Practical electronics textbook recommendations?

[choochoo_baloo]

Hoping for recommendations of a practical electronic book.

I have a physics degree, but in wanting to design my own circuits for astronomy projects I'm quickly discovering that the very limited electronics I covered (applying differential calculus to LCR circuits) was very much on the theoretical end. My favourite textbooks have always come from a personal recommendation.

Therefore I'm after a book that doesn't waste much (if any) time on the basics; charge/voltage/electromagnetism/semiconductors and advanced mathematics, but is more of a circuit recipe book for those with a scientific background, just not in electrical engineering.

Current 'to research' topics to indicate the sort of detail I'm after:

• selecting a linear voltage regulator
• uses of the 555 timer IC

Thanks in advance.

[Oddsocks]

Hi Mathew.

As a retired engineer, having spent 40+ yrs in electronics system engineering (started when thermionic valves, Thyratrons, were still being used for AC power control) I can tell you that books become outdated very quickly!  Once I retired most of my electronics books, some dating back to the fifties, were sent for recycling.

last year I began a few projects and needed a refresher and came across this book:

Practical Electronics For Inventors by Paul Scherz and Simon Monk.

ISBN-10: 1259587541

ISBN-13: 978-1259587542

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1534373301&sr=8-1&keywords=practical+electronics+for+inventors

My copy, is the third edition, the Amazon link I provided is for the fourth edition which came out earlier this year.

The book does contain all the information you require to design and build your own circuits, formulae, example circuits, references to standard devices, such as the 555 timer you mentioned, power supply design etc.

The book does not tell you ‘How to build a linear regulator from these components’ but it gives you the information required to allow you to choose the correct components from spec sheets found at component suppliers such as RS.

The book also does not need to be read ‘cover to cover’ in order to build something, you can dip straight into any particular aspect of circuit design that is relevant to your project and start from there.

Certainly not a perfect book, I doubt one book could cover the entire electronics applications design field, but it comes very close.

I didn’t regret the purchase and it has been very useful for my own projects.

HTH.

William.

P.S. The book linked below also gets regularly mentioned by my ex colleagues as a good all-in-one electronics manual, not read it myself but might try a copy now that I found it on Amazon while looking for the information to post the link above.

The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill.

ISBN-10: 0521809266

ISBN-13: 978-0521809269

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1534375935&sr=1-1&keywords=the+art+of+electronics

[JamesF]

That sounds very handy.  I actually did O-level Electronics for a giggle in my lower sixth year at school, but there wasn't an awful lot about circuit design -- more "how transistors work", NP junctions, doping and that kind of stuff.  Oh, I remember bits on op-amps, too.  And the digital stuff which was a doddle given that I'd already been playing with computers for several years.  These days it seems hard to find "a thinking person's guide to practical electronics design".  I get the impression that almost no-one seems to do it these days.

James

[Oddsocks]

30 minutes ago, JamesF said:

I get the impression that almost no-one seems to do it these days.

I think you are right James. 

Part of the reason is that large scale integration into smaller and smaller surface mount packages makes it uneconomic and largly impractical to build say a class B audio amp from discrete components when you can pick up a single fully integrated class B audio amp i.c. with it’s own heatsink for a fraction of the cost. Add to that the endless hours wasted trying to find equivalents to specified discrete components that suddenly go out of production, it’s no wonder that self build electronic design has waned. The focus for amateur electronics has very much shifted to programmable multi-function devices such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi etc.

William.

[skybadger]

+1 for horowitz and hill. It's everything you need. Mine lives in the garage next to newnes electronics circuits guides and machineries handbook.

 

[skybadger]

5 hours ago, Oddsocks said:

I get the impression that almost no-one seems to do it these days.

I disagree. The Lego set has changed is all. Arduino and maker culture means more people than ever are building electronics from scratch, but the units of build are different. 

[Paul M]

+2 for Art of Electronics. It has had a number of updates over the years but I guess my copy was 15 years old when I gave it away many years ago!

It isn't a project book but has a great deal of circuit design methodology. "How can I achieve this?" kind of thing. 

I never took to project books. The fun for me was designing and building circuits, often It wouldn't get beyond the breadboard  

That book was my bible.