Customer Reviews

Practical Electronics for Inventors

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The preface indicates that the book is primarily for electronic neophytes who, apparently, fill the ranks of inventors & hobbyists (?). I would think that the persons who would get the most out of this work would be those with some formal traning in electronic circuit design, perhaps those about to graduate or just grtting established in discrete, commercial circuit design. Also good for the older crowd to stay current.

What I see is a voluminous & varied amount of material focusing primarily on discrete circuit design & the IC's/components available for such work. There is very little math - calculus is avoided where possible. There is a lot of practical info on general circuit development. There is a good overview on digital, op amps, filters, PSs, stepper moters & microcontrollers among others. Some nuggets for the EE too. Remember how you rejoiced when they introduced Phasors during sinusoidal steady-state analysis? But after converting everything into complex numbers & solving the problem, why did you through away the imaginary part? See an elegant little explanation in Chap. 2.

Earlier reviewers have spent some time on the errors. Suffice it to say that there are many preventable, inexcusable errors. Many are typos & schematic errors, but others leave you wondering. How could an author with such an obvious command of this subject matter confuse electrical power & electrical energy or enhancement-type & depletion-type FESs? Fun for the EE's - How many errors can YOU find?

Other impressions: 1) If you're responsible for designing a special circuit - maybe a filter or switching PS & need some pactical info on the subject, would you not search out a book devoted to that single subject? 2) The Water Analogies - spare me, please; Rube Goldberg would turn over in his grave. 3) What about citing a few references every once in awhile? 5) How many of these schematics (for the novice) were modeled or breadboarded?

And finally to McGraw-Hill: Don't you people have any technical proof readers on staff? I think YOU owe us all a recall on this book to be replaced free with an error corrected revision.

The revision will be worth 4+ stars; as is 2- stars. There are similar books w/o the errors.

I confess that I bought the book because the majority of the reviews were very favorable. I was looking for a good explanation on how a SCR, a TRIAC and similar devices work, as well as some challeging examples to "sink in" the knowledge. I was dissapointed with what I found on the subject, as well as many others. Sometimes the material presented looked more like a typical data sheet on a device, rather than a textbook presentation. After a two-day review I returned the book for credit.
The book might help readers without any previous exposure to DC or AC circuits or electronic devices. I do say maybe because I have reservations about using the water analogy to explain active semiconductors. Too many valves have to be taking in account in carrying the analogy, masking the basic concepts that differentiate one from another.
I do commend the author for explaning the basic components used in electric and electronic circuits in detail. Very few books cover the different types of wires and other passive components when covering the basic knowledge on circuitry.
"The ABC of electronics" could have been a better choice for the title.

I'm a first year student in electrical engineering. At first view, this book is for the "gadgets beginner", but when you dive in a complete overview of the content and the way it is explained, it is AWESOME. The fluid flow analogy is way far the best I ever saw in a book. Every student or engineer should have a copy for quick reference to basic concepts explained SO CLEARLY. Of course, most complex maths are left aside, but still some important concepts are covered, (basic derivatives for transients analysis for example). Any beginner can build his own circuit with this book and the engineer can quickly find a forgotten concept without having to search in a giant guidebook where the practical side of theory is often hard to catch.

Good introductory books on electronics are rare birds. This book is a rare breed indeed. The scope of this book shocked me, from the section on explanating the root underlining reasons where complex impedance theory came from, to describing the core machine codes used by a microprocessors and microcontrollers. What really caught my attention was the manner in which the author explaned things. I can't quite explain a similar style--somewhat like a physicist, somewhat like an artist, somewhat like an engineer, and somewhat like an inventor. This combination of styles gave the subject matter practical, theoretical and imaginative qualities that made learning a rewarding expierence. This is not to say this book will be the only one you'll need for designing your circuits--but it's the best starter I came across by far.

It's a decent book; I'm presently taking a class being taught using it, and it has been usedful for learning things like AC. However, we just hit transistors - and it falls flat on its face. It just doesn't do enough to make it make sense, I've read through it repeatedly and it just won't click; other then that, it's been a good book so far, but like others have said, it needs a second edition with quite a few things cleaned up.

This Book is extremely rich .. , the author has an amazing way in telling the aspects and the topics, and arranging thoughts.. he fills your needs of understanding concepts and principles of electronic circuits and their fundamentals .. with a plenty of practical Correct and helpful Notes, ideas,examples, and illustrations and charts ...
I'm an engineer now, and still respecting this perfect-simple book (as well as its author), for this completed work and well organizing and collecting of circuits ..
and even now when you are in advanced level, you will still need to pick-up some intelligent ideas, frequently .. from this wealthy book which is on your library shelf now ..
and you will never regret buying it ,and would love to see it and search it's sheets .. always ..

This Book is extremely rich .. , the author has an amazing way in telling the aspects and the topics, and arranging thoughts.. he fills your needs of understanding concepts and principles of electronic circuits and their fundamentals .. with a plenty of practical Correct and helpful Notes, ideas,examples, and illustrations and charts ...
I'm an engineer now, and still respecting this perfect-simple book (as well as its author), for this completed work and well organizing and collecting of circuits ..
and even now when you are in advanced level, you will still need to pick-up some intelligent ideas, frequently .. from this wealthy book which is on your library shelf now ..
and you will never regret buying it ,and would love to see it and search it's sheets .. always ..

I looked at the book and was very pleasantly surprised. So, I bought the book, I read the book, and I returned the book. Too many errors.

This book has great potential. After the errors are corrected I plan to buy it again.

*****

Update: I went back and looked at the book again. It really does have a lot of good information in spite of all the errors.

With a really good discount I just couldn't pass it up so I bought it again even though it really bugs me to pay...for a paperback book with so many errors.

I've emailed McGraw-Hill twice asking for errata information/location and after about a month I still haven't received a response.

Did anyone at McGraw-Hill proofread this book before it went to print? (Incomplete sentences, grammatical errors, typos, etc.)

I sort of regret having bought it again but I am going to keep it this time.

Despite the books promise in the "what makes this book unique" Preface, It never gave me the big picture and just blasted me with more formulas and High level math. Where is the "big picture it promised". For Inventors?? The book itself is probably a great book just marketed wrong.

Like the other reviewers I found this book a great resource. It has great practical information and diagrams and whacks straight into what you can do with the components and what they are supposed to do without boring you to death with electron theory.

Now, I must say although I have a degree in electronics I am quite rusty on fine points and one thing I never did well and subsequently never used, were FETS. I have found unforgivable errors in diagrams and examples in the transistor chapter...mostly related to MOSFETS. When you deal with P and N channels and layers...YOU MUST NEVER make mistakes in a textbook...practical or not. I had to reread sections 10 times to realize that gate voltage polarities were reversed...and the worst..an n-channel depletion layer MOSFET turning on a relay when positive biased at its gate by an AND gate. Hello? An ENHANCEMENT n-channel sure..but like..what the heck???

Especially when new learners will be tackling this stuff, some find it hard enough to cram into their brains without it being explained wrong. This book needs fixed!! It is also not really designed for new learners...although I can say new people can gain a lot from it, but you really have to have some background or I could see getting lost fast on the loose use of formulae and Ohm's law (fundamental but we all had to at least learn and practice it first) SO...good book again could be THE greatest practical instruction book ever if it was cleaned up. I back up the previous reviewer who said that. ONE STAR for the glaring lack of responsibility. It really is a 4 and 1/2 star book but hopefully the bad reviews will kick start the author and McGraw into releasing the second edition.