Product Description

Want to hook up your home theater system?

Want to fix it so your garage band rocks the neighborhood?

Want to solder the faulty wire on your old phonograph so you can play those 60s albums you’ve kept all this time?

Whether you’re a do–it–yourselfer , hobbyist, or student , this book will turn you on to real–world electronics. It quickly covers the essentials, and then focuses on the how–to instead of theory. It covers:

• Fundamental concepts such as circuits, schematics, voltage, safety, and more
• Tools of the trade, including multimeters, oscilloscopes, logic probes, and more
• Common electronic components (e.g. resistors, capacitors, transistors)
• Making circuits using breadboards and printed circuit boards
• Microcontrollers (implementation and programming)

Author Gordon McComb has more than a million copies of his books in print, including his bestselling Robot Builder’s Bonanza and VCRs and Camcorders For Dummies. He really connects with readers! With lots of photos and step–by–step explanations, this book will have you connecting electronic components in no time! In fact, it includes fun ideas for great projects you can build in 30 minutes or less. You’ll be amazed! Then you can tackle cool robot projects that will amaze your friends! (The book gives you lots to choose from.)

Students will find this a great reference and supplement to the typical dry, dull textbook. So whether you just want to bone up on electronics or want to get things hooked up, souped up, or fixed up,…whether you’re interested in fixing old electronic equipment, understanding guitar fuzz amps, or tinkering with robots, Electronics For Dummies is your quick connection to the stuff you need to know.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25985 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

From the Back Cover
Begin having fun with electronics projects right away

Explore the basic concepts of electronics, build your electronics workbench, and create cool projects

Wish you could fix that faulty doorbell, hook up a motion detector, or maybe build your very own robot? This book will really get you charged up! It won′t make you an electrician, but it covers the basics, choosing and using tools, and how to build more than a dozen really cool, inexpensive gizmos. You′ll be shocked at how easy it is!

Discover how to

• Master electricity basics
• Fill up your electronics parts bin
• Read circuit schematics
• Test circuits with multimeters
• Design your own printed circuit boards
• Build robots and program their actions

About the Author
Gordon McComb has penned 60 books and over a thousand magazine articles. More than a million copies of his books are in print, in over a dozen languages. For 13 years, Gordon wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column on personal computers. When not writing about hobby electronics and other fun topics, he serves as a consultant on digital cinema to several notable Hollywood clients.

Earl Boysen is an engineer who, after 20 years in the computer–chip industry, decided to slow down and move to a quiet town in Washington. Earl lives in a house he built with a wonderful lady and finds that he is as busy as ever with teaching, writing, house building, and acting.

Customer Reviews

Give it a try!
What you get out of this book will largely depend on your experience. I have been asked for my new job to do a course in Electrical/Electronic Engineering.

I have no prior knowledge and joined the course a month late. I'm now doing ok in the course and it's with no small ammount of thanks to this book.

It's a brilliant into to Electronics, but Electronics only. Depending on your course you will need a separate book for Electrical principles which isn't really covered here. I'd recommend a John Bird book for that.

This book is a really easy intoduction to the subject and at this price would definately suggest you look at it if you want a pretty thorough introduction based at beginner level.

Real basic, and in American.
Not a bad book. Really basic - as you would expect from a "for dummies" book. The sense of humour can get a little tiresome but they are trying to make it light and easy to read. It is basically perparing you to do electronics projects at home, (building simple circuits and stuff). Includes descriptions of the basic electronic components, help on soldering and making your own PCBs.

I thought I spotted some mistakes, (4 on one page!). On one page anodes are positive, on the next they are negative.

Note that the units, and symbols are American and not always the same as British. They don't have crocodile clips, they have alligator clips. That made me laugh.

On the whole, I though it was good for beginners or even just to brush up on some basic knowledge. Good to keep for reference to formulas and things to.

Its ok, but not enough detail
This book is a really easy read (not unexpected from a "For Dummies" book). It gives a very good overview on the subject and covers a lot of ground (e.g. how to get a company to make up your own PCBs; how to use an oscilloscope etc). For me though it just isn't detailed enough in the basics. I am a complete novice and hoped to be able to start building some basic circuits of my own from this book. I now understand at a high level what all the basic components do, and can construct a circuit from a schematic. I do not however feel I have enough information to design a circuit of my own beyond the very very simple.

Often schematics are presented with only cursory explanations of how they work. This did not help me really get under the covers of what was going on, and understand why the circuit behaved as it did.

The book is clearly written for an American audience, with lots of hints and tips about where to source supplies from in the US. Completely meaningless to me in the UK! I found this quite irritating after a while.

In summary its ok if you want a high level look at the subject. If you want more than that though I'd look elsewhere. I have just ordered another book, to see if I get any further with that one.