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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?"
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).
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
3 Scary things: A programmer with soldering iron, a manager who codes and a user who gets Ideas
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.
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
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.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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?)
--- I've completed diagnosis of your problem and can classify it as a YOYO...You're On Your Own
It might be that I'm not a particularly good student, but I've never really been able to learn from textbooks unless I already had at least some background knowledge about the subject I was studying. I'm a practicing electronics engineer, and I find that textbooks are a great reference. I also enjoy reading textbooks written on areas where I have some knowledge, but not enough.
That being said, learning something like electronics or signal processing completely from a textbook would be really tough for me. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I think the original poster would be much better off taking a class or two than he would be trying to slug his way through something like the Art of Electronics.
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
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).
:-( ). 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.
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
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.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
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...
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