(Part 2) Best electronic circuits books according to redditors

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:

• BJT - MOSFET
  
• Base - Gate
  
• Collector - Drain
  
• Emitter - Source.
  
  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:
  
  
• Subthreshold (Voltage over Gate-Source are less than the threshold voltage; Vgs < Vth)
  
• Linear/Triode region (Voltage over Gate-Source are more or less than threshold, but Voltage over Drain-Source are less than the Gate-Source voltage; Vgs >= Vth, Vds < Vgs)
  
• Saturation region (Voltage over Gate-Source are more or less than threshold, and voltage over Drain-Source are more than or equal to Gate-source voltage; Vgs >= Vth, Vds >= Vgs).
  
  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

yes, no, maybe?

It really depends on the type of circuit. For low frequency circuits like audio opamp circuits, or microcontrollers running at a few megahertz, it probably won't matter much. If you are switching high currents at high speed then you could run into problems. e.g. PWM controller for a motor, or LEDs.

Doing ground and VCC pours can mask problems because you lose sight of where your return signals paths are going. If you never need to put tracks on the bottom of the PCB then it's not so bad, but if you put tracks on the bottom of the PCB then you will start to break up the ground pour, potentially into isolated islands and bottlenecks.

If you solely rely on a ground pour you might not realise that one of the high frequency/current return paths goes all around the board.

You really should consider each Net individually and prioritise it based on current and frequency.

Do some reading on AC and DC PCB design.

https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/design/technical-documents/tutorials/5/5450.html

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Printed-Circuit-Design-Techniques-Compliance/dp/0780353765 - this is a good book for learning PCB design, and you can often find a PDF to download if you look hard enough.

Here's a question: from the point of view of PCB design, what's the difference between a 1MHz sine wave and a 1MHz square wave?

EDIT: search for "high speed PCB design" and you'll get articles which might help to explain it. You probably don't need to know the maths but try and get a general understanding of why you might do certain things on a PCB layout.

http://www.ti.com/lit/an/scaa082a/scaa082a.pdf

http://home.iitb.ac.in/~pradeepsarin/students/tether/generalectronicsfundaes/EMCPCB.pdf

http://www.elmac.co.uk/Lord_of_the_board.pdf

Honestly my go-to is probably odd but it's very complete (doesn't cover layout but that's very tool-specific and thus temporal/changing over time): Printed Circuits Handbook. Much of what you need to know isn't directly tactical to your project.

>I'm sorry but I'm skeptical about your qualifications.

As you should be. Luckily, this link outlines the theory sufficiently, so you don't have to.

>And you missed one very important word. Try again:

I ignored this because there is nothing special about airplane electronics that would warrant a distinction from regular electronics for the sake of this discussion. There is a distinction between the standards airplane electronics are held to vs. consumer, but the electronics themselves are equally subject to physics and the electromagnetic spectrum.

>Spoiler: It doesn't.

Yours might not, but what about the Chinese counterfeit version the guy next to you bought off ebay for half the price? You bet your ass that device isn't up to spec.

Or what about the condition you happened to uncover for the first time, that just couldn't be anticipated in any tests? This stuff is very difficult to predict, and is often times referred to as "black magic" in the industry for this reason. Look at this book description title on the topic:

PCB Design Techniques for EMC Compliance:

"Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) is an engineering discipline often identified as "black magic." This belief exists because the fundamental mechanisms on how radio frequency (RF) energy is developed within a printed circuit board (PCB) is not well understood by practicing engineers."

It is incredibly arrogant of you to think you can intuition your way around this topic. Certainly not the trait of a skeptic.

I'm thinking about starting with this book, as it seems to be standard material in intro electronics courses:

http://www.amazon.com/Grob-Basic-Electronics-Books-Series/dp/002802253X

Opinions?

http://www.amazon.com/Communication-Circuits-Analysis-Kenneth-Clarke/dp/0894648632/ref=cm_rdp_product

https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Delta-Sigma-Converters-Richard-Schreier/dp/0471465852

Soup to nuts.

I wouldn't consider it a "practical" guide for PCB design; if you want to get up and running fast, this isn't for you.

But if you want a good book that will introduce you to a bit of everything involved in the design and manufacture of PCB's, you'll love it.

This was on the cover of a signal processing textbook I had back in school, and also on the album art for scale the summit's "carving desert canyons"

Practice, practice, practice.

(Do this with the stuff you were assigned--if applicable--or try Schaum's Outline of Basic Circuits or 3000 Solved Problems in Electric Circuits)

There is no good way of getting that motor to run via battery power for any length of time, with any sort of efficiency. Your options are get a lot of 9v batteries, enough such that they could handle the current draw, or get a 12v car battery. Either way, you'll need an inverter, which is a very inefficient way of getting AC from DC. Furthermore, I doubt that motor has the torque to drive a bicycle without a human on top, save once it's got some load on the bike.

I am glad you are enthusiast and want to learn about electronics, but it seems to me you are putting the cart entirely before the horse. A simple understanding of Ohm's Law would have answered this question for you in seconds. I do recommend you do some studying on the fundamentals of this discipline.

http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Electricity-Electronics/dp/0071741356/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=undefined&sr=8-1&keywords=teach+yourself+electricity+and+electronics

This book is an amazing resource for getting started, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. I suggest you read it, and do the exercises at the end of each chapter.

Good luck!

Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics, 5th Edition by Stan Gibilisco

Analog Circuit Design, 4 volume set D. Feucht

Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits P. Gray and R. Meyer

Analysis and Design of Digital Integrated Circuis Hodges and Jackson

Audio Power Amplifier Design Handbook D. Self

Optimizing Op Amp Performance J. Graeme

Sure,

here

here are some values for a low loss cable

here's another one

If you have an IEEE membership

I would also recommend Electric Circuits by Nillson and Riedel, they do a good explanation of high voltage transmission.


Also, look up lithium batteries.

Edit: I should mention here that the longest currently existing non-relayed power line is now about 1700 km. However, the relatively short lines in use today are due to economics, not any major problem in engineering longer lines.

This is an IEEE standard book for it. You can probably find it online as a .pdf for free. It's a pretty good book.

Getting Started in Electronics by Forest Mims
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0945053282/

Make: Electronics
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596153740/

Lab Manuals for Electronics
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471386952/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0135046858/


Videos
Make videos by Collin Cunningham on youtube.com

Edit: Changed Chris to Collin (I got mixed up)... one guy does Aphex Twin videos and the other does Make videos

One of my favorite books for this sort of stuff is RTL Hardware Design Using VHDL. As the title implies, this book is entirely in VHDL rather than Verilog. Nonetheless, the concepts and building blocks it provides will certainly translate over to just about anything.

My first Arduino came in yesterday. I bought this kit to go with it and it has worked out pretty well for me. For $22.50 it looked like a pretty good deal. I went through the first 4 or 5 tutorials listed on the arduino.cc site and it really doesn't take long to get a handle on things if you've had any experience with C type languages. Also, when you start designing your own projects and want an easy way to document it and save your breadboard layout try fritzing.

Kit contained:

Parts list: Breadboard X1, Breadboard jumper wire X 70, Red Led X 10, Green Led X 10, RGB led X 1, Ceramic Capacitor (10nF X 10,100nF X 10), Electrolytic Capacitor (100uF X 5), Resistor (330X10,1kX10,10kX10), Tilt switch X 1, Thermistor X 1, Photo resistor X 1, Diode X 1, Buzzer X 1, Push button X 5, switch X 5, Mini Servo X 1, Potienmeter with knob X 1

Edited to add:
I also ordered this electronics text book since I'm just getting started with electronics. Getting a handle on the basics just seemed like a good idea. Got it used for $9.99. Can't say if its good or not as it hasn't come in yet.

Also Analog Signals and Systems

Hodges and Jackson from the university library

Thanks for the help. I will definitely check it out. The one I ended up ordering was:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/007142783X?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

It has some really good reviews so I hope it holds up.

There are 3. The 2 that are connected together are probably ground. So, tip to one, ring (middle connection) to the other, then sleeve (ground) to the 2 that are connected. Can't really be sure about left/right at this point. would require some experimentation.

Also, don't blow a pair of headphones! just go down to a radio shack and get an 1/8" connector. Then, find some cheap stereo wire. You need a wire with 2 conductors (as in, jacketed wires) and an outer shield. the outer shield is ground, and the two inner wires are the left and right sides. This completes the circut.

Oh, also, go to radio shack and by a good volt/ohm meter if you're interested in this stuff. It'll help you in the future detirmine things like which leads on this tape head are what. Also, read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Electricity-Electronics-Edition/dp/0071741356/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371353158&sr=8-1&keywords=Stan+Gibilisco

Stan Gibilisco's Teach yourself electricity and electronics. Fantastic book. Huge, but take it in chunks. You'll understand how this works and many other things!

3000 solved problems in Electric Circuits. Amazon link. There also is an ece subreddit and askelectronics.

Ott's book is awesome, also check out Bogatin.

Depending on your experience level (which sounds light) this book may also be good to have, especially if your company uses EAGLE. It's old and not especially well focused in places, but there is simply nothing else out there for beginners, book-wise.

Oh, and although these don't just cover filters you may also want Communications Circuits: Analysis and Design (Clarke Hess) and Phaselock Techniques (Gardner).

Frank Petruzella writes a very good book on PLC

I have both the Fluke 117 and 87V. They are different animals. I use the 117 to detect voltage and check continuity. I use the 87V as a calibration standard. The 87V is going to give you a low pass filter for eliminating carrier freq noise on AC drives. It also has an expanded farad range for checking capacitors.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Integrated-Circuits-Electronics-Computer-Enginering/dp/0072524936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511563496&sr=8-1&keywords=razavi+analog

Franco - Design with Op Amps and Analog Integrated Circuits

It's a textbook, but its focus is teaching how to get to that intuitive feel you're looking for.

Eletronic Principles is pretty good and beginner friendly. My circuits book in college was Electric circuits by Nilsson and Riedel, it's pretty good but a little dense.

A great collection of essays on delta-sigma converters:
http://www.amazon.com/Delta-Sigma-Data-Converters-Theory-Simulation/dp/0780310454

Another great book to understand how delta-sigma converters work:
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Delta-Sigma-Converters-Richard-Schreier/dp/0471465852/

A collection of seminal papers on the subject:
http://www.amazon.com/Oversampling-Delta-Sigma-Data-Converters-Simulation/dp/0879422858

Well, I think I'm going to get Electronic Principles by Albert Malvino since I was told it is a great place to learn the basics of electronics.

http://www.amazon.ca/Schaums-Outline-Basic-Circuit-Analysis/dp/0070478244/ref=pd_sim_b_2/190-8987154-3996018

Maybe look at something like this?

This textbook is pretty good. There's a newer edition, but this one used is more reasonably priced. Great reviews on Amazon as well. You can check out the table of contents on the newer edition, this one is similar. I think it covers a solid amount of applications.

I'm curious to hear any good answers to this.

Employers want to hear about your "project results" and such, not that you've read about the topic.

As far as learning goes, there are some good resources on the theory. This book was highly recommended on r/plc and I found it online: http://www.amazon.com/Programmable-Logic-Controllers-Frank-Petruzella/dp/0073510882/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404455777&sr=8-1&keywords=Frank+Petruzella%27s+book+Programmable+Logic+Controllers

A First Lab in Circuits and Electronics by Yannis Tsividis

http://www.amazon.com/A-First-Lab-Circuits-Electronics/dp/0471386952

> Have you looked at schaum's?

No, I'm not familiar with them at all-- I guess you're referring to something like this, which does look interesting! Thanks!