Books On Electronics For the Lay Programmer? 335
leoboiko writes "I'm a computer scientist and programmer with no training whatsoever in hardware or electronics. Sure, we designed a simple CPU (at a purely logical level) and learned about binary math and whatnot, and I can build a PC and stuff, but lately I've been wanting to, you know, solder something. Make my own cables, understand multimeters, perhaps assemble a simple robot or two. Play with hobbyist-level electronics. How does one go about educating oneself in this topic? I've been browsing Lessons in Electric Circuits online and it's been helpful, together with Misconceptions About 'Electricity' which went a long way in helping me finally to grok what electric charge and power actually are. I've reached the point where I want an actual dead-tree book, though. Any recommendations?"
The Art of Electronics (Score:5, Informative)
For technical electronics work (like soldering or cable assembly) you will probably want to find a specific book (the Navy electronics manuals would be very helpful).
Two great books (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957 [amazon.com]
You should also have a look at the classic:
"Foundations of Wireless and Electronics
by M.G. Scroggie "
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Foundations-Wireless-Electronics-M-G-Scroggie/dp/0750634308 [amazon.co.uk]
Community college (Score:5, Informative)
If you're looking for someplace where you can learn about your basic circuit elements (resistors, capacitors, op-amps, etc) a real dyed-in-the-wool intro electronics course might be just what you're craving.
Not the Art of Electronics! (Score:5, Informative)
I would suggest looking at the various hobby robotics books in a good bookshop. Most of these will cover stuff like how to solder, how a transistor/FET work and how to wire up configurations like H bridges etc.
Re:The Art of Electronics (Score:5, Informative)
As for your link to electricity misconceptions [eskimo.com], all I can say is that I find the information there disagrees with what I was taught by the US Navy. It reminds me of the old electron flow vs hole flow [uiuc.edu] arguments. The important part is that electric circuits work the same regardless of what you're philosophy is concerning the movement of electrons.
Best of luck with your search. Just remember that soldering irons are HOT. I've heard good things about the Art of Electronics as well.
Aero
Bebop to the Boolean Boogie (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.amazon.com/Bebop-Boolean-Boogie-Unconventional-Electronics/dp/0750675438/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210145164&sr=1-1 [amazon.com]
(Any grammar nazi's able to show me how to tidy up that link? Or point me at the right place on here to find out please?)
Practical Electronics for Inventors (Score:5, Informative)
Happy hacking!
Well... (Score:5, Informative)
Much as you can't learn to program well without looking at programs more complicated than you'll find in any textbook, you need to study real world circuits.
Whether you want to do digital stuff or analog, it's worth your time learning the analog stuff -- digital systems tend to break as a result of the underlying analog problem of circuit design.
For example, Wikipedia has the internal schematic for a 741 op amp [wikipedia.org] along with a decent explanation. Once you understand the function of every one of those transistors, you'll be able to really understand why it has both a gain-bandwidth limit and a slew rate limit, and what the difference is.
The best source of real-world circuits I've found is the application notes and example circuits in data sheets published by manufacturers. Since they need the resultant circuits to work when engineers build them, they don't leave out the random extras that textbooks often do. Does that MOSFET need a gate resistor? A circuit in an app note will probably say, whereas an example diagram might well not.
If your goal is to learn more in general, as opposed to solving a specific problem, I'd pay more attention to the author than exactly what they're writing about. For example, I can't recommend Jim Williams' design notes highly enough -- he's both an excellent engineer and an excellent author. Making Shakespeare [linear.com] a citation is the sort of thing that keeps his writing lively and interesting. Or rating circuit complexity in baby bottles [linear.com] as a measure of how long it took him to design and debug it. And, of course, he often goes into great detail about the *practical* considerations involved in precise, high-speed analog work -- especially as it relates to working at the lab bench, rather than with professionally printed PCBs and the like.
I'm sure others will have excellent textbook recommendations. They're an important part, but only a part. Add some analysis of real-world circuits that you'll find in application notes, and a bunch of fussing around with actual silicon and a scope, and you'll be well on your way.
Re:Practical Electronics for Inventors (Score:3, Informative)
Cheers
Forrest M. Mims III (Score:5, Informative)
I'll second Horowitz and Hill.
But if you want a gentler sunday school introduction before you pick up the Bible, get "Getting Started in Electronics" by Forrest M. Mims III. This is the book I taught myself with, bought it from Radio Shack when I was twelve. Text-and-drawings done "lab notebook" style, very basic approach.
You'll need Horowitz and Hill to get the math, but for basic concepts Mims can't be beat.
Not serious, but... ? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bebop to the Boolean Boogie (Score:3, Informative)
You'd end up with Bebop Boolean Boogie Unconventional Electronics [amazon.com]
Tada!
By far the best I've seen (Score:5, Informative)
Once you get through that you'll have a reasonable understanding of the field.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Informative)
The guts of a 741 is both a good and a bad place to start learning about [bipolar] transistors. You certainly won't digest it all in one sitting. But it has most of the basic arrangements that are important, and they're relatively cleanly separated. It's got an emitter-follower push-pull output stage, a common-emitter gain stage, a long-tailed pair differential input stage, some current mirrors to set up biasing, and a Vbe multiplier to help bias the output stage; it's really not complicated if you take it in parts and don't feel any particular need to understand it in one sitting. That's true of any non-textbook circuit, though, really.
PICs are a great way to do interesting things, but if you really want to know why your PIC works quite well except when the moon is waxing gibbous, you're probably going to have to learn some analog stuff. You can go a long way without paying attention to the analog side, just as you can do an awful lot of programming without ever looking at compiler output -- but in either case, you're holding yourself back compared to what you could be doing.
Oh, and Jim's scope drawing is probably round because I believe he still uses that scope. Then again, his definition of a computer [linear.com] (page 12) is probably not the same as the poster's ;)
Get some old/broken stereo equipment (Score:5, Informative)
The better the quality, the simpler and easier the circuit.
Get a receiver or amp that has a problem and mess with it. A receiver in "protect mode" is a good one since that pretty much means that you have a DC offset on the output. A bi-polar amp will drive you nuts, since *any* bad component will throw DC onto the output, but you'll learn a ton going through it. A mosfet amp is much simpler since they are more like tube amps in topology. Hell, for that matter, try to get ahold of an old tube amp. They are very simple and are a good way to get yer feet wet.
Or an old cassette deck, like an old Nakamichi. Nobody wants them anymore (and they shouldn't, either), but they have a lot of cool control/motor circuitry in them. Especially if you get a hold of one that's discrete -- ie, all the logic and control is done with transistors.
and get the service manual -- it'll have schematics and sometimes theory of operation.
Oh yeah, the advice for the Navy Manuals is right on. Those are the clearest and most comprehensive books on the subject.
mr c
Musical Electronics (Score:4, Informative)
The book goes through all the basics: making and repairing your own cables, soldering, working with metal and plexiglass chassis, various types of boards(breadboards, etching). Projects are of varying difficulty and include a headphone amp, miniamp, fuzz-tone, "ring" modulator and phase shifter(the most difficult). Most projects use battery power and are safe to build and operate(note: unfortunately, none of the projects are synths.)
Maybe not your cup of tea but more fun to reuse than a run of the mill blinkenlighter.
Re:Practical Electronics for Inventors (Score:2, Informative)
The good thing about "The Art of Electronics" is that the authors assume a background knowledge of only basic algebra. You can actually choose how much theory you want because the really important bits are distilled into a few rules of thumb.
For the first time tinkerer, it may be a little much. Eventually, however, the tinkerer will want to actually design something from scratch and find "The Art of Electronics" indispensable.
Re:Starter for electronics (Score:5, Informative)
Still, this won't help you with understanding elektronics as such, but will it will make a bridge from your programming world to the electronics world.
Other things you need are: a multimeter (a good one costs some money, and a cheap one is probably good enough for a while, but from what I have heared, the problem of the cheap ones is that the calibration drifts after a couple of years). And a breadboard. That's a board with holes where you can plug in electronic components easily without need for a soldering iron. Very handy for experiments. For an example, see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HteDBfSJ9zo [youtube.com]. (No idea if it's interesting, my flash audio doesn't work for some unknown reason
A last advice I can give you: read Elektor (a magazine available in many languages), find a simple circuit you find interesting and try to understand it. Read the explanation, calculate the voltages at certain points, build the circuit, measure, etc. This will teach you a lot.
Arduino? (Score:4, Informative)
Another option... (Score:3, Informative)
Some other books to look at are over on the ARRL.org website. Their primary focus of course is radio electronics, but they also have books on basic circuit boarding, robotics, and a few other electronic projects, as well as a few kits if you are interested in them.
Hope that's of some help. Have fun.
Make Magazine (Score:4, Informative)
"All About Circuits" (Score:3, Informative)
It's still a work in progress, but it's mostly done by now and really well-written as an introductory guide.
Applied Engineering Principles (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.usna.edu/EE/ee301/internal/Applied_EngineeringPrinciples.pdf [usna.edu]
Chapter 1 covers electrical, chapter 2 covers electronic. The remaining chapters dive into nuclear power field topics (chemistry, mechanics, reactor theory - also very handy for those interested in 'just the facts' for those topics). This reference is about as technical as it gets without venturing into "If I told you I'd have to kill you" territory.
It's awesome that the Naval Academy has an unclassified version out there...
Ibiblio.org has got what you need. (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously. In conjunction with Socratic Electronics [ibiblio.org], it should give you a great start.
Re:Bebop to the Boolean Boogie (Score:5, Informative)
While this is true in this specific case, it's only because Slashdot automatically corrects your broken markup. You cannot use slashes in an attribute value without quoting it, and slashes appear in most URLs.
Re:The Art of Electronics (Score:3, Informative)
I's actually say get
Elelectricity - Principlas and Applications http://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Principles-Applications-Richard-Fowler/dp/0078262860/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210161568&sr=8-1 [amazon.com]
and as a second book "Electronics - Principles and Applications" (well this seems to be what replaced it) http://www.amazon.com/Electronics-Principles-Applications-Experiments-Manual/dp/002804245X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210161865&sr=1-3 [amazon.com]
another good one - go to ARRL.ORG and get
Understanding Basic Electronics
Additional recommendations (Score:3, Informative)
If you really want to dive in and swim however, I might also recommend "Electronic Circuits for the Evil Genius" by Dave Cutcher. I think that will get you into building things more quickly that Horowitz, but without a lot of the fundamentals.
Another idea is to get yourself one of those Radio Shack 200 in 1 electronic project kits. No soldering required for that, but you could always order the parts for any of the projects and stick them on a breadboard yourself.
Have fun!
Re:The Art of Electronics (Score:3, Informative)
Don't get me wrong-- I have a copy on my desk too, but I haven't cracked the spine in years, despite being an active hardware designer.
Re:Not the Art of Electronics! (Score:5, Informative)
Arduino, Lady Ada's Tutorial, join a user group! (Score:3, Informative)
And join a nearby Arduino user group!
David Mellis just started one in Boston [arduino.cc], which led me to purchase an Arduino last night!
The forums on the arduino site mention quite a few regional user's groups, maybe you can find one near you?
Don't forget circuit theory! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not the Art of Electronics! (Score:5, Informative)
You can always return to AoE when you're ready.
Physical Computing (Score:2, Informative)
You may want to check out the art world for some really creative uses of technology:
I had an opportunity to speak with Norm White [normill.ca], an artist who has been building with electronics since the 60's , he made some amazing artwork, such as the "The Helpless Robot" - which runs off an old 386 and Delphi. Details here. [year01.com] (He's looking for someone to translate it to a modern language)
Alan Rath [alanrath.org] is another artist who builds interactive robots.
Conflux [confluxfestival.org] is a street art festival in Brooklyn that often attracts artists who mix technology with art. There have been some really cool interactive games that use modified cellphones
Aram Bartholl does some cool work, mixing virtual world concepts such as IM'ing with very low tech. See Chat [datenform.de]
Some other practical suggestions:
For a great hands on approach, check out Tom Igoe and Dan O'Sullivan's Pysical Computing [nyu.edu] Tom Igoe is the head of Physical Computing at New York University.
Amphibionics by Karl Williams was my first attempt at building my own circuit board and robot.
I usually buy my components online at DigiKey. Navigating their site and trying to choose between the 100s of varieties of 1uF capacitors was a learning experience in itself.
MAKE Magazine (Score:4, Informative)
Forrest M Mims -Getting Started In Electronics (Score:3, Informative)
METER EXAMPLE: ESI480A
http://www.toolsusa.com/asp/item_detail.asp?T1=PBE%209WT%20ESI480A&trackcode=YahooShopping&WT.srch=1 [toolsusa.com]
Features you will immediately / eventually want in a meter:
(aside from standard features like ac/dc volts, resistance)
-Autoranging
-DC AMPS = 10.0
-Diode Test ->|-
-Capacitance -|(-
-Relative Reading(ability to zero the meter)
-Freq(Hz) / Duty cycle(%) / ms (to measure pulse trains/PWM)
I use that meter at home.
I use a Fluke 89IV at work because I didn't have to pay for it. (Fluke is gold standard in DMMs)
A Circuit Simulator applet:
http://www.falstad.com/circuit/ [falstad.com]
check out the examples in the 'Circuit' menu.
Good Luck
Re:The Art of Electronics (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not the Art of Electronics! (Score:2, Informative)
The one caveat is that it is old. So it is not going to have things like spread spectrum (cell phone). Fortunately, most of the basics haven't really changed in over 30 years.
Re:Practical experience! (Score:1, Informative)
Be Warned - Evil Genius Books are Poorly Edited (Score:3, Informative)
Some are obvious, like misoriented diodes in a rectifying bridge. Some are not, like a PNP BJT where a NPN should be.
However, before you build any of the projects, especially any of the high powered ones, make sure you search online for errata, or better yet, have a real EE check the circuit (if you're not one). And if you wanna build something really nasty, like an EMP gun or a magnetic accelerator, treat it like you would the Anarchist's Cookbook...
Also be aware that the Evil Genius series is very light on theory of operation, and what is present is occasionally oversimplified to the point of being misleading. Don't rely on them for theory.
But overall, for a hobbyist, they are an excellent example of how to approach a complete project, including planning, packaging, and building your own tools and test equipment. And for those who don't want to craft every PWB or enclosure on their own, the publisher sells kits.
Re:Starter for electronics (Score:3, Informative)
Go to the library and get a bunch of books on electronics. Then go to Radio Shack and buy a bread board. A bread board is a board where you test circuit designs out. You don't need to do any soldering on it. A strip board is for a more permanent circuit that you don't plan on changing. One thing I recommend if you're going to be soldering on a strip board is FLUX. It makes soldering a hell of a lot easier. Components to buy from Radio Shack: A soldering iron, solder, flux, a breadboard or two. Also get a few 9 volt plugs to plug into the bread board or strip board and 9 volt batteries. Radio Shack also has a few cases you can put your circuit in, although there isn't much selection. You're going to need wire of course.
Now the question is - what do you want to build? The library books will have some circuits. So will bookstores. You can find them on the net as well. This girl from MIT has a lot of cool [adafruit.com] circuits and kits. Once you decide what to put together you will also probably be getting some other components like capacitors, resistors and chips like 555 timers. You can find 555 timers and chips like that from Radio Shack, but for more obscure chips you might want to look to see if there are electronics components stores in your area that sell this stuff. If not, go to Mouser.com [mouser.com] or Digikey [digikey.com] where you can usually buy whatever you need, unless it is a specialized chip that they don't have. This should get you a start on putting boards together.
Re:The Art of Electronics (Score:3, Informative)
It's 1 divided by the square root of the permittivity of free space e0 multiplied by the permeability of free space u0. Link here. [reciprocalsystem.com]
That's why the speed of light is different in different materials. Differing permittivity and permeability.
Interestingly enough, you can use e0 and u0 to calculate the impedance of free space. It's approximately 377 ohms.