Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Electronics Explained: Fundamentals for engineers, technicians and makers (2018)

sciencedirect.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 86 posts

Re: Electronics Explained: Fundamentals for engineers, technicians and makers (2018)

#21

Post by lbriner »

lysp wrote: post #14

One book I saw mentioned a lot in relation to learning electronics is this one: https://artofelectronics.net/ Reviews state it's basically an encyclopedia of knowledge.

Yeah, it's a pretty hardcore book and would only work for most people after High School unless they are super committed.

It is good in that it develops why using transistors as switches doesn't work in many scenarios but then basically says, "Op Amps" are better for everything and the rest of the circuits use those instead so you could argue that many people don't need to learn about the underpinning theory.

It also weighs in 1000+ pages and doesn't work well as a reference for most things because the info often builds on previous chapters.

Re: Electronics Explained: Fundamentals for engineers, technicians and makers (2018)

#22

Post by lbriner »

uuyi wrote: post #13

Ok found a PDF and scanned through it. This appears to be a rehash of older material, going back as far as the 90s, as I recognise some of the graphics and explanations. Newnes seem to make a great effort to retitle and reuse stuff in this capacity. It doesn’t look like a terrible book to be fair but limited in explanation and use. Worthy of the title perhaps. If I was at ground zero now I’d probably buy that, then d…

It depends what you want to do and at what level. There are many Makers in the world who don't have and don't need the AoE, it is a tome written a while back before lots of circuits came pre-packaged and which in many cases people don't care about how they work, as long as they just work.

Remember back in the day, to make a high powered audio amp, you needed a tonne of components and now you can get a 150W amp on a chip with a couple of external components. Some people will be interested in how each section works but many just want an audio amp!

If you were learning formally/professionally, that would be very different and the narrative in the AoE is very useful, especially around improving transistor characteristics by building up supporting components.

Re: Electronics Explained: Fundamentals for engineers, technicians and makers (2018)

#23

Post by recuter »

progre wrote: post #18

An alternative, even if you are not into modular synths, is Moritz Klein's videos https://youtube.com/c/MoritzKlein0 The basics are very well explained.

This is very good but before throwing people off the deep end I'd suggest this overview (origin of the dx7 & fm synthesis):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXt_NXjc7oY

And then some bigclivedotcom to get going: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Maq5IyHSuc

EEVblog for intermediate beginner stuff / home gamer lab gear: https://www.youtube.com/c/EevblogDave/videos?view=0&sort=p&f...

And finally some Marco Reps for advanced beginners: https://www.youtube.com/c/MarcoReps/videos

Just to dip your toe in.

Re: Electronics Explained: Fundamentals for engineers, technicians and makers (2018)

#24

Post by progre »

recuter wrote: post #23
progre wrote: post #18

An alternative, even if you are not into modular synths, is Moritz Klein's videos https://youtube.com/c/MoritzKlein0 The basics are very well explained.

This is very good but before throwing people off the deep end I'd suggest this overview (origin of the dx7 & fm synthesis): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXt_NXjc7oY And then some bigclivedotcom to get going: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Maq5IyHSuc EEVblog for intermediate beginner stuff / home gamer lab gear: https://www.youtube.com/c/EevblogDave/videos?view=0&sort=p&f... And finally some Marco Reps for advanc…

Wouldn't say Moritz videos are the deep end. He is explaining resistors by comparing them to water pipes with narrow parts. He is also very good at pointing out where such comparisons don't work.

Re: Electronics Explained: Fundamentals for engineers, technicians and makers (2018)

#25

Post by blippage »

I find the problem with a lot of electronics books is that they are either too deep, or too shallow. Gerry Sussman (yes, that Sussman) explained that the way electronics is taught, and the way engineers think about problems are two separate things.

So teaching material tends to fall into two camps: 1) detailed explanations that cover great depth, but are difficult to know how to apply to practical circuits, or 2) circuits that are presented as a fait accompli. They work, but I have no real idea why.

It reminds of statistics, in a way. I've seen biologists, undergrads and industry apply statistics like it was some kind of talisman. "Cargo Cult Statistics", as it were. They don't really "understand" the data that they're looking at.

Re: Electronics Explained: Fundamentals for engineers, technicians and makers (2018)

#26

Post by uuyi »

lbriner wrote: post #22
uuyi wrote: post #13

Ok found a PDF and scanned through it. This appears to be a rehash of older material, going back as far as the 90s, as I recognise some of the graphics and explanations. Newnes seem to make a great effort to retitle and reuse stuff in this capacity. It doesn’t look like a terrible book to be fair but limited in explanation and use. Worthy of the title perhaps. If I was at ground zero now I’d probably buy that, then d…

It depends what you want to do and at what level. There are many Makers in the world who don't have and don't need the AoE, it is a tome written a while back before lots of circuits came pre-packaged and which in many cases people don't care about how they work, as long as they just work. Remember back in the day, to make a high powered audio amp, you needed a tonne of components and now you can get a 150W amp on a c…

The problem is that line of thinking only scales to when things work using the very basic level of abstraction presented.

A 150W audio amplifier is a surprisingly difficult thing to get working right, even with an off the shelf IC. You have to consider grounding, trace impedances, current density, power supply quality, filtering and parasitics really otherwise you end up with wildly oscillating nightmares or exploding amplifier ICs.

Re: Electronics Explained: Fundamentals for engineers, technicians and makers (2018)

#27

Post by uuyi »

lysp wrote: post #14

One book I saw mentioned a lot in relation to learning electronics is this one: https://artofelectronics.net/ Reviews state it's basically an encyclopedia of knowledge.

See associated student manual. Reading that alongside it is what you are supposed to do if you are learning. Ultimately the first few chapters should be stepped through carefully as they are not a reference but a fundamental list.

The very early 1st edition of TAoE and the Laboratory Manual that was presented with it was what got me into EE.

Re: Electronics Explained: Fundamentals for engineers, technicians and makers (2018)

#28

Post by Terry_Roll »

lbriner wrote: post #22
uuyi wrote: post #13

Ok found a PDF and scanned through it. This appears to be a rehash of older material, going back as far as the 90s, as I recognise some of the graphics and explanations. Newnes seem to make a great effort to retitle and reuse stuff in this capacity. It doesn’t look like a terrible book to be fair but limited in explanation and use. Worthy of the title perhaps. If I was at ground zero now I’d probably buy that, then d…

It depends what you want to do and at what level. There are many Makers in the world who don't have and don't need the AoE, it is a tome written a while back before lots of circuits came pre-packaged and which in many cases people don't care about how they work, as long as they just work. Remember back in the day, to make a high powered audio amp, you needed a tonne of components and now you can get a 150W amp on a c…

> Remember back in the day, to make a high powered audio amp, you needed a tonne of components and now you can get a 150W amp on a chip with a couple of external components. Some people will be interested in how each section works but many just want an audio amp!

Careful you might get Audiophiles arguing that an IC doesnt cut the mustard.

Re: Electronics Explained: Fundamentals for engineers, technicians and makers (2018)

#29

Post by iammjm »

stephen_g wrote: post #9
bsder wrote: post #8

For anyone who really wants to get into electronics, skip this and go pick up anything written by Forrest Mims. Practically anything he's ever written is gold. And since they were so common there's a lot of them floating around used.

You can find scans of a lot of them online, e.g. https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Company-Publications/R...

Thank you, this looks amazing!

Re: Electronics Explained: Fundamentals for engineers, technicians and makers (2018)

#30

Post by tinco »

blippage wrote: post #25

I find the problem with a lot of electronics books is that they are either too deep, or too shallow. Gerry Sussman (yes, that Sussman) explained that the way electronics is taught, and the way engineers think about problems are two separate things. So teaching material tends to fall into two camps: 1) detailed explanations that cover great depth, but are difficult to know how to apply to practical circuits, or 2) cir…

At university one of the mandatory courses was Computer Organisation, which teaches how computers are built electronically. Two weeks of that course covered DRAM timings. Recently (almost 15 years later) I was trying to design a simple automation system for my home's ventilation system, and for it I needed to pull my logic signal up to 10v using a FET. I had absolutely no idea how to do that.

It's absolutely crazy that at some point I was able to (crudely) design a computer logically to the level of detail of DRAM timings, but at the same time I've never had a deep enough understanding of current to design a circuit that uses a logical signal to switch a 10v line using a FET.

(this is how you do it btw: https://tinyurl.com/ydsgmdvh)

Post reply on HN