Electronics > Beginners
Make Electronics book 2nd edition components list?
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bd139:

--- Quote from: scatterandfocus on September 14, 2019, 03:56:33 pm ---bd139, see updated post above.

I think that any author of a beginner electronics book such as this one would do good to think about component counts and costs for design of the example circuits.  From that mindset, I think that the components list could have likely been whittled way down while still effectively getting the points of the experiments across.  Maybe part of the design of this book is in the selling of kits.  I don't know, really.  But just as an example, by the point in the book that these magnet experiments come up (experiment 27) transistors have been used and it seems that a circuit involving a transistor could have been used for amplifying the effects of very small and cheap magnets passing through very small coils.  Or the same using the LM386 opamp in an experiment just a couple of experiments later.

As an example of experiment cost in this book, dropping a magnet through a a coil of magnet wire could cost around $30-40.   :-//

Cue the Asian father:  Why so expensive?

--- End quote ---

It's from the Make lot which was all about making money so you're probably right. You're learning though which is a good thing :)

I tend to push people towards Earl Boyson's "Complete Electronics Self-Teaching Guide with Projects". PDF here: https://gurusaiprasanth.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/complete-electronics-self-teaching-guide-with-projects-honest.pdf
ledtester:
A good source of neodymium magnets are old hard drives:

https://youtu.be/uSjxLH7vWUM

For a cool way to power an LED (also see attached pdf):



For the relay, as bd139 said, a lower voltage relay (e.g. 5V, 6V) can be made to work. There's no need to get them from a first-line distributor. New old-stock relays will work just fine for your projects. Even pulls from old equipment will be fine.

If you want to experiment with generating electricity with moving magnets, just look for a DIY dynamo project such as:

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Dynamo-Easily

or

https://youtu.be/BFvjqZTCqP4
scatterandfocus:

--- Quote from: bd139 on September 14, 2019, 04:39:50 pm ---
--- Quote from: scatterandfocus on September 14, 2019, 03:56:33 pm ---bd139, see updated post above.

I think that any author of a beginner electronics book such as this one would do good to think about component counts and costs for design of the example circuits.  From that mindset, I think that the components list could have likely been whittled way down while still effectively getting the points of the experiments across.  Maybe part of the design of this book is in the selling of kits.  I don't know, really.  But just as an example, by the point in the book that these magnet experiments come up (experiment 27) transistors have been used and it seems that a circuit involving a transistor could have been used for amplifying the effects of very small and cheap magnets passing through very small coils.  Or the same using the LM386 opamp in an experiment just a couple of experiments later.

As an example of experiment cost in this book, dropping a magnet through a a coil of magnet wire could cost around $30-40.   :-//

Cue the Asian father:  Why so expensive?

--- End quote ---

It's from the Make lot which was all about making money so you're probably right. You're learning though which is a good thing :)

I tend to push people towards Earl Boyson's "Complete Electronics Self-Teaching Guide with Projects". PDF here: https://gurusaiprasanth.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/complete-electronics-self-teaching-guide-with-projects-honest.pdf

--- End quote ---

I have ran across that book a few times.  One thing about it is that reviewers mention lots of errors and poor organization.  I can't speak on that, but the publisher does have an errata, breadboard photos, and a complete parts list here:  https://www.buildinggadgets.com/complete-electronics.htm

It does look like an interesting 'adult' electronics book.  I guess I worry a bit about the mentions of poor organization, as well as the mentions in amazon reviews about Vine reviews being used to inflate the book rating.  On that last point in general, it is a hell of a world that we are living in today, where trust and integrity seems to have gone out the window in favor of appearances and profits.  This applies to all products and reviews today, where reviews can be used to manipulate the numbers for making poor products look good and good products to look bad.  And that further applies to everything today, not just products.  For that reason, I tend to not put too much weight into product reviews, much preferring to have back and forth discussion.

Have you read through this book?  If so, what did you think of it?  I could see the requirement for an oscilloscope and signal generator being a turn-off for some people.  But I'm ass-backward in lots of things, so I acquired an oscilloscope and signal generator before even buying any components to start in on constructing circuits.  My reason for doing so is that I tend to like to look at things I am learning pretty thoroughly (to my own satisfaction), and I figured that having an oscilloscope and signal generator would allow me to get a good look at everything along the way, even if it isn't 'required' to do so.  That was one issue I had with taking classes at the local college.  There was no time for asking too many questions, doing hands-on experiments, and just generally thinking outside the box of textbook explanations.

bd139:
Errata is almost always necessary. The same is true even of some of the more trustworthy books, including Learning the Art of Electronics which has an errata list a mile long! One of the killers is some of the publishers don't produce errata or care if the book is incorrect. Pearson are well known for that. I don't expect 100% correctness but I do expect the author to care about it and publish this externally.

As for Amazon reviews, you're right. It's a minefield. Fortunately there are people out there working on that: https://www.fakespot.com/ :)

On the book itself, you're right about the thing being a turn off for a lot of people. A scope and function generator is minimally required to get a feel for things however and I'm not sure I could do without mine at all on a daily basis. On top of that is a power supply. Eventually you end up with an absolute pile of test gear and join the TEA thread  :-DD.

I did indeed read through the book. The contents are pretty good. They give you a more intuitive feeling for the parts you are using which is a good foundation for The Art of Electronics. But it stops dead at the end of basic analogue electronics. There is no digital in it at all.

I'd really like to see some material that sits in the gap between "I know nothing" and "Learning the Art of Electronics".

I had a sit down earlier and scanned through the Make Electronics book and honestly though it's pretty good and probably fits in that gap nicely. I'd avoid sticking too rigorously to the exact parts and specifications and see if you can improvise in a few places as well. They seem to want to illustrate something in a very rigid way but I probably wouldn't stick it it (and blow something up in my face but that's how some of us learn  :-DD)
scatterandfocus:

--- Quote from: bd139 on September 14, 2019, 06:24:22 pm ---Errata is almost always necessary. The same is true even of some of the more trustworthy books, including Learning the Art of Electronics which has an errata list a mile long! One of the killers is some of the publishers don't produce errata or care if the book is incorrect. Pearson are well known for that. I don't expect 100% correctness but I do expect the author to care about it and publish this externally.

As for Amazon reviews, you're right. It's a minefield. Fortunately there are people out there working on that: https://www.fakespot.com/ :)

On the book itself, you're right about the thing being a turn off for a lot of people. A scope and function generator is minimally required to get a feel for things however and I'm not sure I could do without mine at all on a daily basis. On top of that is a power supply. Eventually you end up with an absolute pile of test gear and join the TEA thread  :-DD.

I did indeed read through the book. The contents are pretty good. They give you a more intuitive feeling for the parts you are using which is a good foundation for The Art of Electronics. But it stops dead at the end of basic analogue electronics. There is no digital in it at all.

I'd really like to see some material that sits in the gap between "I know nothing" and "Learning the Art of Electronics".

I had a sit down earlier and scanned through the Make Electronics book and honestly though it's pretty good and probably fits in that gap nicely. I'd avoid sticking too rigorously to the exact parts and specifications and see if you can improvise in a few places as well. They seem to want to illustrate something in a very rigid way but I probably wouldn't stick it it (and blow something up in my face but that's how some of us learn  :-DD)

--- End quote ---

My loose plan is to go through the two Make books, and then go through another book that I found titled 'Essence of Analog Electronics'.  I haven't seen that book mentioned anywhere, but after running into it and giving it a good look over it seems like it will be worth the time.  Although, there are no project examples, parts lists, or anything like that.  I may end up checking out the book you mentioned instead, after the Make books.  And I do have what seems to be a good digital text titled 'Digital Electronics' by William Kleitz.  I found it after looking through an instructor's bookshelf while I was taking a digital electronics class.  The text that we used was miserably bad, having so many errors and organization issues that the class and instructor nearly completely ditched it.  The instructors had no real say in the choice of textbooks, though.  The instructor of my DC class did pretty much completely ditch the textbook, pulling from photocopies of materials that he had collected over decades from various sources.  He was the only good instructor that I had there, and he told me that he was requested to return to the school after retiring to help get students primed into the school's other electronics classes and programs (the old trick of a first good chapter or two in a book, with the rest being crap, but using a good instructor instead).  Poor textbooks was a major issue with taking classes there, too.  The director over the electronics classes and programs did a piss poor job of selecting textbooks.  No wonder everyone in their electronics programs was failing exit exams.  Any way, I found the explanations in that book by Kleitz to be much better than the class text, and I bought a used copy for myself for a couple of bucks after completing that class in case I ever wanted to go back to re-learning that topic.  It might be pretty dated by now, though.

I suppose the Art of Electronics book tries to fill the gap between an all theory-based textbook and a hands-on book.   It's too bad that there aren't other books out there that try to do that on the level of absolute beginners.
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