Is the Art of Electronics a good self study book?

[kosgian90]

Hello.

I'm thinking of buying this particular book since from what I've heard it's like the Bible for electronics. I am at a beginner to intermediate level regarding electronics knowledge (I studied using Malvino mostly and confidently say I can solve all the exercises there). Will this book serve a guy on my level of knowledge well or should I save it for later? Also which books would you recommend if not this particular one?

Thank you.

[Benta]

I doubt it.
After 40+ years as an EE I bought it (plus the X-chapters) a couple of years back.
It's an absolutely brilliant book, and even after so long in EE I've learned a lot.
But it's at a very high level, and I'd not recommend it for beginner's self-study.

[TimFox]

Just like the Bible, it is a good book to look up stuff and keep on the shelf as a reference.

[Sredni]

No, I wouldn't recommend TAoE as a stand-alone self-study book.
It's a book you read after you have studied electronics on more conventional books. It gives you advice on how to correctly apply the theory that happens to work on paper to make it work on a breadboard or a PCB. It can still be used for 'self' study, but IMO as a supplement.

For solidifying your circuit theory skills I recommend Franco "Electric Circuit Fundamentals", or even Hayt "Engineering Circuit Analysis". You might also like Smith & Alley,  "Electrical Circuits - An Introduction".
For general electronics, a nice modern textbook that is not too heavy is Jaeger & Blalock. I still think Sedra & Smith is a good introductory textbook, but it seems to me it has become a bit unwieldy and could be too much of a step from Malvino.
Another good textbook could be Razavi, "Fundamentals of Microelectonics".

You need to find the one that 'rings' with you.

[Old Printer]

If the AOE is too advanced you could look at Teach Yourself Electricity & Electronics by Stan Gibilisco. You can probably find an older edition posted online somewhere that you could browse and see if it for you, and if so buy the book to study from. Having a print book is my preference. The authors also has a bunch of YouTube videos related to the book to help you along.

[fbublikov]

Absolutely not! I would even go as far as to advise you to avoid AoE altogether as harmful. Same goes for the fabled lab "manual" that supposed to go with it.

[barshatriplee]

From the reviews goodread, it looks like the book is helpful to those who already know the basics:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/569775.The_Art_of_Electronics

[porter]

Chapter 9 (Voltage Regulation and Power Conversion) is available for download here. The download also contains the table of contents.
https://artofelectronics.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/AoE3_chapter9.pdf

I like many explanations in the book some of which contain historical context.

[rhb]

For self study  at basic level I recommend  *any* edition of "Electronic Principles" by Albert  Malvino.  He had PhD, but taught at votech schools and wrote textbooks that are excellent.  The current edition is obscenely expensive, but the older editions are all first rate and cheap.  I have the 1st & 2nd.  I worked all the problems in the 2nd in a bound quadrille ruled notebook.

So far as I know, Malvino is the only writer who *built* every circuit in the book to make sure there were no errors.  Malvino, a soldeles bread board and a modest parts assortment is all you need.

You should get AoE, but it's very advanced and not a good place to start.

Reg

[9voltbrain]

https://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Electricity-Electronics-Sixth/dp/1259585530

Is this book good for getting the fundamentals down well?

[BillyO]

For self study  at basic level I recommend  *any* edition of "Electronic Principles" by Albert  Malvino.

+1

[BillyO]

Art of Electronics does go through the basics, but very briefly.  Almost like it's  a reminder of what you should already be familiar with.  Electronic Principles spends a lot more time dwelling on the basics but does take you into teh more advanced too.  you might say AoE is back wieghted while EP is front weighted.

[rdl]

The op already said:

I studied using Malvino mostly and confidently say I can solve all the exercises there

I'm not sure where I'd go from there.
If it was 10 years ago I don't think I'd recommend AoE, but I haven't seen the third edition.

[rhb]

I read the 2nd AoE  cover to cover long ago.  The 3rd is better because the parts referenced in the 2nd were no  longer in production.  It's really more of a reference for finding solutions for difficult problems.

After Malvino what's next depends upon your interests.  Radio, get the ARRL  handbook.  Thomas Lee's "Planar Microwave Engineering" would be my next RF book
 after the ARRL books.

I learned digital from Don Lancaster and Vic20 & C64 documentation.  The TTL Cookbook is available for free download at tinaja.com as are all his other books.  There is an entire age cohort that learned digital logic from Don.  I have no idea what the more modern choice would be unless you want to learn FPGAs.

Have Fun!
Re

[rstofer]

Maybe the Khan Academy Electrical Engineering curriculum can be useful:

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/electrical-engineering

Being capable of solving book problems is a good start.  How many lab experiments did you actually build up?  Yes, the explanations and all of the math are helpful but until you see the experiment output on a DMM or scope, it's just ink on a page (or pixels on a screen...)

There is nothing I can do about the price but I still highly recommend the Digilent Analog Discovery 2 as a reasonably complete lab in a tiny box.  You can do a lot of EE experiments with this gadget.  See the attached Bode' Plot.  That is the result of a 10k resistor in series with a 0.1 ufd ceramic capacitor with the AD2 providing the swept frequency and measuring the resulting voltages.

The second graph is the forced response when an 83.333 Hz square wave (f=1 / 12 ms) of 1V p-p forces a response on the same resistor/capacitor combination.  The cursor is at 1 Tau and the output is about 65% (in a perfect world with no component tolerances, this would be around 63.2%.  The square wave is high for 6 Tau (6 ms). 

These are simple experiments and are adequately covered in every textbook but, for me, seeing the waveforms is a lot more useful for learning.

A close cousin to actually building circuits is using a simulator like LTspice.  I attached a plot for the very same forced response.  As useful as it is, it's still not parts and wire.

BTW, notice that I charged the capacitor for 6 ms which is 6 Tau which results in a charge of 99.75% of Vin so the square wave covers 12 Tau - 6 Tau to charge and 6 Tau to discharge.  You can calculate Tau as R * C or (10⁴ * 10^-7 = 10^-3 or 1 ms)

[Bud]

TAE is a good book for self study but I agree it is not exactly for starting  from ground zero, you should already have a bit of understanding prior to using it.

[magic]

I would like to point out that OP got a few answers and this thread has been dead for over half year until this guy bumped it:

Absolutely not! I would even go as far as to advise you to avoid AoE altogether as harmful. Same goes for the fabled lab "manual" that supposed to go with it.

Now, maybe it would be interesting to hear what's so harmful about TAoE.

Myself, I have skimmed it a few years ago and found it useful for filling various gaps left after self-learning electronics from the Internet and by reparing and occasionally building some stuff. I do believe it's a good reference book for looking up details one may sometimes forget about.

Haven't seen anything obviously harmful

[donlisms]

It's not a "normal" book, I think.  It assumes a lot of intuition; strong (or very strong) self-teaching skills, and a fairly solid electronics background to work from.  If you have a track record of teaching yourself hard things from books, it should be fine.  If you prefer more guidance, not so much!  It kinda leaves you with the work to do.

So first... just who ARE you, anyway?  :-)