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Comment by abetusk | Hacker News Reader

"Practical Electronics for Inventors" by Paul Scherz [0]. Not only does it have practical circuits it also has chapters on theory presented in such a way as to have me understand it.

I think many of the books I read in the past shied away from complex math, linear algebra, etc. whereas PEfI uses them as needed. "The Art of Electronics", for example, I found to be absolutely abysmal.

It's not an in depth book, it's pretty much a beginners book, but it's thorough and practical.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourt...

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I would stay away from practical electronics for inventors. The book historically was chock full of really bad explanations and mistakes which brings into question the author’s knowledge and credentials. You don’t see that until you look at it from the professional side of things. To a new electronics person it looks credible. I can’t speak for later editions.

The Art of Electronics is an excellent book but misunderstood. It’s a reference book not an introductory text. It should be used in a professional capacity or be read alongside the accompanying student manual.

The book situation in this sector is pretty horrible unfortunately. The old NEETs stuff is verbose but teaches you nothing, the Make books teach you what but not how. Same with the Forest Mims books.

I have been considering writing a book which covers enough electronics for people to competently solve a problem they have without being led up the wrong path or delve too heavily into mathematics (the latter is unfortunately mostly unavoidable but basic algebra should be enough to solve nearly all problems)

I for one would be very interested.

Can you give some examples of the mistakes?

Comments about impedance and the BJT calculations were completely wrong. Also it suffers from having bits of information in little islands and no clue as to how to stick them together.

One of the fun things in electronics is when someone builds a small signal amplifier then wonders why the output is lower than calculated with zero understanding of source / load impedances. Because no one taught them about that.

Sorry to push back on this but I'm a little suspicious.

I found a list of (independent) errata for the 2nd edition [0], presumably because it was used in a class. I see one note about the "Rule 2" for transistors but, to me at least, it looks like the author just forgot a "not" in the sentence.

In general, the errata looks like what would exist for a textbook that was written by a person. It has mistakes, mostly typos but just a quick glance doesn't uncover some fundamental lack of knowledge from the authors part.

I'm no expert in electronics, so I don't have enough confidence to make a statement about the competency of Scherz, but your assessment seems hyperbolic.

[0] https://my.ece.utah.edu/~ece2210/errata.pdf

It's not in any errata. It's a complete misunderstanding of the problem domain and modelling. I don't like to crap on the authors too hard, but they are both hobbyists on the EE side of things and really shouldn't be writing authoritative material on the matter.

The only way to outline this is to do better which I may do if I ever get the time to do so.

Do better

I can add to this as I've read parts of the 3rd edition.

First off, it's a one thousand page textbook so it's not a short read. However, the second chapter is just called "Theory" and it's about 200 pages long, and that single chapter is an excellent primer on electrical engineering.

Don't get the kindle version, it's too hard to read on Kindle.

Just found PEfI's 4th edition online and looked through it. It's beautifully laid out with clear illustrations, summary tables and well-explained text. I'm not usually tempted to buy a hardcopy but this looks super handy.

> "The Art of Electronics", for example, I found to be absolutely abysmal.

Agreed. I had this damn thing collecting dust on my coffee table until someone expressed interest and took it off my hands.

I'll check out the PEfI book. I don't consider myself a total noob, but I'd also fail the first week's exam in any EE intro course.

I agree too. AoE is more a cookbook than a textbook.

I've got the third edition and I'm not very impressed with the adjective "practical" in the title.

It does not deal with practical topics like safety, system layout and grounding, board layout, reliability (heat, vibration, mechanical parts), connectors, testing, record-keeping, and so on. Some of these things get a superficial mention, to be sure. But not much practical advice.

For example there is a section of a few pages on transient [over]voltage suppressors, but it's just a catalog of a few different types of device with no real practical information on how to select and size them for different needs, test your design according to the standards, or the design tradeoffs.

I already know simplified treatments of the theory and I would have found a book on practical electronics to be useful.

I guess practical is a term that changes somewhat based on the level someone is at. As more of a beginner, the book looks great. Eg, for a beginner it's highly practical to learn how to read resistor bands or calculate Ohm's law.

Whereas "for Inventors" seems a bit of sleight-of-hand marketing. Beginners in the field may also identify as and aspire to be inventors, making a more broadly-appealing title vs "for Beginners", though it may have been more accurate.

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