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Is this a good book for beginners? What other books are good for electronics beginners? Preferably cheaper than this... :)

by vichle 3y ago

comboy 3y ago
No, I don't recommend it if you are starting out. Unfortunately I don't have a good recommendation, but when starting out modern electronics is not unlike lego building. There's more protocols than analog signals. If you stay in electronics you'll end up with this book sooner or later though.
- sitkack 3y ago
  https://old.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/wiki/education https://old.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/wiki/education I am a huge fan of the Forrest Mims books and "Practical Electronics for Inventors". AoE is great, but not a beginners book. More important than any book is building and understanding circuits.
tmalsburg2 3y ago
It’s good for beginners (also a great reference). However, stuff gets serious pretty fast, and the reader is expected to put in serious time and effort.
nhatcher 3y ago
"Practical electronics for inventors" is what you are looking for. I have both books and I am a physicist. It's not that TAOE is not for beginners, it could be if you really want to put on the effort and are decided to go deep.
- ansc 3y ago
  I just really, really wish there was a student companion book. Maybe I should pay someone to help me with exercise questions. Electronics is hard!
Nahtnah 3y ago
I've been burning alot of time learning electronics. This book isnt too bad for beginners, but I get way more understanding out of Behrad Razavi's stuff, he has lectures on youtube as well as a book which has way more worked examples. OTOH this book introduces more intricate concepts much more early which can be good for motivation if you dont let yourself get stuck on totally understanding them. For example he goes through a BPT schmitt trigger before he even shows the small signal model for BPTs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQDfVJzEymI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQDfVJzEymI
_whiteCaps_ 3y ago
Bebop to the Boolean Boogie
doubloon 3y ago
honestly in the post-internet age i would just get on Adafruit, they have so many tutorials and projects that are perfect for a beginner. as far as a book, i do agree with @nhatcher , i loved Practical Electronics for Inventors but that was before the internet really took over.
- vichle 3y ago
  Do they have stuff that doesn't rely on microcontrollers? I'm a software engineer since 10 years, I don't want to copy/paste some poorly written C code, I want to solder stuff together :)
  - doubloon 3y ago
    yes, yes they do. they have entire videos about how to solder.
RossBencina 3y ago
After Dick Smith's fun way books as an early teenager AoE was my first "real" electronics book. It was certainly helpful for practical advice, but I did not find its presentation of circuit theory at all clear (the hand-wavy analogy about transistor man comes to mind). At the time I had a music degree and very little undergraduate mathematics and only high-school physics. More recently I've been dabbling with electronics again. Someone recommended Malvino's "Electronic Principles" (I bought the 5th Edition second hand), which I found much clearer for circuit theory than AoE. Sedra and Smith will probably be my next purchase but I doubt it should be your first. Also, "beginner" could mean a lot of different things. And perhaps more important than where you're at, where do you want to get to? There's a world of difference between (1) soldering together someone else's design, (2) being able to understand why someone else's design works, (3) being able to piece something together from common sub-circuits, (4) produce your own design from scratch. And all of these will vary depending on the circuit type: analog/digital/RF etc.
analog31 3y ago
Reading some of the other comments, and my own experience, it might be a good book for someone who has already spent some time playing with circuits. But that's not necessarily an unreasonable hurdle. After all, electronics is about something that happens physically, and maybe getting some tactile experience gets the right brain cells working to be receptive to the theory. Or maybe it's just that the enjoyment of the physical stuff supplies the motivation to learn the textbook stuff. I might think along similar lines if someone asked for a good textbook to learn how to play the cello. When I took electronics in college, from 1st edition AoE, I had already been tinkering with circuits for a few years. And playing the cello. ;-)

Is this a good book for beginners? What other books are good for electronics beginners? Preferably cheaper than this... :)

by vichle 3y ago

Is this a good book for beginners? What other books are good for electronics beginners? Preferably cheaper than this... :)

comboy 3y ago

No, I don't recommend it if you are starting out. Unfortunately I don't have a good recommendation, but when starting out modern electronics is not unlike lego building. There's more protocols than analog signals. If you stay in electronics you'll end up with this book sooner or later though.

sitkack 3y ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/wiki/education https://old.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/wiki/education I am a huge fan of the Forrest Mims books and "Practical Electronics for Inventors". AoE is great, but not a beginners book. More important than any book is building and understanding circuits.

tmalsburg2 3y ago

It’s good for beginners (also a great reference). However, stuff gets serious pretty fast, and the reader is expected to put in serious time and effort.

nhatcher 3y ago

"Practical electronics for inventors" is what you are looking for. I have both books and I am a physicist. It's not that TAOE is not for beginners, it could be if you really want to put on the effort and are decided to go deep.

ansc 3y ago
I just really, really wish there was a student companion book. Maybe I should pay someone to help me with exercise questions. Electronics is hard!

Nahtnah 3y ago

I've been burning alot of time learning electronics. This book isnt too bad for beginners, but I get way more understanding out of Behrad Razavi's stuff, he has lectures on youtube as well as a book which has way more worked examples. OTOH this book introduces more intricate concepts much more early which can be good for motivation if you dont let yourself get stuck on totally understanding them. For example he goes through a BPT schmitt trigger before he even shows the small signal model for BPTs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQDfVJzEymI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQDfVJzEymI

_whiteCaps_ 3y ago

Bebop to the Boolean Boogie

doubloon 3y ago

honestly in the post-internet age i would just get on Adafruit, they have so many tutorials and projects that are perfect for a beginner. as far as a book, i do agree with @nhatcher , i loved Practical Electronics for Inventors but that was before the internet really took over.

vichle 3y ago
Do they have stuff that doesn't rely on microcontrollers? I'm a software engineer since 10 years, I don't want to copy/paste some poorly written C code, I want to solder stuff together :)
- doubloon 3y ago
  yes, yes they do. they have entire videos about how to solder.

RossBencina 3y ago

After Dick Smith's fun way books as an early teenager AoE was my first "real" electronics book. It was certainly helpful for practical advice, but I did not find its presentation of circuit theory at all clear (the hand-wavy analogy about transistor man comes to mind). At the time I had a music degree and very little undergraduate mathematics and only high-school physics. More recently I've been dabbling with electronics again. Someone recommended Malvino's "Electronic Principles" (I bought the 5th Edition second hand), which I found much clearer for circuit theory than AoE. Sedra and Smith will probably be my next purchase but I doubt it should be your first. Also, "beginner" could mean a lot of different things. And perhaps more important than where you're at, where do you want to get to? There's a world of difference between (1) soldering together someone else's design, (2) being able to understand why someone else's design works, (3) being able to piece something together from common sub-circuits, (4) produce your own design from scratch. And all of these will vary depending on the circuit type: analog/digital/RF etc.

analog31 3y ago

Reading some of the other comments, and my own experience, it might be a good book for someone who has already spent some time playing with circuits. But that's not necessarily an unreasonable hurdle. After all, electronics is about something that happens physically, and maybe getting some tactile experience gets the right brain cells working to be receptive to the theory. Or maybe it's just that the enjoyment of the physical stuff supplies the motivation to learn the textbook stuff. I might think along similar lines if someone asked for a good textbook to learn how to play the cello. When I took electronics in college, from 1st edition AoE, I had already been tinkering with circuits for a few years. And playing the cello. ;-)