| All New Electronics Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self Teaching Guides) |  | Authors: Harry Kybett, Mr. Earl Boysen
Publisher: Wiley
List Price: $34.99
Buy New: $18.85
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Rating:  26 reviews
Media: Paperback
Edition: 3rd
Pages: 456
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 7.7 x 0.9
ISBN: 0470289619
Dewey Decimal Number: 621.381
EAN: 9780470289617
ASIN: 0470289619
Publication Date: May 12, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
For almost 30 years, this book has been a classic text for electronics enthusiasts. Now completely updated for today?s technology with easy explanations and presented in a more user-friendly format, this third edition helps you learn the essentials you need to work with electronic circuits. All you need is a general understanding of electronics concepts such as Ohm?s law and current flow, and an acquaintance with first-year algebra. The question-and-answer format, illustrative experiments, and self-tests at the end of each chapter make it easy for you to learn at your own speed.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 26
 Great book July 8, 2010
Nettie Esther (Arizona)
This book is very helpful for understanding how circuits work. The question answer format really helped me see how electronic circuits work. This is much more effective than the more theoretical books.
I would recomend this book to anyone trying to understanding how electronic circuits work.
 excellent in some ways, but needs work June 25, 2010
Rion (Alameda, CA USA)
The basic design and direction of this book is absolutely excellent. The question and answer format engages the reader for better understanding, and the topics covered include a wide variety of essential areas. The book falls down, however, because of being 'rushed out without adequate editing' (nor usable index), thus leaving the reader confused at times. Other problems include incorrect answers to problems, and inadequate explanations. So while I know that I learned a lot from the book, I also know that if I recommended it to friends they would be calling me saying how frustrated they were with the mistakes. For that very reason my review is not a recommendation. I have strong hopes that the next edition will fix the problems here and I will THEN be able to recommend this book.
In case you are wondering (and I know I was), the third edition is actually written by Earl Boysen now since Harry Kybett, having written the first two editions, has passed away.
The Q & A format is one of those things that always seems to be a bit unique in any particular book, and this one is no exception. In the early chapters many of the questions may seem insulting in that they are so easy, and the reader can find themself wondering if the book was written for 8 year old kids! But the real beauty of that approach is that it forces your mind to change modes on a regular basis: instead of staying in a passive info-absorbing mode, it has to stop and become active at solving a problem, which results in better retention. So even if the question seems childish, the information is more firmly impressed on you. In the middle and latter chapters, the Q & A format usually sticks with problem solving, often asking you to repeat the same sort of calculations you have seen in examples. Most of the time the solutions include more than just answers, serving to explain just how the answer was arrived at. But the problems occur with that word "most"! It is also the case that many of the times when we need details, all we get is a numerical answer with no hint as to how it was arrived at. It is even more frustrating when the book's answer appears WRONG no matter how many times you recalculate it.
In addition to the Q & A presentation, the end of each chapter includes review questions along with answers, but no detailed solution. One clear editorial screwup is apparent where Chapter 1 calls this "pre-test" and all other chapters call it "self-test." That's why I say "rush job".
I found myself confused with the authors presentations on occasion and felt it necessary to consult other electronics books. Two I found particularly helpful were "Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics" by Stan Gibilisco, and "Electronics for Inventors" by Paul Scherz. Both of these guys' books are a lot more "wordy" with an emphasis on making electronics undestandable. While this book is supposed to demystify electronics, I have to say I felt mystfied enough to go out and get these other books. Three things Boysen's book were unclear about are: ground line in circuits, which doesn't even show up in the index and is assumed to be something the reader knows beforehand; combining AC and DC in the same circuit (way too brief); and the emitter-follower amplifier - the description was just plain baffling!.
This book does a great job of covering things like amplifiers, resonance, power supplies, along with AC and DC basics, but of course you have to start with fundamentals. Kirchoff's voltage and current laws are covered, but this books stops short of giving you a full complement of circuit analysis tools. It would be much better to have the method of loop currents presented here since without it, readers will be left scratching their heads when they run into many real-world circuits.
Another big plus is the list of internet references that are provided in the book. The author has his own website and you can send him questions about the book; I did that and got a response every time.
The book does have some experiments (five total), but they will require some equipment. At a minimum, you will need a breadboard and two digital multimeters, but normally you will also need an oscilloscope and a signal generator. Two of these experiments are called "optional" and are in the chapter on oscillators. I would not expect anyone to be able to perform those last two experiments simply because sufficient information is not given. The components are not specified and the author basically just suggests that you try to implement what is shown in a circuit diagram rather the providing the details (as he did in the other experiments). I think they are called "optional" because the author opted out! I would have preferred to see more experiments, maybe minimum of one per chapter?, and some alternative way of doing them without the expensive equipment.
The chapter on oscillators is the worst chapter in the book! The only thing you are going to learn from this chapter is the three basic types of oscillators -- the Q&A problems are just impossible and really serve to show how rushed out the book was. Then, at chapter end, the self-test is very superficial, demonstrating that the author knew very little was conveyed. What are the characteristics of oscillators? Not covered. Why would you choose one type over another? Not covered. What are oscillators used for? Not covered.
Great introduction to the basics May 27, 2010
T. Engel
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It's a treat to find a book that is both instructive and effective at a practical level in understanding basic components in electronics as well as circuits.Physics textbooks taught me about Ohm's law, resonant circuits, and transformers, but this book present the concepts in a context that is practical rather than theoretical. I can do something useful with what I have learned! The writing is very clear, and the questions are excellent. Solving them made me test my understanding of the reading material - it's a great way to make sure that I get it before moving on to a new topic. I'm about halfway through the book, and when I finish, I think I'll be ready to tackle a book like Boysen's Electronic Projects for Dummies.
 Great BASIC electronics guide January 22, 2010
Josef Torkelsen
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
My experience with this book is very two sided. On one side, it is a great refresher or even a descent beginning for people wanting to learn about basic electronics. On the other side, it is a very poor update to a book that was ahead of its time.
I have read the 2nd edition and this book offers almost nothing new and instead takes the easy to follow format and makes it more lengthy (and in some cases worse). I bought this book because a lot has changed between 1986 and 2008. According to this book, electronics has stood still because there is no mention of anything new. I thought the book would at least mention various advances that an electronics technician should know or things on the horizon. If not, this should be called the self teaching guide to the basics or fundamentals of electronic components. It would have been nice to have a short overview or road map of new technologies like programmable logic controllers and digital circuits. Instead, all there is a supplemental reading section (some of which points to his own books which, from the quality of this update, they probably aren't very good and are just made to make money). Plus, it is sad when a couple pages of my physics review book provides a great and better introduction to electronics then this.
I thought the author wrote "all new" because he wanted to stress that it is "all new". Instead, simply writing edition 3 and adding the word basic to the title would have been a better move. There is no way you can simply get away with calling it an "electronics" guide anymore because too many advances have been made and if this is all you knew, it wouldn't get you very far other than basic troubleshooting of simple circuits.
Well Done! December 10, 2009
C. White (USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I like the structure of the book the most. It reviews the fundamentals of electronic design, and mimics an intro course into Electronic Engineering (minus the complex math). If one were to thoroughly understand the base principles outlined in this book, you would be well on your way to understanding analog circuits. There are clear circuit diagrams and various examples to help solidify what you've read. This book gets my approval!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 26
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