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New Interactive Basic Electronics Textbook Launched Online (circuitlab.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the short-circuits dept.

Long-time Slashdot reader compumike writes: The group that first brought schematics and circuit simulation to the browser has now released the first few chapters of Ultimate Electronics: Practical Circuit Design and Analysis, an interactive online textbook for people learning electronics. The materials released today cover about half of a first semester undergraduate electronics course.

21 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Looks more like intermediate to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm a rank beginner and I'm interested in this subject but I browsed through a couple of chapters and they seem pretty dense and beyond what I would consider a basic undergraduate course, at least for a first-timer. I appreciate the effort though.

    1. Re:Looks more like intermediate to me by Harold+Halloway · · Score: 4, Informative

      Quite. Any electronics course that starts with Chapter 1: Algebraic Approximations, the first section of which is entitled Large Asymptotic Approximation, strikes me as being more theoretical than practical and certainly not for beginners.

    2. Re: Looks more like intermediate to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That really is where basic circuit analysis starts. Perhaps you should follow the links to the online prerequisite courses.

    3. Re:Looks more like intermediate to me by backslashdot · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, that is exactly where it must start. I'm sorry but designing anything more useful than an LED chaser or blinking WS2812 lights requires mathematics.

    4. Re:Looks more like intermediate to me by backslashdot · · Score: 1

      OK, what are you going to do after the 2 minutes of describing what a resistor does is up? Without much mathematics you can explain what each circuit element does, and that's it. You can do that in a paragraph or part of a lecture spending 2 to 5 minutes on each part -- in a book that's about 15 pages total. What are you going to do for the rest of the semester or book? Try designing something useful just by being able to parrot ohm's law. You will only be able to build circuits designed by others and pretend like you understand the circuit. There is no way around it. If you want to design a useful circuit and really know what's going on, you require the mathematical concepts they outline. It's not even that hard, just some linear algebra and basic calculus. Get over mathphobia, you can likely teach yourself that stuff in a few months if you focus on it and already know a little arithmetic.

    5. Re:Looks more like intermediate to me by Harold+Halloway · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I agree that a firm understanding of maths is vital for an understanding of electronics. The way that it is presented though looks to me as though the course would be best presented in a classroom environment. It is perfectly possible to present the maths and the practical aspects side-by-side; dumping Large Asymptotic Approximations on the unsuspecting student as chapter 1, part 1 is not the way to do it for a lot of people.

    6. Re: Looks more like intermediate to me by zrobotics · · Score: 1

      While I agree that the math is essential, Forrest Mims managed to write some very excellent beginner textbooks that didn't require any high level math, and they were almost entirely analog circuits as well. For a beginner course, there is little need for calculus. I looked it over, and it seems like it would just scare off a beginner rather than pique their interest. Granted, if you want to go any further than the bare basics you will need some math, but for a course that seems aimed at the hobbyist or student it just looks too intimidating.

    7. Re:Looks more like intermediate to me by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Designing complex circuits does require maths, but not on the level this thing starts out with.

      Of much more practical use would be to learn about all the basic component types. Maths wise all you really need is V=IR and you can design a huge number of useful circuits, from power supplies to complex digital systems. Throw in a little theory about op-amp operation, which is really basic maths, and you can do a whole lot of analogue stuff too.

      This is a beginners course. Lot of people learn by doing, in fact it's much more common than people who learn by reading alone. That's why most books start with practical examples and measuring stuff.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:Looks more like intermediate to me by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 1

      In order to design a circuit, you must be able to analyze it. A purely resistive DC circuit is more than enough to learn node and loop analysis, as well as Thevenin and Norton equivalent circuits. Combining various layouts of resistors (which can be generalized to impedances later) is important as well. None of these techniques, strictly speaking, require more "theory" than Ohm's Law. All of them will be necessary to build upon when you begin frequency-domain analysis and add capacitors, inductors, transformers, and active elements.

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
    9. Re:Looks more like intermediate to me by quetwo · · Score: 2

      Grab the book "Make: Electronics (Learning by Discovery)". This is by far, the best book I've found for beginners. I used it for classes I teach at the HS level as well at our maker space. It demonstrates a lot of concepts pictorially, and also explains the science behind it.

    10. Re:Looks more like intermediate to me by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm an Electrical Engineer and I don't have a clue what Large Asymptotic Approximation is. After reading the chapter here I can say that yes these techniques are used, but generally on fairly complex or advanced circuits, usually containing active elements.

      Such approximations are necessary when a full closed-form solution is prohibitively complicated and the error in the approximation is sufficiently small. So yeah, definitely not an introductory technique.

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
    11. Re:Looks more like intermediate to me by ElizabethGreene · · Score: 1

      The Art of electronics manages not to start with this, and it has a non-trivial amount of math in it.

    12. Re:Looks more like intermediate to me by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      It's a beginner's design and analysis course, not a beginner's electronics course. Ideally you should already know the basic component types from building other people's designs before you try to design your own circuits. There are plenty of free courses and web pages and YouTube videos that cover the novice material you're talking about, but I haven't found much that fits this book's niche.

      This.

    13. Re:Looks more like intermediate to me by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 1

      For the kids who are sleeping in class, you can put them in a corner with an oscilloscope and a copy of The Forrest Mims books. "Getting Started in Electronics".

  2. Learnification by pipingguy · · Score: 1

    Is there something similar for programming?

    1. Re: Learnification by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      SICP?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re: Learnification by pipingguy · · Score: 1

      Thanks, I'll check that out. I was thinking along the lines of a site where you could have a live-updated split screen where the results of entered program text commands would be displayed graphically by highlighting both the CLI and the GUI. Say, for example, the Unix cat or cut commands - illustrating exactly what they do via live animation.

      Maybe such a thing already exists and I'm using the wrong keywords to find it and maybe I'm not explaining clearly what I mean (which could be ironic - trying to explain in text a system where graphics would be used to explain what entering text commands does).

      Or perhaps it would have to be just non-interactive animation based on common tasks.

  3. Kudos! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    [Disclaimer] I just skimmed it, I really should be doing something else.

    That said, it looks well-organized and done with attention to detail. Kudos for tackling the hard stuff right on -- and to the beginners out there: don't fear to take that first step. It will pay off.

    Totally kudos for being *really* usable without javascript. See, I'm the usual anti-javascript whiner around here[1]. Now I understand that the embedded simulations won't work for a javascript-challenged browser, that's OK; moreover, for me the formulae look TeXy -- I understand that they look much nicer to javascript-friendlier browsers, courtesy of (guessing here, didn't look) MathJax, but the thing is I'm fluent enough in TeX (you gotta, if you don't "do" javascript, right?) and TeX is a *much* nicer fallback than (gasp!) MathML or whatever.

    It's not often that you can see these days someone going the extra mile to have their pages "degrade" gracefully. *Very* gracefully: the book still looks & feels gorgeous to us ascets.

    Kudos, overall.

    [1] Yes, I'm one of those folks who learnt as a child to not put everything I find on the street into his mouth.

  4. Electronic math... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    When I took first year electronics in community college in the early 1990's, all the formulas were presented with the circuits but the math was never presented in any detail. Second year electronics required taking Electronic Math as a separate course. I didn't finish that course. Mostly because I hadn't taken algebra yet, which wasn't a prerequisite for the class, and the concepts were taught in isolation from any hands-on circuitry. I changed majors anyway since electronics was on the way out and computers were becoming popular. Fast forward a quarter-century, I'm getting back into electronics as an adult. Now that I have money, I can buy all the parts and test equipment I need. Although the first section is a bit dense, I had no trouble going through the math.

  5. Re:Junior Genius Kits-Blinky Lights by northerner · · Score: 1

    Your last link had an error in it. The Junior Genius web site is at Junior Genius Kits

  6. clearly isn't basic electronics by belmolis · · Score: 1

    You can easily tell that this is not a course in basic electronics: there isn't a single chapter on vacuum tubes. All the basic electronics textbooks I used covered vacuum tubes right after capacitors and inductors.