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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:

• Circuit Board Layout Techniques (from Op Amps for Everyone)
  
• PCB Design Guidelines
  For Reduced EMI
  
• Using Decoupling Capacitors
  
  These guides are specific to certain microcontrollers, but still have good info:
  
  
• System Design Guidelines for Stellaris Microcontrollers
  
• Getting started with STM32F10xxx hardware development
  
  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?

This is a difficult question since I don't know the person that you're buying for, but blue print posters are a great gift for engineers. Here's a blue print to the space shuttle that is cool from think geek http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/13e7/. Zazzle has a lot of cool blue prints as well http://www.zazzle.com/wright_bros_flyer_blueprint_1903_posters-228648945618474151. It just depends on what he or she wants.


In terms of books I really liked To Engineer is Human by Henry Petrokski. http://www.amazon.com/Engineer-Human-Failure-Successful-Design/dp/0679734163/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419188349&sr=8-1&keywords=To+Engineer+is+human. I hope this gives you some more ideas for gifts for engineers.

I saw it followed pretty religiously in aerospace and I'd guess that automotive does too, as I believe SAE was heavily involved with creating them (not positive though).

My current job (industrial components) uses them as a guide and reasonable starting point but is not bound to them.

Other companies I interned at just drilled to whatever size was available and hoped it worked.

It really depends on how critical the components are, how regulated the industry is, and how likely you are to get sued. If a component fails, "I followed best industry standard and practices" holds up a lot better in court than "I guessed and it seemed to work". There are a ton of other tolerance standards and about 1500 pages of Machinery's Handbook is largely devoted to them. It's worth browsing through some time, it's really mind blowing how standardized everything is. They seem simple but there are at least 100 pages devoted purely to dimensions on bolts.

Further reading/research: (Not all of which I've gotten to read yet. Some of which may be quite tangentially relevant to the discussion at hand along with the books and sites I mentioned above. Consider this more a list of books pertaining to the history of technology, machining, metrology, some general science and good engineering texts.)

Dan Gelbart's Youtube Channel

Engineerguy's Youtube Channel

Nick Mueller's Youtube Channel

mrpete222/tubalcain's youtube channel

Tom Lipton (oxtools) Youtube Channel

Suburban Tool's Youtube Channel

NYCNC's Youtube Channel

Computer History Museum's Youtube Channel

History of Machine Tools, 1700-1910 by Steeds

Studies in the History of Machine Tools by Woodbury

A History of Machine Tools by Bradley

Tools for the Job: A History of Machine Tools to 1950 by The Science Museum

A History of Engineering Metrology by Hume

Tools and Machines by Barnard

The Testing of Machine Tools by Burley

Modern machine shop tools, their construction, operation and manipulation, including both hand and machine tools: a book of practical instruction by Humphrey & Dervoort

Machine-Shop Tools and Methods by Leonard

A Measure of All Things: The Story of Man and Measurement by Whitelaw

Handbook of Optical Metrology: Principles and Applications by Yoshizawa

Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon by Gray

Machine Shop Training Course Vol 1 & 2 by Jones

A Century of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, 1882-1982

Numerical Control: Making a New Technology by Reintjes

History of Strength of Materials by Timoshenko

Rust: The Longest War by Waldman

The Companion Reference Book on Dial and Test Indicators: Based on our popular website www.longislandindicator.com by Meyer

Optical Shop Testing by Malacara

Lost Moon: The Preilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by Lovell and Kruger

Kelly: More Than My Share of It All by Johnson & Smith

Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed by Rich & Janos

Unwritten Laws of Engineering by King

Advanced Machine Work by Smith

Accurate Tool Work by Goodrich

Optical Tooling, for Precise Manufacture and Alignment by Kissam

The Martian: A Novel by Weir

Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain by Young Budynas & Sadegh

Materials Selection in Mechanical Design by Ashby

Slide Rule: The Autobiography of an Engineer by Shute

Cosmos by Sagan

Nuts, Bolts, Fasteners and Plumbing Handbook by Smith Carol Smith wrote a number of other great books such as Engineer to Win.

Tool & Cutter Sharpening by Hall

Handbook of Machine Tool Analysis by Marinescu, Ispas & Boboc

The Intel Trinity by Malone

Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals by Thompson

A Handbook on Tool Room Grinding

Tolerance Design: A Handbook for Developing Optimal Specifications by Creveling

Inspection and Gaging by Kennedy

Precision Engineering by Evans

Procedures in Experimental Physics by Strong

Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes or How They Did it in the 1870's by Dick

Flextures: Elements of Elastic Mechanisms by Smith

Precision Engineering by Venkatesh & Izman

Metal Cutting Theory and Practice by Stephenson & Agapiou

American Lathe Builders, 1810-1910 by Cope As mentioned in the above post, Kennth Cope did a series of books on early machine tool builders. This is one of them.

Shop Theory by Henry Ford Trade Shop

Learning the lost Art of Hand Scraping: From Eight Classic Machine Shop Textbooks A small collection of articles combined in one small book. Lindsay Publications was a smallish company that would collect, reprint or combine public domain source material related to machining and sell them at reasonable prices. They retired a few years ago and sold what rights and materials they had to another company.

How Round Is Your Circle?: Where Engineering and Mathematics Meet by Bryant & Sangwin

Machining & CNC Technology by Fitzpatrick

CNC Programming Handbook by Smid

Machine Shop Practice Vol 1 & 2 by Moltrecht

The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles A fantastic book with tons of free online material, labs, and courses built around it. This book could take a 6th grader interested in learning, and teach them the fundamentals from scratch to design a basic computer processor and programming a simple OS etc.

Bosch Automotive Handbook by Bosch

Trajectory Planning for Automatic Machines and Robots by Biagiotti & Melchiorri

The Finite Element Method: Its Basis and Fundamentals by Zhu, Zienkiewicz and Taylor

Practical Treatise on Milling and Milling Machines by Brown & Sharpe

Grinding Technology by Krar & Oswold

Principles of Precision Engineering by Nakazawa & Takeguchi

Foundations of Ultra-Precision Mechanism Design by Smith

I.C.S. Reference Library, Volume 50: Working Chilled Iron, Planer Work, Shaper and Slotter Work, Drilling and Boring, Milling-Machine Work, Gear Calculations, Gear Cutting

I. C. S. Reference Library, Volume 51: Grinding, Bench, Vise, and Floor Work, Erecting, Shop Hints, Toolmaking, Gauges and Gauge Making, Dies and Die Making, Jigs and Jig Making
and many more ICS books on various engineering, technical and non-technical topics.

American Machinists' Handbook and Dictionary of Shop Terms: A Reference Book of Machine-Shop and Drawing-Room Data, Methods and Definitions, Seventh Edition by Colvin & Stanley

Modern Metal Cutting: A Practical Handbook by Sandvik

Mechanical Behavior of Materials by Dowling

Engineering Design by Dieter and Schmidt

[Creative Design of Products and Systems by Saeed]()

English and American Tool Builders by Roe

Machine Design by Norton

Control Systems by Nise

That doesn't include some random books I've found when traveling and visiting used book stores. :)

In no particular order but all of the following are great.

• Skunk Works by Ben Rich - I reviewed it here
  
• Ignition! - It's an informal history of liquid rocket propellant and I did a more in depth review of it here
  
• The Design of Everyday Things - A book about how objects are designed. It changed how I look at the world and approach design. It took me few tries to get into it the first time.
  
• Introduction to Astrodynamics by Battin - A great textbook on the basics of astrodynamics that is both easy enough for undergrads to start, and rigorous enough to keep you interested as your math skills improve in grad school and later.

Thermodynamics is usually covered separately from fluid mechanics. At least in chemical engineering, fluid mechanics is usually covered together with heat transfer and mass transfer, since they are all mathematically very similar, and can be grouped together as 'transport phenomena'. Fluid mechanics = transport of momentum, Heat transfer = transport of heat, mass transfer = transport of mass.

Anyway, if you are only interested in fluid mechanics, my favorite textbook is Middleman. For an entry-level textbook that covers all three, I like the W^3 textbook.

For more advanced transport phenomena, the de-facto standard is Bird, Stewart, and Lightfoot. A lot of schools actually use this for their undergraduate course, but I frankly think it's too difficult for an introductory text. For students that already know the fundamentals though, it's an excellent reference book.

For real graduate-level analysis, I really like Deen's book.

Caveat: all these textbooks are pretty expensive, and can run you close to $100 even used. There might be much less expensive alternatives that still teach the material well.

See this wiki page to get an idea of what engineers do for work on a daily basis: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/wiki/workexperience#wiki_work_experience

> I don't want to get as specific as individual circuits or servos, I'd rather find and source those systems and then add them together to make a larger project.

Broadly speaking, this is called electromechanical design, which is simply combining electrical design and machine design. Often when a vehicle gets complex enough, the electrical design and mechanical design are split off into two teams (with sub-teams for each subsystem in those categories), and a third team is created to integrate the two together. The people who make sure all the different subsystems play together nicely are sometimes called Systems Engineers or Integration Engineers, or more jokingly "Engineering Engineers".

I don't know much about the electrical side, but for machine design most people including myself are going to recommend Shigley's Mechanical Engineering Design. I suggest getting the 9th Edition or newer just for the introduction chapter, which is one of the best overviews of engineering I've read. You will also want to learn Statics and Dynamics which is a 2nd year course for a wide range of engineering disciplines.

UAVs (commonly called 'drones') are an electromechanical system as most modern vehicles today are, but being an airborne system you will also need some understanding of aerodynamics. Most aerospace engineering undergrads learn this at the beginning of their 3rd year because you need an understanding of vector Calculus and dynamics before grasping concepts in aerodynamics.

Well the best answer is definitely what Tigrinus posted. To add my two cents here are a couple of books I've read that are super interesting, without being textbooks:

The essential engineer

Why things break

Machinery's handbook

Machinery's handbook is pretty much the bible for Mechanical Engineers. It covers everything from materials sciences to types of measurements to machining and component sizing.

Skunkworks is great. Super good insight into the growth of a career and how an engineer thinks.


https://www.amazon.com/Unwritten-Laws-Engineering-Revised-Updated/dp/0791801624/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=3VPKBNEXYOHHK&keywords=unwritten+rules+of+engineering&qid=1555021569&s=gateway&sprefix=unwritten+r&sr=8-1-fkmrnull

Here's this book. I hear it's good. Haven't read it myself

I really enjoyed reading the following 4 books. Feynman is my favorite by far though.


[Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman](http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures[](http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/1439167346/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343022087&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+win+friends+and+influence+people-Curious-Character/dp/0393316041/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1343021477&sr=8-2&keywords=feynman)

Math and the Mona Lisa

The Emperor's New Mind

How To Win Friends and Influence People

It is really about knowing how to do research and speak the language. For the language you can learn from basic MSE books like https://www.amazon.com/Materials-Science-Engineering-Introduction-8th/dp/0470419970 . One you learn the basics and lingo you can apply that to specific material groups.


ASM has some really good books on materials like stainless steels and there are tons of online resources https://www.nickelinstitute.org/media/1667/designguidelinesfortheselectionanduseofstainlesssteels_9014_.pdf


Even common materials like aluminum have so many different grades that you need a good understanding of when you use 3000 grade vs 6000 grade.


More specialized materials like ceramic matrix composites for example have their own dedicated literature and resources. Once you get really off the beaten path academic papers and journals are the only resource.

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 aircraft itself is pretty amazing, although nowhere near close to being as good at the individual combat tasks as separate dedicated-role planes would be. By that I mean it won't come close to the A-10 for ground attack missions, won't hold a candle to the F-14 or F-15 for air superiority, etc. But that's a function of the design process itself, and that is what I have a real problem with.

If anyone is interested in finding out why the process is so broken, read Skunk Works by Ben Rich. He explains not only how much better things used to be, but exactly why they ended up the way they are now. Great book.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Autobiography of a member of the Manhattan Project, Nobel Prize winner, Professor at Caltech, bongo drum player, LSD user, painter. Just a bunch of fun eclectic stories.

Oh man, nobody's mentioned the rOtring 600 yet?! It's the love of my life. I had a Uni Kuru Toga 0.5mm for a little over a year beforehand and it was awesome, too. My only complaint about it was the compliance in the tip made it annoying to precisely predict how tiny lines would end up (I write very small). The 0.5mm rOtring doesn't spin the lead or anything fancy like the Kuru Toga, but it is so heavy, so well balanced, and the tolerances are just awesome. I've tried the rOtring 800 with the retractable tip, but the tolerance stackup of the moving parts just made it feel of lower quality than the 600.

This is probably the best Materials Engineering book around. It starts out for the layperson (rehashing basic chemistry) and builds upon itself to some very advanced material by the end. It also includes a huge number of pictures and diagrams to help visualize things that would otherwise be difficult to understand.


When I took the class that polyparadigm mentions this is the textbook we used.

Edit - look like Callister got mentioned twice now, I guess that means you gotta get it now!

I bought this book and did all of the practice problems. You get a pdf manual to use during the test. You can download it from the NCEES website. It’s searchable and definitely helps to practice using it. I took mine in 2015 for civil so there may have been some changes since then. The university I went to offered review sessions that were open to non students. They weren’t free but were cheaper than most other options, maybe there’s a school near you that may offer them. Good luck.

Not along the lines of Electrical but I think Structures: Or why things don't fall down by JE Gordon is without a doubt the best book I've ever read on the Materials side of engineering. Technical in nature but so well written it reads like a novel. Written in the 60's but still just as relevant today. Got a recommendation by Bill Gates. Elon Musk read it when he wanted to understand more about materials science and loved it. Should be required reading for all freshman

If you're still in school, I would look at their library for review manuals first. I was able to find this: Lindeburg's Review Manual. In my opinion, this manual more than prepared me for the test because it is actually a lot harder than the FE.

Get the official practice test from NCEES and the official equation book. Use your FE calculator and the equation book every time you study.

It took me about 1 week to successfully study for the ChE version, and I thought it was rather easy. It helped that I was still a senior and taking a statics class, though. Don't stress. If you come from a good program (I'm from Pitt), you'll already have 80% of the knowledge somewhere in your brain.

hmmm well there are a lot of books that could be recommended depending on how you want your guitar tuner to work and what sort of methods you will be using to model your system as well as control it, do you want books on signal processing as well ? do you want discrete control? state space ? or just a book that will cover most bases? Either way I have put down a couple of basic texts that could help.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Control-Systems-Richard-Dorf/dp/0136024580

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Control-Engineering-International-Version/dp/0137133375/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382300545&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=control+ogatta

It's just a little thing, but a nice, bound, notepad with bookmark is essential for me. I like the quad-ruled ones:

https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-NH130210120V-S-Classic-Notebook-Squared/dp/B01DN8TEA2/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1541454040&sr=8-6&keywords=quad+ruled+notebook&dpID=51WoQSZKalL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Could consider a nice mechanical pencil to go with it, too: https://www.amazon.com/rOtring-Barrel-Mechanical-Pencil-1904443/dp/B00AZWYUA4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1541454178&sr=8-3&keywords=rotring+pencil&dpID=31NpYvK41ML&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

We could go back and forth with studies saying one thing or another... But If you are truly curious, I'd like to recommend a book that might change your mind.

https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322/ref=sr_1_2?crid=V8EURSH3HSSQ&keywords=mindset+carol+s.+dweck&qid=1563406599&s=gateway&sprefix=Mindset+%2Caps%2C165&sr=8-2

Here you go: https://www.amazon.com/Structures-Things-Dont-Fall-Down/dp/0306812835
Amazing book for beginners or people with a decade of experience. I have read this several times now and still love it.

"If engineering were easy, they would have sent a boy with a note."

Seriously there aren't any shortcuts. Either you learn the fundamentals or you don't. But if you want a really good general reference book, get The Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual


Other useful references:

• The Machinery's Handbook
  
  
• Glover's Pocket Reference
  
  
• Mark's Standard Handbook
  
  In actual practice, unless we are launching things into space or making them fly through the air, a lot of engineering is just picking thinks that we know will work by experience (if a 1" square tube will work let's use a 2") or by consulting with vendors.

Modern Control Systems is one of the best presented textbooks I've read on any subject, I highly recommend it.

Edition 10 and 11 are easy to come by from online downloads, might have seen 12th Ed but no solution manual is available ATM. They are all virtually the same anyway.


Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Control-Systems-12th-Edition/dp/0136024580

Ebook:
http://sharif.ir/~namvar/index_files/Modern%20Control%20Systems%20(11th).pdf

Solutions:
http://www.cpdee.ufmg.br/~palhares/solution_CSL_Dorf_Bishop.pdf

This what I’m hoping for Christmas if you want to get me it that’ll be great!
Marks standard handbook for mechanical engineers

Anything by Henry Petroski

Skunk Works by Ben Rich Military aircraft aren't really developed this way anymore, but the stories are amazing.

Blind Man's Bluff

Two books comes to mind, first we have Skunk works by Ben Rich wich chronicles his years at Lockheed, Developing among others the U2 spyplane and the SR-71, giving you lots of practical glimpses into acctual engineering problems, like say dealing with poor supplier quality etc,

And then we have my all time fauvorite, Surely you're joking Mr Feynman, by Ralph Leighton and Richard Feynman. This isnt as much engineering as science and humour in one, but its still a good read!

I'm not an engineer(yet), but I thoroughly enjoyed Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed

I've included Amazon links as I could find them. The three reference guides I have are:

• Mark's Handbook for Mechanical Engineers
  
• Machinery's Handbook
  
• Roark's Formulas
  
  I also think reference books for the FE and PE exams would be helpful.

There are a variety of introductory materials science books. The one by Callister is probably the most widely used, at least in the U.S., but personally I prefer Ashby and Jones.

The University of Cambridge also has a nice set of tutorials online, here.

I agree with the other posters in that you should use a hose clamp or a tube clamp.

I also agree that you should spend a few hours perusing McMaster and reading the info; same with Misumi. That's how I learned about lots of different hardware.

As far as books: Machinery's Handbook is the gold standard for mechanical design. It contains tons of information you use day-to-day in design and gives your references if you need to research further. I suggest you procure a copy and keep it forever.

The EIT/FE is not a hard test. But, it is a test of fundamentals, most of which you haven't used / forgotten in the past eight years. As I tell my students: take the test before you graduate, because your brain is like a sieve, and once you stop doing homework, that knowledge slowly seeps out.

As you're coming to it several years out my advice is to start by buying yourself one of those EIT prep books and working problems. The Lindeburg book seems popular. Figure out what you know and what you've forgotten.

Then check your local colleges that have CE programs to see if they offer FE prep courses. Ours does, it's run by Chi Epsilon (the CE honor society), starts about 8 weeks before the test and they get professors to come in on the weekends to review. Ours charges a very nominal fee (like $10 per session) and student feedback is quite positive. So if you have a CE program near, contact the department office and see if they have something similar.

Buy the FE reference manual that NCEES sells. As others have said, the bulk of the material you need to know will be in there. Know where things are found ahead of time.

Figure out which afternoon test you're taking -- CE or Other disciplines (formerly called general). As you're 8 years out, CE is probably the answer for you.

The real key is to know that you're not going to know everything and the test ultimately is designed to test how well you take tests. Know what you know very well, re-learn the familiar stuff so you are passable, and don't spend a whole lot of time on stuff you've completely forgotten or hated. Make sure you know your math, physics and statics and you're on your way.

I used a prep book from Amazon and instead of the 90 day study schedule I think I crammed it into just under 30. I did the general test for both parts, though I went through and looked at the questions in the second half and the material I knew/didn't know was about the same for general and mechanical.

I had to take it in school before graduating, and I passed, but haven't really needed it now that I'm working. Good thing for the resume though as some places look for it.

You are looking at an area called Control System Engineering. If you are familiar with the Laplace transform I strongly recommend reading through this book.

http://www.amazon.ca/Modern-Control-Systems-12th-Edition/dp/0136024580

Even if you do not understand the Laplace transform this book covers the material initially using traditional Differential Equations. You can get a copy online through resourceful means.

Marks Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers

So good. Fascinating. Put it this way: if you don't end-up loving (loving!) this book, then Mech certainly isn't for you. So worst case scenario, this is a cheap way to find that out.

+1 for Rotring 600 or 800

Also a 4 hole punch would be nice if he wants to make up his own custom notebooks with millimetric graph paper and such.

This is what I used when I took the exam last year. I loaned that same book to a couple of friends who took the exam this year, and they both passed. To be honest, it's overkill, as not everything in there will be on the current exams, but that coupled with the books available from NCEES will let you pick and choose the sections you need to study.

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.

Did you mean 'Machinist's handbook'? Also, if anyone of you are planning to give it a read, I believe there are legally gray copies that are significantly cheaper on sites like ebay. Cough cough.

I gift this book to my interns:

Unwritten Laws of Engineering: Revised and Updated Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0791801624/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_.NCODbW2P4A2D

math (differentiation, integration, C [the miscellaneous topics in calculus class], multivariable calculus, linear algebra, differential equations)

science (chemistry, physics [mechanics and electricity and magnetism])

engineering (statics, mechanics, dynamics, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, combustion, aerodynamics, controls)

i think i just described the first 2 years of any engineering program -.-

to engineer is human is a good quick read as well regarding design and failure

Here's another engineering primer book: Why buildings stand up

Easily accompanied by: Why Buildings Fall Down

There's a great book written about this very topic

https://www.amazon.com/Unwritten-Laws-Engineering-Revised-Updated/dp/0791801624/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484838190&sr=8-1&keywords=unwritten+rules+of+engineering

An oldie but a goodie.

I recommend Shigley's Mechanical Engineering Design.

This Book covers the general section and also on the NCEES website they sell usually sell a small (25 sample questions I think) book for the individual afternoon sections if you were also curious on that.

If you can do the lindberg book you will ace the test. The questions tend to be at least the level of the FE, sometimes a lot more involved.

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:

​

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957

​

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.

Machinery's Handbook
https://www.amazon.com/Machinerys-Handbook-Large-Print-Oberg/dp/083113092X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1519088516&sr=8-2&keywords=machinery%27s+handbook

Mark's Handbook
https://www.amazon.com/Marks-Standard-Handbook-Mechanical-Engineers/dp/0071428674/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519088467&sr=1-3&keywords=Mechanical+Engineering+handbook

Shigley's Mechanical engineering and Design seems to be the standard for mechanical engineering.

Finally picked up my copy today.

Shigley's is another option

Bird, Stewart, Lightfoot...BSL for those in the know.
BSL

Pen: Sakura Micron-05
Pencil: rOtring 600

Mark's Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers: has everything you would ever need, and more.

Mark's Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers

https://www.amazon.com/Marks-Standard-Handbook-Mechanical-Engineers/dp/0071428674

A mark's handbook will probably get you started --

http://www.amazon.com/Standard-Handbook-Mechanical-Engineers-Edition/dp/0071428674/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398184423&sr=8-1&keywords=mark%27s+handbook

Machinery's Handbook

For Civil / Structural engineers:

Why Buildings Stand Up

Alternatively

Why Buildings Fall Down

To Engineer is Human

Have you read this yet? If not, it's time: https://smile.amazon.com/Unwritten-Laws-Engineering-Revised-Updated/dp/0791801624?sa-no-redirect=1

Unwritten Laws of Engineering: Revised and Updated Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0791801624/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_iEXYub12PRS8Y

A must have in my opinion

This book is what I get every one of our engineering interns - https://www.amazon.com/Unwritten-Laws-Engineering-Revised-Updated/dp/0791801624

https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=mindset&qid=1563407494&s=gateway&sr=8-3&utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

you cannot be a machinist without owning one of these

http://www.amazon.com/Machinerys-Handbook-Toolbox-Edition-Oberg/dp/0831128003

The stock answers are Roark's if it was full of equations, or Shigley's if it was full of diagrams.

Maybe Machinery Handbook, but it doesn't sound like it.

Structures: Or why things don't fall down. Excellent if you're considering civil or mechanical.

https://www.amazon.com/Structures-Things-Dont-Fall-Down/dp/0306812835

The first link is broken - here y'all go if anyone is as lazy as I am :)

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

I'm also travelling soon, and I'm looking forward to reading this!

Bird Stewat Lightfoot there are sample problems.

Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain is the bible for such questions.

Any materials or mechanics student should own this book forever.

I graduated within the past decade. I took a Manufacturing class - it was an elective. It included "lab" time that was spent in a machine shop. I also took a "Product Design and Rapid Prototyping" class - also an elective. Did some rapid tooling and other parts of product development.

I learned how to use a lathe, mill, etc. while at an internship (before I took that class).

The trend here - there was no requirement to learn how to use the tools that you may one day design parts for. I had to go out and do that myself.

> Also, can anyone recommend some resources for somebody looking to learn more about basic machining/manufacturing techniques?

I am shocked no one else has mentioned Machinery's Handbook.. That is the book for machining. Mfr techniques gets into the realm of DFM which is a little more in depth than knowing how to use a machine.

You can't develop talent? I totally disagree with that, Mr. Fixed-Mindset.

Well...how in-depth do you want to get?

https://www.amazon.com/Structural-Shear-Joints-Analyses-Properties/dp/0791802388
https://www.amazon.com/Roarks-Formulas-Stress-Strain-8th/dp/0071742476

At the most fundamental level you're talking about fatigue, fracture mechanics, and the ole S-N curves. A certain aluminum will have a given Fty but over repeated cycles, even if you never near Fty, the metal will yield/crack.

Any geometric change (cutout, fastener hole, etc) causes a stress riser. An empty hole has a stress riser of 3. All of a sudden you dump 2000lbs of load into a fastener in that hole and you're compounding the stress. So it's better to gradually load up the material.

A quick and dirty calculation for this is the "fastener spring method" or "fastener spring stiffness model". Something like that. This is the basis for a lot of FEA models.

A lot of this is from trial and error. Like the cutouts for windows used to be square (with sharp corners) until half the fuselage got ripped off during a flight. Then they started making the inner corners of cutouts rounded.

I think if you google "aircraft durability and damage tolerance" you'll find some semi-detailed info. Although a lot of this will be about crack inspection, etc. some of it will be about repair guidelines/analysis.

These days a lot of fatigue analysis is done by Finite Element Analysis.