Product Description

2004 has been a terrific year so far for the TAB Electronics/Robotics line of books. Electronics hobbyists and students are buying more books than ever, and we’ve had a LOT of success with some of our early project books (our new “Evil Genius” series is doing particularly well). By adding projects and sample problems to this great seller, we should have an even stronger potential to sell this book like crazy. The first edition of Practical Electronics for Inventors was phenomenally successful and popular among electronics hobbyists and “tinkerers.” This is a fairly “tight” group, and when they noticed some errors in the book, they were fairly vocal in wanting to see errata. The result? A new and improved book that has been completely updated, with several readers’ suggestions for improvement incorporated inside – errors have been fixed, drawings replaced, new information included, whole new sections added (modern computers, object-oriented microcontrollers, transducers, projects, etc.), as well as sample problems placed at the end of each chapter. These new additions will make this title even MORE appealing to the loyal market.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70680 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 952 pages

From the Back Cover
THE BOOK THAT MAKES ELECTRONICS MAKE SENSE

This intuitive, applications-driven guide to electronics doesn't overload you with technical detail. Instead, it tells you -- and shows you -- what basic and advanced electronics parts and components do, and how they work. Practical Electronics for Inventors offers over 750 hand-drawn images that provide clear, detailed instructions that can help turn theoretical ideas into realities.

CRYSTAL CLEAR AND COMPREHENSIVE
Covering the entire field of electronics, from basics through analog and digital, AC and DC, integrated circuits (ICs), semiconductors, stepper motors and servos, ICD displays, and various input/output devices, this guide even includes a full chapter on the latest microcontrollers. If you want to succeed in turning your ideas into workable electronic gadgets and inventions, this is THE book.

ENTHUSIASTIC READERS HELPED US MAKE THIS BOOK EVEN BETTER
This revised, improved, and completely updated second edition reflects suggestions offered by the loyal hobbyists, students, and inventors who made the first edition a bestseller.

Reader-suggested improvements in this guide include:

• Thoroughly expanded and improved theory chapter
• New sections covering test equipment, optoelectronics, microcontroller circuits, and more
• Answered problems throughout the book

Practical Electronics for Inventors takes you through reading schematics, building and testing prototypes, purchasing electronic components, and safe work practices. You'll find all this in a guide that's destined to get your creative -- and inventive -- juices flowing.

New projects, sample problems, and much more!

Starting with a light review of electronics history, physics, and math, the book provides an easy-to-understand overview of all major electronic elements, including:

• Basic passive components
• Resistors, capacitors, inductors, transformers
• Discrete passive circuits
• Current-limiting networks, voltage dividers, filter circuits, attenuators
• Discrete active devices
• Diodes, transistors, thrysistors
• Microcontrollers
• Rectifiers, amplifiers, modulators, mixers, voltage regulators

About the Author
Paul Scherz is a physicist/mechanical engineer who received his B.S. in physics from the University of Wisconsin. His area of interest in physics focuses on elementary particle interactions. Paul is an inventor/hobbyist in electronics, an area he grew to appreciate through his experience at the University's Department of Nuclear Engineering Physics and the Department of Plasma Physics.

Customer Reviews

Invaluable resource
While this is an introductionary book, meaning it covers all the basics, formulas, theories, and definitions that you would ever need as a hobbyist, it is also a very indepth and detailed cover which should satisfy any level of skills. I keep it as a reference book for my projects and it usually never fails me. (Some people have warned me that some of the calculations are incorrect.)

* Basic Electronic Circuit Components: How they work, how and when to use them, important things to bear in mind when using them, what they look like, diagram symbols..

* Semiconductors, Integrated Circuits, What is an OpAmp, Filters (both basics and more advanced, and how to design them), Oscillators, Digital Electronics, Stepper Motors and Servos... the list goes on.

It offers good diagrams and schematics and a lot of hints and tips on how to construct your own and put it together. It goes beyond the basic, but should not intimidate anyone who is just learning, because the level of detail in explaining how things work and why is very good. This book is a resource you will keep for a long time, no matter how advanced your skills are.

Step-by-step, clear instructions. It feels like a mix between a favourite school type book, and a reference manual. Fantastic!

Excellent book but not proof read!
This is an excellent book. I haven't read too much of it yet (it's very long!) but so far it is good.

As another reviewer says, the theory chapter is a significant part of the book, but I don't think it is too complicated. The maths definitely isn't too hard; it might go into a bit too much detail but it is fairly easy to skim over.

What differentiates this book from others is the non-theory chapters. These deal with actual rather than theoretical devices. For example the section on capacitors lists all the different types (electrolytic, ceramic, etc.), the differences between them and when you might use each kind. Where other books might deal with esoteric analyses, this book focuses on what you can actually buy and use to build things.

My only complaint is the fact that it doesn't seem to have been proof read at all. There is a glaring error every few pages that even cursory reads should have picked up, for example getting infer/imply wrong (and not only grammatical errors). Not sure how this happened given that it's a second edition, and it is quite annoying hence it loses a star.

Overall though, definitely worth the £20 asking price.

Best Practical Electronics Book Of All Time!
OK, so it's a little bit of a rave to call it the best practical electronics book of all time, but why might this be? Coming at the field of electronics from a background in mechanical engineering, and having only had a fundamental grounding in subjects such as Ohm's Law, I wanted a book which would talk to me in a language I could understand. I have at least a dozen books on electronics, and of these, this book is by far the easiest, most compelling read. It's actually quite entertaining! The main reason for this is the extensive use of very clear visual metaphors to explain complex, normally invisible processes. There are lots of very nicely rendered, hand drawn diagrams (in the style of Robert Crumb or MAD) showing pipes, valves, elastic cord and springs representing the components in electronic circuitry. This has the effect of making them instantly understandable to people like me - who like to visualise things! The diagrams are accompanied by lots of clearly written text explaining how these components might be used in the real world to make interesting and useful things happen. We are not stuck here at the level of electrons and photons, and how to calculate the resistance around a circuit, which is where it makes a firm departure from the usual approach to this topic. If you're in a similar position to me, where you're not really interested in studying basic electronics as an academic subject, but in a way which makes it instantly applicable, then this is a great book. Alongside this, I'd also recommend a software package I've used called Circuit Wizard, which allows you to design and vizualise circuits by dragging & dropping components. The combination of these will have you designing your own small electronic systems in no time. Highly recommended!