Books On Electronics For the Lay Programmer?

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?"

Comments

The Art of Electronics

[Aglassis]

Pick up the Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill. The lab manual might also be helpful. The Art of Electronics is basically the electronics Bible for physicists and a popular introductory text for electrical engineers.

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).

Re:The Art of Electronics

[aero2600-5]

As a former Electronics Technician in the Navy, I have to agree with the parent. The Navy Electricity & Electronics Training Series (NEETS) is a great series of books that teach the basic of electronics. After studying these manuals, I successfully built a Superheterodyne receiver, also known as your basic radio receiver. You can find all of the NEETS modules online here in PDF format. I still have them on CD from when I went through the training in 1998.

As for your link to electricity misconceptions, 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 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

Community college

[SkOink]

I would like to make a plug for your local community college, if you live in a reasonably-sized city. Most community colleges offer a couple of basic-level electronics classes, which teach you basic circuit theory. Books (either eBooks or paper ones) like Misconceptions About 'Electricity' are sort of interesting from a physics perspective, but they don't really offer much insight into electronics. In fact, many of the logical assumptions taught to electrical engineers _aren't_ true, strictly speaking, but are 'true enough' and much easier to understand.

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!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I have the Art of Electronics and a wide range of other books. AoE is great for introductory EE, but is overkill for the level you are talking about and does not cover practical stuff.

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.

Bebop to the Boolean Boogie

[draxbear]

I recommend this annoyingly named book, which is an excellent cover-all on this and related subjects. Really did join the dots for me many years ago and it looks like it's now in its 2nd edition.

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

(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?)

Re:Starter for electronics

[Mr2cents]

I recently met up with a few people from my alma mater, and they have bought a bunch of Arduino's to teach embedded programming. From what they told me, they seem to be a great educational tool. I've never worked with them personally, but I do have experience with the processor used in the board, the ATMega. It's a nice architecture, clean design, and advisable. Another hint: stay away from PIC, they have severe limitations (like a hard-wired call stack, memory access limitations).

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. (No idea if it's interesting, my flash audio doesn't work for some unknown reason :-( ). Later on, you might feel the need for an osciloscope, these things can be quite expensive but you don't need the latest model, just a second-hand model from 10+ years old will be a very handy tool for measuring clocks, signals etc.

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.

Applied Engineering Principles

[AllynM]

As another former Electronics Technician / Reactor Operator in the navy, I can suggest this wonderful reference:

http://www.usna.edu/EE/ee301/internal/Applied_EngineeringPrinciples.pdf

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...