBay). I think between this one and Griffiths, you would be pretty good.
What kind of circuits, and how deep do you want to go? I can recommend some books, but this is a very broad and deep field.
The most basic is linear circuits (R, L & C), you need for nearly everything electronics related. If you like physics and math, this book is excellent: http://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Berkeley-Physics-Course/product-reviews/0070049084/ref=cm_cr_pr_link_2?ie=UTF8&amp;showViewpoints=0&amp;pageNumber=2&amp;sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending . It is a physics textbook, but highly related to those basic linear components. If you can stomach it, it will also blow your mind.
Practical Electronics for Inventors is an excellent reference for the price.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
maybe check out this book and see if you can do a little better with it. it still has math, but you can't really get around all of it: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-Scherz/dp/0071771336
you at least have to be able to do some ohms law and some basic calculations. A lot of other things have seemingly impenetrable calculus behind them but I've found a lot of the time you can just read a data sheet and they'll give you some simple formulas that you can just plug into that work well enough. You don't need to know how they came up with the formulas, just plug in your parameters and go.
You should go on youtube and watch some videos of people repairing amps. there's lots of good ones and you can pick up a lot of stuff through osmosis. also check out EEVblog.
lastly, instead of messing with your nice guitar amp, build a cheap one yourself and mess with it. there's tons of schematics online you can use and it's pretty fun to build one. I put this one together and I really like it: http://www.runoffgroove.com/ruby.html You can buy all the parts from digikey.com
Wow, thanks fro the great answers /u/crb3 ! Really interesting stuff.
Number 3 I'm going to read through really slowly again to try to makes sure I get it all. Reverse protection diode makes sense. I think I can leave it out since I am using only 9v DC from the wall wart so it'd be hard to get it backwards like a battery. It seems like increasing the value of C3 would allow a larger reservoir of power and less sag?
One question, why does it matter it it is a 0.1 uF MLC cap vs some other type of capacitor, i.e., What desirable properties are exclusive to MLC?
This is exactly what I has hoping for. I'm slowly working through this book now to get a better understanding of this stuff, but practical explanations like the ones you provided are really interesting and provide an awesome supplement to what I have learned so far from the text book!
Next step is the breadboard to try some of this stuff out!
This is a pretty good guide to the electronics part. Find kits on AliExpress for the components.
Not a video but, I'm just finishing my first semester of Circuits and I bought this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-Scherz/dp/0071771336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1418850335&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=practical+electronics+for+inventors
and reading it helped much more than the class textbook. It will probably follow about the same arc as the glass and its a very readable technical book. Plus it has later chapters on actual practical circuits and stuff on digital circuits information so I highly recommend it.
Interesting. I have more reading to do. But that's good. Hmmm I could have sworn there was a section in this book that talked about ohms law could t be used to both ways or something or other. Oh well.
Best two:
The Horowitz/Hill bible is great, he's a physicist/EE. For some people, though, his interest in the physics isn't necessarily what they geek out on, and so for those people I'd suggest also Practical Electronics for Inventors.
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336
I found this book to be very easy for beginners to pick up and enjoy, and get started on building far more quickly.
I explained to you my position and you still deny 48V at .33A would produce a shock that might cause a lawsuit. I was being friendly and informing and your rambling that it dosent matter because "it doesn't give the voltage and frequency". We were assuming PoE which is more than likely 48v and frequency dosent even make sense in the context as its DC.
I would recommend this book if you're interested in learning about Ohm law and current flow so you can make informed observations. However looking through your 1st page comment history briefly I can see you just want to argue and the subject is irreverent. Take care, I've wasted enough of my time.
Electronics is both easy and hard. The easy parts are following a schematic and plugging existing circuits together. This is usually much easier with digital electronics since all the electronics are doing are turning the current on and off or bringing the voltage high or low. The hardest part is making sure you connect all the wires correctly, and most devices are protected, and voltages are low, so crossing wires won't fry the device (though LEDs are easy to burn out). You can get very far with this "lego" mindset to circuit design. If you want to understand how current flows through an electrical network, and why resistors need specific values, how analog circuits work, and why digital signals need certain components like capacitors, then you'll need to invest more time in understanding electrical theory. This book is really good for that: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336
Others may disagree, but I've found this book
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336
To be extremely informative both for the layman such as myself, and I imagine it's useful for the more experienced of us as It goes into rather extensive detail - including all the mathematics and electrical theory.
This is a good practical book made for the beginner:
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336
This is the "bible":
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
Practical Electronics for Inventors
The name is somewhat silly but I've found it to be particularly useful. Plus, its fairly cheap...
If you want to do it all on your own and have 0 experience you are going to have to learn a lot about programming and electronics.
You can start here for programming:
http://www.amazon.com/C-Programming-Modern-Approach-2nd/dp/0393979504/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1426519326&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=c+programming+a+modern+approach
For electronics start here:
http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-Electronics-Forrest-Mims/dp/0945053282/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1426519459&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=getting+started+in+electronics
Then here
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-Scherz/dp/0071771336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1426519443&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=circuit+design
Once you've done that then I suggest you start buying Arduino kits etc. I'm not saying you need a lot of experience to start with Arduino, but if you are looking to make a commercialized project and have a budget I think it's better to know what to buy before you start throwing money away in things (e.g. kits) you won't even use.
Here is the mobile version of your link
I would highly recommend Art of Electronics. I've read dozens of books on this category and it is by far my favorite; useful both for initial instruction as well as later reference. Yes, it is expensive, but IMHO is well worth it.
The other book I'd recommend is "Practical Electronics for Inventors" by Scherz and Monk. Best breakdown of capacitor types and applications that I've seen. Link here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0071771336
Yuuuuup, feeling the same way except i think i'd like to get more into the microcontroller/FPGA field of EE.
I ended up getting this book a while ago and it's actually been quite helpful in explaining things in a manageable and very equation-lite way. Definitely gonna need another source for more in-depth but for the basics it's quite good.
Something like this would also be good to have for reference.
Electrical Engineering 101: Everything You Should Have Learned in School...but Probably Didn't
If you want a head start I read this book before my first EE course it was a quick read and I really felt like I had a fundamental understanding of a lot of things before diving deep into theory and equations.
Electrical Engineering 101, Third Edition: Everything You Should Have Learned in School...but Probably Didn't https://www.amazon.com/dp/0123860016/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_3DUXAbWGQCWEK
It looks like you haven't run across 'dimensional analysis' yet. It's a really important engineering tool, and helps get calculations correct:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensional_analysis
Have a look at this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Electrical-Engineering-101-Third-Edition/dp/0123860016
It has a short section on dimensional analysis.
As a reference book AofE is fine, but the one that really helped make everything "click" in my mind was Electrical Engineering 101 https://www.amazon.com/Electrical-Engineering-101-Everything-Probably/dp/0123860016
I highly recommend reading Electrical Engineering 101, Third Edition: Everything You Should Have Learned in School...but Probably Didn't. It covers many of the fundamentals, while not being to difficult for you to jump into.
This is an excellent book for such a study!
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Control-Engineering-Katsuhiko-Ogata/dp/0136156738
Thank you for putting in the time to look up these courses. If you don't mind, can you please tell me how taking this modern control sequence compares to just reading the textbook linked below? I am asking strictly in terms of content/knowledge to be gained (as being mentored is always preferable to reading the textbook alone).
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Control-Engineering-Katsuhiko-Ogata/dp/0136156738
Background in you are curious:
I am preparing to take this course at Waterloo - http://compneuro.uwaterloo.ca/courses/syde-750/syde-556-course-outline.html - which mentions control theory in its description.
halliday and resnick for general physics
1 - goldstein
2 - griffith
3 -
4 - griffith or jackson
Talking about one universal electric field is counterintuitive. While RRC is technically correct, (EM fields do obey superposition, and are defined throughout all space), this is semantics and detrimental to learning if you are not an expert. Unfortunately, this is reddit, where semantics are the most important aspect of a post. There ARE individual electromagnetic fields. If you want, you can say that these all add together to form one giant universal field, but why would you (considering most drop off to ~zero in a relatively short distance)? When it comes to the universal aspect, think of the electromagnetic force as being universal.
To get to the questions.
I can't actually DEFINE a GENERAL electromagnetic field in a common definition. I can only tell you that there are a set of partial differential equations that define how EM fields behave (Maxwell's equations, Lorentz force law), and solutions to these equations are electromagnetic fields.
Also, light does not propagate THROUGH electromagnetic fields. Light IS propagating electromagnetic fields. Light is known more generally as electromagnetic radiation, and it is simply energy that propagates in a wavelike fashion out to infinity, generated from the motion of charged particles.
We use Griffith's Electrodynamics in my physics program. He's very clear and conversational.
You should probably start by cracking open a copy of a good E&M book, like this one, and learning the science, rather than relying on Einstein quotations.
Of course, that assumes you've already learned integral and differential calculus (which any 19-year-old science or engineering student has).
He means this
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-Edition-David-Griffiths/dp/013805326X
I do highly recommend Genome by Matt Ridley and A History of God by Karen Armstrong. It looks like Before the Big Bang might be a great idea too.
However, I'm noticing a bit of redundancy in your stacks and don't want you to get bored! In the presence of the other books, I would recommend Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale in lieu of The Greatest Show on Earth. (Although, if you're actually not going to read all the other books, I would actually go the other way.) Similarly, I would probably choose either to read the God Delusion or a few of the other books there.
Other recommendations: how about The Red Queen by Matt Ridley, and The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes? These occupy niches not covered by the others.
The popular expositions on cosmology all look supremely awesome, but you should probably choose half of them. Another idea: read just The Fabric of the Cosmos by Greene, and if you love it, go ahead and learn mechanics, vector calculus, Electrodynamics, linear algebra, and Quantum Mechanics! Hmm...on second thought, that might actually take longer than just reading those books :)
Clearly anyone not using Griffiths is a masochist! :)
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-3rd-David-Griffiths/dp/013805326X
Sweet. I think the best curriculum to approach this with, assuming you're in this for the long haul, would be to start with building a good understanding of calculus, cover basic classical mechanics, then cover electricity and magnetism, and finally quantum mechanics. I'm going to leave math and mechanics mostly for someone else, because no textbooks come to mind at the moment. I'll leave you with three books though:
For Math, unless someone else comes up with something better, the bible is Stewart's Calculus
The other two are by the same author:
Griffith's Introduction to Electrodynamics
Griffith's Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
I think these are entirely reasonable to read cover to cover, work through problems in, and come out with somewhere near an undergraduate level understanding. Be careful not to rush things. One of the biggest barriers I've run into trying to learn physics independently is to try and approach subjects I don't have the background for yet: it can be a massive waste of time. If you really want to learn physics in its true mathematical form, read the books chapter by chapter, make sure you understand things before moving on, and do problems from the books. I'd recommend buying a copy of the solutions manuals for these books as well. It can also be helpful to look up the website for various courses from any university and reference their problem sets/solutions.
Good luck!
I think PHYS 3007 uses Griffiths Introduction to Electrodynamics but I'm not entirely sure. Also I'm not sure which edition.
I am a current EE student right now and saw you ask in another comment about book recommendations so I thought I would throw a few in:
You should probably throw in some electromagnetic and semiconductor physics for good measure as well.
Sedra and Smith is a great textbook if that is not what you are using already.
What part of Electronics I was the most troublesome? Large signal analysis? Small signal analysis?
I always think of a bjt as a diode that blocks in both directions unless a voltage (and since it's a diode a little current must move) is applied to the base. Cutoff means no current flows, so you can remove voltage at the base to prevent current flowing from the collector to the emitter. Breakdown is what happens when you put soooo much voltage into something you literally break it. (Eg put too much voltage across a diode and it will leak current even though it should theoretically stop it)
There is a funny area used for amplification that is really complex where I usually just pull the bjt equations from Sedra/smith's http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0195323033?pc_redir=1395092360&amp;robot_redir=1 and treat it like a math problem
You have to learn the concepts of digital signal processing. There are alot of really good books out there on amazon. You can choose to implement these algorithms in many ways, in C++ using various audio libraries, in CUDA/OCL on a GPU or even in hardware level via Verilog/VHDL on an FPGA.
If you want to deal with raw circuitry, you need to learn analog signal processing, you might have to learn the concept of analog electronics. BJT's/OpAmplifiers/ClassA/AB/D etc. I recommend this book, it is fantastic.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195323033/
I recommend reading up the concepts of DSP first. Discrete Fourier Transforms, frequency manipulation such as low/high/band pass filtering. All the various concepts basically. This coursera site shows most important concepts.
https://www.coursera.org/course/dsp
Also, unless you are working on an FPGA, there is not much point testing/starting out on an embedded system. Try it out on your PC/Mac first
That's a common source amplifier.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_source
I'd suggest checking out Sedra and Smith on microelectronics
http://www.amazon.com/Microelectronic-Circuits-Electrical-Computer-Engineering/dp/0199339139/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1458405336&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=sedra+smith
Microelectronic Circuits from Sedra/Smith for all things amplifier! Wonderful textbook. https://www.amazon.ca/Microelectronic-Circuits-Adel-Sedra/dp/0199339139/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1502291667&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=sedra+smith
The basics are usually always covered, just no in the same depth. The course is more about building a mathematical frame work that works for E&M. Maxwells equations should be introduced and a bit of derivations. Conceptually its a tough course, but is been a few years since ive taken it. If you want to practice look up the Griffiths book on electricity and magnetism.
Amazon link:https://www.amazon.ca/Introduction-Electrodynamics-4th-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562
(Look for some free downloads)
Serious question: what makes you say these are the "standard route"?
[Griffith on electromagnitism] (http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-Edition-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1407283809&amp;sr=8-1-fkmr0&amp;keywords=Griffith+electromagnism)
[Griffith on quantum mechanics] (http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Quantum-Mechanics-2nd-Edition/dp/0131118927/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1407283809&amp;sr=8-2-fkmr0&amp;keywords=Griffith+electromagnism)
[Jackson on electromagnetism] (http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Electrodynamics-Third-Edition-Jackson/dp/047130932X/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1407283929&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=jackson+electromagnetism)
[Sakurai on quantum mechanics] (http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Quantum-Mechanics-2nd-Edition/dp/0805382917/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=081X3T6SB9XHEZWNTVNB)
This? http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-4th-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1417536834&amp;sr=1-1
Probably some combination of Griffiths, Jackson, and Zangwill
Intro. to electrodynamics by Griffiths has a very good chapter on vector calc
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-Edition-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562
Le invito a que se lea este libro:
http://www.amazon.com/Lightning-Protection-Iet-Power-Energy/dp/0863417442
Aunque, para entenderlo, va a tener que leerse este:
http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Electric-Circuits-Charles-Alexander/dp/0073380571
Y este:
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-4th-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562
Si le parece que la inversion de tiempo es demasiada, y si me da por un momento el beneficio de la duda, dejeme decirle que no hay rayo en el mundo que pueda causar un incendo cuando el sistema de pararrayos esta bien diseñado y el mantenimiento es adecuado.
Es lo mismo de la red electrica nacional. Un desastre producto de la falta de mantenimiento y planificacion propia de la 5ta republica.
Ningun sistema aguanta la combinacion de incapacidad mas corrupcion.
Si no me cree a mi, preguntele a un ingeniero amigo suyo. Eso si, si no es chavista es preferible. Las posibilidades de que no sea un pirata son mejores.
I think it's that E&M is just a more difficult/less interesting subject. If you plan on going to grad school for physics you will almost certainly use this. You'll love Griffiths after dealing with Jackson, as Griffiths acts as a sort of Rosetta stone between English and bizarre Greens Function hieroglyphs.
If you look on Amazon, there are a lot of inexpensive physics texts put out by Dover - for example, analytical mechanics or E&M. They're so cheap that I usually pick these up to supplement whatever text is recommended for each of my courses.
This poster is also baller as shit.
Dover Principles of Electrodynamics (used, very good or better, please, so there's no writing to distract me from my own musings) -- it would help me prepare for my comprehensive exams! =)
I was schooled by my mother after elementary/secondary school -- she figured she could home-school me after I returned home from public school. My mom introduced me to the scientific method at a very early age, intriguing me about the nature of the world by pointing out things and asking for my observations, a valuable lesson that's made my life endlessly delightful. =)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Art-Electronics-Hands--Course/dp/0521177235/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1467118088&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=The+Art+of+Electronics
Literally the bible.
https://learn.digilentinc.com/classroom/realanalog/
https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Art-Electronics-Hands-Course/dp/0521177235
Totally not a smartass answer: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
This book taught me many amazing things.
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
EE yes. If you can EE than you can program. Taking a few CS courses will teach you the finer points of programming. But if you want to play with hardware than EE is the way to go.
Between EE and CS, both types learn programming. Focus on EE if you are thrilled by hardware. Focus on CS if you love logic puzzles and high level abstractions. FYI EE pays more and you can always get a programming job with an EE. The reverse is not true.
(Although I have to say that most EE's I know are terrible programmers. But that doesn't seem to stop them.)
I think a book that would be perfect for you is
The Art of Electronics
. The first half is all basic electronics. Then it gets into logic circuits and finally simple computer circuits.
One nice thing about this book is that the chapters are very well organized. So if you don't want to learn everything there is to know about transistors, just read the first few pages of the transistor chapter and the move on.
Read The Art of Electronics. It's a pretty great book.
Been looking into this text, any idea on where I can grab/look for it for less than the terrifying amazon pricing?
Last summer while on holiday I was laying on the poolside chairs (hiding from the intense midday sun, the sea/pools were empty around noon), reading The Art of Electronics. I had it on the foot side on my chair, laying on my stomach so you could see the book when going around.
The hotel staff was running around, giving out cold water, entertaining kids etc. One of them went by me, did a double take on the book (I was on some page with a lot of circuit diagrams, graphs, ... ), stopped and asked if he could have a look. I said sure, he picked it up, flipped through it, shook his head and went away without saying a word.
Not really sure what he though, but it certainly wasn't the standard beach reading material.
Glad to see you're approaching this from the correct angle. We get this sort of question here all the time, but it's usually "how do i electronics" and they get upset when they find out math is involved.
Definitely follow the math up through precalc, calculus, and differential equations. Learn Laplace transforms if you have time. You'll also want to explore physics pretty far, much of it will apply when you least expect it. Electronics is a mix of applied physics and chemistry. Finally you'll want to learn some thermodynamics. Understanding heat transfer and energy will be pretty useful. For all of these, I would just hunt down some college textbooks and some related Schaum's outlines.
While you're doing that, make sure to dabble in electronics to keep you focused. Build up some assembly, soldering, and possibly circuit layout skill. Definitely find this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
The Art of Electronics is $20 on amazon if you get it used. It's quite a price break from new.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
Otherwise as the others have said, broken projects happen often. You'll get more help of you're asking for help on a specific project with photos.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
jel se možda može naći ovo ?
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
:)
The Art of Electronics is a fun book.
This looks like a good book
http://www.amazon.com/MAKE-Electronics-Learning-Through-Discovery/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1279769926&amp;sr=8-3
This IS a good book but deals with advanced theories.
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1279769926&amp;sr=8-16
And this looks pretty good.
http://www.amazon.com/Circuitbuilding-Yourself-Dummies-Ward-Silver/dp/0470173424/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1279769941&amp;sr=8-21
Go to the book store, pick up some books. Go the the library and see what they have. Pick up old radios and junk off of the street take them home and pull them apart but be careful of the capacitors, if you dont know what a capacitor is then read one of the above books.
Look on craigslist for free electronics and start taking them apart. Be careful of anything that uses Alternating current, anything that plugs into a wall deals with large voltages so be sure to start small.
An op amp is a differential amplifier with an enormous gain, something along the lines of 10^(6)
This causes some interesting things, for instance, with input voltages above, say 1/1000 of a volt, it will act as a comparator, the largest voltage immediately sending the input high or low.
Because of this high gain, it is easy to construct a circuit for an amplifier that is determined by the ratio of two resistors alone, the gain disappearing entirely from the equations.
Op amps can also be used to add DC bias to a signal.
&#x200B;
These are some useful resources
How to bias an Op Amp (MIT)
The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz (worth every penny)
Khan Academy's course on the subject
The Art of Electronics is the one essential electronics textbook. The microprocessor stuff is sadly dated, but OTOH, nobody has written a better book for understanding transistors and op-amps. If $100 is too steep, shop around for a paperback international student edition.
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
For electronics, go with The Art of Electronics. Great reviews, very engaging read.
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
buy it
read it
love it
This book is a bit spendy but there is nothing better for the hobbyist. It is the Holy Bible of hobby electronics.
Khan Academy also has a course on Electrical Engineering, but I've not looked at it terribly closely. They generally do a good job at whatever they decide to include though.
If you want the one book to rule them all, I still stand by: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266
Pricey, but it's a classic.
No, I don't, it was just the best ASIC textbook from when I was in grad school. It really helped me understand how transistors work. If you want a good book on discrete components I would recommend The art of electronics. It is written more as a practical guide, with part suggestions for op amps and filters. Like it compares and contrasts different discrete components and will give you suggestions for what op amp to use for different applications. 10/10, would buy again.
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541/
I dig it, good work. To help sort out some of the necessary fundamentals, I recommend you pick up a copy of The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill - 3rd edition. This is a staple for anyone that does anything with electronics. A couple of reads through the first handful of chapters and you'll have a good understanding what a bipolar-junction or field-effect transistor is, what a capacitor is, and how a capacitor and frequency relate to one another - and a whole bunch of other stuff too.
Year supply of hot beverage and then you just open the front cover:
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1457692246&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=art+of+electronics
Is [this] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521809266/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_1FnRybW1CCK94) the book you're taking about? It sounds like that is exactly what I was looking for! Thanks a lot ☺️
Honestly, the Art of Electronics. There's nothing particularly special about audio on the electronics front. It's just electronics where you care about noise a bit more than average.
"The Art of Electronics" is widely considered the the single most authoritative book for electronics. There is a companion book "The Art of Electronics Student Manual" that may also prove very useful to you. If you don't have any experience building circuits yet check out this video from EEVBlog "How to setup an Electronics Lab for $300". The easiest way to learn is to learn by doing.
If you haven't started playing with electronics yet, get started you will be glad you did. Never stop learning.
Art of Electronics is pretty comprehensive. Also the unofficial bible for electrical engineers
https://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266?&amp;linkCode=wey&amp;tag=maggicom0e-20
The Art of Electronics is the best all-in-one resource for practical discrete electronics. Add individual device data sheets and plenty of Digikey/Mouser searches with filters and you'll start to get a good feel for general availability of components.
There is a book called The Art of Electronics, 3rd Edition. Get that and also its separately sold Lab book.
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266
The book might fulfill your needs.
In that case, I bet you'll want to take the custom route. Have a pair custom made for yourself and you'll never go back to the generic ones. Here are a few resources to get started. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5].
110 dollars on amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1427412717&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=The+Art+of+Electronics
This Book is like the bible for basic electrical engineering topics.
It is a text book, so it's less of a "I'd really like it if someone could just give me all the infos on the electronics" and more of a dense technical reference.
I picked up a UV-82HP from Prime Day but my real catches were Gordo's Extra Class study guide, Carr's Practical Antenna Handbook, and H/H's Art of Electronics.
Here's to spending the rest of my summer in a book.
Someone posted a great BLDC paper a week ago I'm still using. http://www.amazon.com/Circuit-Designers-Companion-Edition-Engineers/dp/0750663707 is indispensable. Xilinx, Atmel, and LT parts manuals and app-notes. I use Switching power supply design by Pressman, but your pdf looks better. Also http://www.hottconsultants.com/techtips/decoupling.html , http://www.analog.com/static/imported-files/seminars_webcasts/High%20Speed%20System%20Applications%20%28PDF%29/HS%20Systems%20Part%204%20for%20Print_A.pdf, though I haven't used that in years (moved away from hs stuff lately).
Schaums when I fall over, and The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design when things get heavyish. When it comes to wireless stuff it's mostly stuff like wikipedia so I can remember how to do the encoding systems, too many for me to remember more than QAM and PSK offhand easily, the rest just exist in my brain as "other".
Johnson's High Speed Digital Design has a few chapters on power planes and multi-layer stackups, as well as being a good overall reference. The Circuit Designer's Companion is another popular book that covers PCB design techniques as well as several other electronics basics.
The best way to learn is to have your designs reviewed by experienced engineers; but if you're asking here I'm guessing you are doing this as a hobbyist. Maybe post your designs on some EE forums for review?
Also knowing 'how' is not as useful as 'why', ECAD tools generally are different enough that the specifics of how to accomplish something are not the same. Which tool do you use? Most have online user groups or forums for specific questions.
If you're looking for a broad practical book, this might be of use.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0750663707/
edit: Corrected
Thanks, that book looks like a very informative read! Although the price tag on it is a bit insane. I did stumble across the book on a cheaper website listed at $16,- and marked as shipping from India called "Abebooks".. hmm.
Do you think this book also sucks? I have a Physics professor teaching me EM because my EE professor isn't that good. He says that's the best EM book. I don't know much.
Griffith's Electrodynamics has a decent introduction to special relativity. Otherwise, Hartle's book is geared towards the advanced undergrad. Also, Schultz is good too.
I favor books over websites and youtube videos for most technical learning projects like this.
Practical Electronics for Inventors has been in one of my amazon wishlists for a while now, saved for when I decide to start tinkering more myself. It looks pretty decent and isn't uber expensive.
There's definitely something to be said about being self-employed. If you can pull it off, being your own boss is probably pretty liberating. I was actually having a conversation with my roommate last night about work and money, etc. He graduated college a few months back with a 4-year degree and now he's making $30k/year at a job he already hates after working there for a month. It does suck to feel like a pawn of the system - you work for pennies while other people profit immensely off of your productivity. So going freelance might ameliorate that problem for you.
In regards to printing PCBs, yeah, that's electrical engineering. There's a book my EE friend made me buy that you might find useful for that endeavor: Practical Electronics for Inventors. Though that link to American Amazon might not be the best based on your usage of the word "flat." I've been working my way through a different one - Essentials of Computing Systems, which I've found pretty cool. Starting with NAND gates (in a hardware simulator) it has you build up a fully functional computer, which you then write software for. Pretty cool stuff. For context I'm a 23 year old chemical engineering graduate who's 2 years into a 7 year MD/PhD program. So lots of tests left to take and reports to write for me at least.
Practical Electronics for Inventors covers the fundamentals of electronics, ranging from Ohm's law and simple circuit analysis, to guides on selecting components and the use of microcontrollers. It was a lifesaver during the first year of my Bsc in electrical engineering, and I still find it handy.
Luckily it's never been easier to start learning electronics. I know you want hands-on experience but you gotta learn some theory first - I'd recommend a book like Practical Electronics for Inventors to learn the basics (some people swear by The Art of Electronics but it is not a beginners book, rather more of a intermediate-advanced reference). Then something like the Arduino Starter Pack that will start you on the path to building circuits!
Along the way, watching electronics tutorials and teardowns on youtube, and taking apart stuff to see how it works would also really help.
Scherz's Practical electronics for inventors is a good intro level book that includes theory at an understandable level and lots of practical stuff. The early editions had a lot of mistakes but presumably by now it's better edited
https://smile.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541/
Assuming you’re a beginner, and are starting with little to no knowledge:
I bought the 3rd edition of the book called “Practical Electronics for Inventors” by Scherz and Monk it starts from the basics and you slowly build more and more complex and practical circuits.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_eTs2BbXN9S1DN
Another fun on by Monk is “The Maker's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse: Defend Your Base with Simple Circuits, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi”
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1593276672/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_XVs2BbYMVJT5N
If you are looking for something more theory based (I wouldn’t recommend initially unless you’re just curious) there’s a whole slew of texts books depending on what exactly you’re interested in you can pick up for cheap at a used book store or on amazon.
Remember build slowly in the beginning until you get a good grasp on the content and have fun. Diving in too deep to quickly can overwhelm and kill morale.
Happy learning!
It's a fun hobby. Biggest learning curve is learning how to code. I didnt know a thing when I first started but the arduino community (link below) is really helpful with the process. They will even go over code you've written if your having issues.
Arduino community forum:
https://forum.arduino.cc
Book for learning arduino program language:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1430247762/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_jqgLBbP544HBT
A good starter kit. Comes with alot of goodies like the program used to write the code and compile it, the arduino itself, super sonic sensor, DC motors to name a few as well as data sheets for each piece:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EWNUUUA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_krgLBbN85GPHF
Book recommended to me that helps with the more complex builds: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_UrgLBb7STEDSA
My first project I made/wrote was to make a couple LEDs blink in specific intervals. May not seem like much but like I said, biggest learning curve is learning to program the arduino itself.
Good luck
PEI is excellent... https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
If you're looking for a book to get started, I'd highly recommend Practical Electronics for Inventors. It's not arduino specific, but there is a whole chapter on microcontrollers.
I was at your stage not long ago and had the same concern. Then I stumble on this book, available in electronic version that start you at the very begining and explain very well the basic of electronic, each excercise add a little bit more complexity till you reach arduino stuff.
http://www.makershed.com/products/make-electronics-2ed
And
http://www.makershed.com/products/make-more-electronics
And a good reference book:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1259587541/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_1259587541
https://www.amazon.com/Electronics-Guitarists-Denton-J-Dailey/dp/1461440866/
i have it, but i'm too dumb to really understand and make use of it :(
Edit: you might wanna check out http://www.electrosmash.com/ as well
This is a pretty good resource: http://www.amazon.com/Electronics-Guitarists-Denton-J-Dailey/dp/1461440866/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1458918341&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=electronics+for+guitarists
My wall of text posts about asking for help will show that I'm still not an expert but the first book that really got me going was Electronics for Guitarists ( http://www.amazon.ca/Electronics-Guitarists-Denton-J-Dailey/dp/1461440866 )
It's not free unfortunately but it's the first book that I found delved at a good level into electronics but always from the perspective of a guitarist instead of an EE student. I do believe that learning something, especially something as complex as electronics, is much easier when in the right context, which for us, is guitar effects and amplification.
You won't find cookie-cutter recipies but you will find a lot of very simple circuits and their analysis and explanation. Also, the math is not required and you can skip it, but it's in there if you want it which I think is a good thing.
I think you can read a bit of chapter one about power supplies on Amazon. Take a look!
I just passed (no idea by how slim of a margin). I used this book; didn't really read the finer points but worked most of the problems, especially the easier ones.
Ok, I'm at least on the right track with this book. It's just a newer addition than the one you linked. I'm almost hesitant to go with the NCEES stuff, but may look into your second linked one if I can find a better price.
https://www.amazon.com/FE-Electrical-Computer-Review-Manual/dp/1591264499/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1486391547&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=FE+Electrical+and+Computer+Review+Manual+%28FEEERM%29
Re-read my post above... it’s been edited.
NCEES reference handbook:
https://account.ncees.org/exam-prep/359
Lindeburg Review Manual (Electrical and Computer):
FE Electrical and Computer Review Manual https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591264499/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_EVM1CbK7GT24S
The FE ELECTRICAL review manual is going for $67 on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1591264499/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
That's all I used to study and I was able to pass.
The reference manual can be had as a PDF from the NCEES website:
https://ncees.org/engineering/fe/
Good luck!
If you are interested in buying the set,
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=14NGF7FFK7YMCE5X9HFC
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=14NGF7FFK7YMCE5X9HFC
about $170 for the set
I ordered the third edition last month, at the time I read that the companion for that version was not yet released. Is that the new companion?
I found this on amazon, it has a recent publishing date, but I don't see what version it is.
https://www.amazon.ca/Learning-Art-Electronics-Hands--Course/dp/0521177235/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1458182205&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=learning+the+art+of
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
Oh? First year EE student? That's cute. Go buy a copy of this book right now, and don't wait 'til after completing a BS to brush over important concepts. This was singlehandedly more comprehensive than most of my individual courses.