(Part 3) Reddit mentions: The best electrical & electronics books

Yeah definitely - that absolutely kills me to watch people thinking the hobby is entirely assembling things rather than designing them. I don't think Forrest Mims books were all that good to be honest. I wait for the downvotes :) There were little in the way of explanations of how stuff worked and how to adapt it to do different things, some of the basics were entirely 100% wrong. Granted they got a lot of people interested in the subject but they drowned out better books (Babani series) in the process.

If you want to be taught electronics, I found that this is a rather nice book that actually skips between theory and hands on work regularly: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1118217322/

I myself learned quickly that as I had no money I had to make do with what I could get so that meant actually working out how stuff worked first. Hours in the library reading theory. I wish more people had that introduction; the knowledge has done me well over the years :)

Old as well :)

Wikipedia has a great intro article on this chip. Youtube also has at least a million great videos showing how to use the 555. This is a chip that as an EE you should absolutely know forwards and backwards. While it's less useful nowadays - thanks to microcontrollers that cost less than a few cents - it's still an amazingly useful chip that can time pretty much anything.

A book to add to your reading list

...which is written by the 555 IC's designer, Hans Camenzind

I am a current EE student right now and saw you ask in another comment about book recommendations so I thought I would throw a few in:

• a frequently recommended electronics book is :Art of Electronics
  
• A frequently used (us included) electronics book is Microelectronic Circuits
  
  
• For introductory circuits we use (and i enjoy) : Fundamentals of electric circuits
  
  
• I am hoping to get through : Signal Processing and Linear Systems
  
  
• instead of the above the smartest professor I know recommends anything by : Oppenheim
  
  
• a couple good books for brushing up/learning engineering mathematics: Engineering Mathmatics and Advanced Engineering Mathmatics
  
  
  You should probably throw in some electromagnetic and semiconductor physics for good measure as well.

Great! In that case, it sounds like you need an introduction to linear systems theory! This is usually a topic for an introductory graduate course, and involves looking at systems and designing controllers using state-space representations. It allows you to do a lot of cool stuff that PID doesn't allow you to, and is the basis of a large portion of controllers in the real world today.

Here are the topics that were in my intro to linear systems class:

1. State-space systems
   
2. Linearization (by approximation and by feedback)
   
3. Solutions to linear systems (matrix exponentials)
   
4. Stability (Lyapunov stability, I-O stability)
   
5. Controllability and stabilizability
   
6. Stabilization with state feedback
   
7. Observability and detectability
   
8. State estimation and stabilization with output feedback
   
9. Minimal realizations
   
10. LQR/LQG optimal control
    
    If you're interested, you could just start looking for these topics within controls tutorials online. Good youtube channels are Brian Douglas and Steve Brunton. The textbook I learned from is Linear Systems, by Jao P. Hespanha.
    

Wow, thanks for the Reddit gold, that's awesome! It's been my pleasure to have the discussion with you. As for a good textbook, I have a few suggestions. For a pretty good broad look at optics from both classical and quantum points of view, give Saleh and Teich a look. For purely quantum stuff, my undergrad textbook was by Griffiths, which I enjoyed quite a bit, though I recall the math being a bit daunting when I took the course. Another book I've read that I liked quite a bit was by Shankar. I felt it was a bit more accessible. Finally, if you want quantum mechanics from the source, Dirac is a bit of a standard. It's elegant, but can be a bit tough.

Sure!

The Physics of Solar Cells by Jenny Nelson is a nice book. Very dense, a little mathy, and assumes some prior knowledege.

This book by Martin Green is the gold standard, though it is probably less accessible than Nelson's and harder to find.

It's probably necessary to have a good grasp of freshman physics, and it would certainly be helpful to understand classical electrodynamics and some solid state physics, which itself requires a little bit of quantum mechanics.

Necessary math for all of this is some calculus, some differential equations, and some linear algebra.

There may be a much friendlier resource out there; I understand if this is a formidable stack.

My background kind of in two tangential fields: MHD and semiconductor processing so my experience is not directly related to what your work is in.

That said a couple of books I have come across may be of use, your engineering or physics library should have a copy:

This is an old book that a professor of mine lectured out of. He used to copy chapters and hand them out. It is pretty good.

http://www.amazon.com/Application-Plasmas-Chemical-Processing/dp/0262020270/ref=sr_1_26?ie=UTF8&qid=1290102425&sr=8-26

The below is a book I used in an EE class on plasma processing. The first part is a good intro, but the materials processing part may not be as relevant.

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Plasma-Discharges-Materials-Processing/dp/0471720011/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290102399&sr=8-1

Good luck.

Actually, Google Books doesn't let you view many books for free (based on my experience finding academic books related to my EE). For example, Nick Cullather's Secret History on Guatemala only lets the reader preview a few pages and not the whole book. For students who would like to read the entire work or journal, b-ok.org (for books), Library Genesis (for books and journals) or Sci-Hub (for journals) would be your best bet.

>this solar electricity hand book which costs a few hundred dollars.

According to Amazon it costs $19.99 USD........that's not a few hundred dollars...

Multisim is great - there are free online circuit simulators too which can be useful for the basics, I think also read somewhere that kicad (also free) is introducing a circuit simulator in its next major release.

Edit: I also recommend this book for beginners.

I could help you go over some of the system components you would need, but i would rather reccomend this handbook on solar installations. It is perfect for a person that doesn't know too much about electrical systems and in general is just good to have around for reference.

https://www.amazon.ca/Solar-Electricity-Handbook-installing-photovoltaic/dp/1907670653/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488239821&sr=8-1&keywords=solar+handbook

Are you looking to install everything yourself?

I also recommend The Art of Electronics. Another great one is The Fundamentals of Power Electronics by Erickson and Maksimovic. If you have access to ieeexplore, Maksimovic has some awesome papers on there.

I learned GT from this book. Very focused on solid state physics.
This is also quite good.

"The Art of Electronics" is widely considered the the single most authoritative book for electronics. There is a companion book "The Art of Electronics Student Manual" that may also prove very useful to you. If you don't have any experience building circuits yet check out this video from EEVBlog "How to setup an Electronics Lab for $300". The easiest way to learn is to learn by doing.

If you haven't started playing with electronics yet, get started you will be glad you did. Never stop learning.

It definitely depends on the topic. For linear control theory, Hespanha has a good book. Slotine is popular for nonlinear control theory. Thrun has a ridiculously popular book for stochastic control. I've been meaning to finish Crassidis' book on estimation theory in general. As for underactuated systems specifically, like motion planning and such, I have not read any particular book, but the course notes for the MIT class I linked are basically a good book.

The description of the problem doesn't call for latch/unlatch. In general, never use latch/unlatch if you can get away with it.

Start Stop
I:1/1 I:1/2 B3:0/0
---| |---------| |------------------( )-----
|
B3:0/0 |
---| |-----

That should help with a start.

It is expensive, but my professors book was great when I was in school.

http://www.amazon.com/Programmable-Logic-Controllers-Emphasis-Application/dp/097662592X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381409292&sr=8-1&keywords=programmable+logic+controllers+erickson


Edit: well the format didn't come through very well. Use this link to get an example of a start/stop circuit. http://tinyurl.com/kpw2ynh. A would be Start, B would be Stop, and C would be B3:0/0

In that case, I'd recommend a companion text:

Controlling Conducted Emissions by Design (J Fluke)

Ott has some great books as well (the book on EMC):

Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering

Noise Reduction Techniques in Electronic Systems

Engineer here. This is the book we used that explains very well Fourier Series, the Fourier Transform, the Laplace Transform, DFT, etc. It features a lot of exposition aimed at getting an intuition for what's going on and really only requires a good understanding of calculus, though linear algebra would be useful as well. Note, however, that this won't be as mathematically rigorous as if you were to learn it from a functional analysis perspective.

A perspective from condensed matter (solid state) physics:

In my opinion, an understanding of group theory is essential to understanding quantum mechanics, second only the linear algebra needed formulate the ideas.
For the books you've linked, this approach is basically an analysis of what symmetry can tell us about the energy levels and wave-functions of a quantum system. The punchline is that there is a mapping between the energy levels of the system and the irreducible representations
of the symmetry group. This construction allows one to easily understand which degeneracies are protected and how they split when the symmetry is reduced. This analysis also simplifies the work in perturbative expansions and computing matrix elements, as the representations product rules will enforce 'selection rules' that indicate which are necessarily zero.

The case of finite groups is useful in chemical and solid-state systems where a molecular or crystal environment reduces continuous rotation symmetry down to a finite subgroup as well as when dealing with many-electron states and the associated permutation groups. Using these one can understand a lot features of molecules and solids. This is the focus of the book by Tinkham you've linked. A further reference (and in my opinion better) is Dresselhaus and Dresselhaus

The case of infinite groups usually means Lie groups: mostly SO(3) and/or SU(2) in low energy physics with the Lorentz group SO(3,1) as well as more exotic beasts (such as SU(3) and friends) showing up as gauge groups in high energy physics. These are a bit more involved than the finite case and usually one ends up studying the associated Lie algebra, but the core ideas are the same.
The classic text by Weyl seems to have a mix of both this and the finite case. I'll refer you to the other responses for some references here.

Eletronic Principles is pretty good and beginner friendly. My circuits book in college was Electric circuits by Nilsson and Riedel, it's pretty good but a little dense.

The FE ELECTRICAL review manual is going for $67 on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1591264499/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That's all I used to study and I was able to pass.

The reference manual can be had as a PDF from the NCEES website:
https://ncees.org/engineering/fe/

Good luck!

Sure,

here

here are some values for a low loss cable

here's another one

If you have an IEEE membership

I would also recommend Electric Circuits by Nillson and Riedel, they do a good explanation of high voltage transmission.


Also, look up lithium batteries.

Edit: I should mention here that the longest currently existing non-relayed power line is now about 1700 km. However, the relatively short lines in use today are due to economics, not any major problem in engineering longer lines.

definitely, in physics i had an old edition of this book for experimental stuff, something like this for maths and something around that price for theoretical physics as well - and those books where enough for the first 4-5 semesters. And some people didnt even buy or lend those but managed to get through easily by taking notes and using the (free!) scripts.

Well, I think I'm going to get Electronic Principles by Albert Malvino since I was told it is a great place to learn the basics of electronics.

> What do my motor controllers need to be rated for?

However much you plan to put through the motors. If you think the motors might stall, and you need the controller to survive that, then you need a controller that can supply the full stall current of the motor.

On the other hand, if you don't think you'll need that much current, and just want to protect the controller from frying due to over-current, then that's what fuses and/or circuit breakers are for. E.g.: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Push-Button-15-Amp-Circuit-Breaker-DC-AC-Circuit-/370274362810

> Before I used simply linear Voltage Regulators, that didn't work out so well and was very wasteful. What else could I use?

Sounds like you already know the answer: a switching regulator. In your case, a buck regulator because those are the ones that step down. There are a million trillion gazillion places that sell these, but I tend to recommend: http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/2110

> Is there a book or some other resource someone could point me to where I can find some how to deal with high currents?

The general term for when you are working with high voltages and/or current is "power electronics". I have no experience with it myself, but this book has been recommended by other people before: http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Power-Electronics-Second-Edition/dp/0792372700

Most schools and universities do not have mandatory textbook requirements. It’s up to the student to figure out what book is best to learn with, if the script by the prof isn't enough (usually isn't). The profs my recommend books, but it's all optional.

That said, the math textbooks by Papula are considered the holy grail of maths for engineering students. Everything from high school maths to differentials equations, Laplace and beyond. you only need the first 2 volumes to have basic highschool and university level maths covered from beginning to end (maybe the thrid, if those topics are also tought). total cost: 60€ new for the total durtation of your studies. these books are very cheap used as well, as little as 10 to 15€ per book.

https://www.amazon.de/Mathematik-f%C3%BCr-Ingenieure-Naturwissenschaftler-Band/dp/3658056193/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1483810565&sr=8-2&keywords=papula

The Physics of Solar Cells

Briefly, increasing area of a device will generally increase the total current since the current density is fixed (in most cases). However, increasing the area can reduce the effect of side surface recombination which should increase the open circuit voltage slightly. But for a given device that's relatively large, increasing the area will increase I_sc linearly (as J_sc stays fixed). V_oc would be mostly unaffected.

If you're interested in learning about how to think at this level of abstraction, start with a good circuit theory book. Here's one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0078028221/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523270003&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=fundamental+electrical+circuit&dpPl=1&dpID=41LS10cqVML&ref=plSrch

Your suggestion looks fantastic! Not so focused on one topic, and general, yet not introductory. Looks like it builds on the AC/DC circuit analysis to look at more advanced electronics. For reference this is my "intro" book I'll be using. AoE looks like it shares some overlap but also some topics built up from those topics.

Ok, I'm at least on the right track with this book. It's just a newer addition than the one you linked. I'm almost hesitant to go with the NCEES stuff, but may look into your second linked one if I can find a better price.

https://www.amazon.com/FE-Electrical-Computer-Review-Manual/dp/1591264499/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486391547&sr=1-1&keywords=FE+Electrical+and+Computer+Review+Manual+%28FEEERM%29

https://www.amazon.com/FE-Electrical-Computer-Review-Manual/dp/1591264499/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=electrical+EIT+prep+book&qid=1563027519&s=gateway&sr=8-3

It isn't cheap but it prepared me really well. It gives you a pretest then an explanation of each concept and practice problems. I'd also look to make sure it's the latest edition since I took mine last year, but that's the one.

I took it back in February and passed it. I used this one:

https://www.amazon.com/FE-Electrical-Computer-Review-Manual/dp/1591264499/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481314830&sr=8-1&keywords=fe+electrical

and it was ok, it will put you in the right direction. The NCEES practice test is probably the closest thing to the test you will find though. No clue if this will work for you but instead of taking it while you are in school you might wait and to take it once you are employed. My employer paid the exam fees and state licencing fees. Saved me about $300.

http://www.amazon.com/Right-First-Time-Practical-Handbook/dp/0974193607/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1317652859&sr=8-6

This is an excellent book that a company I used to work for owned.

Yeah, at least sort of. The devices used for plasma processing are very similar to EP thrusters. The difference will come from the need to take into account plasma chemistry. EP thrusters typically utilize Xenon, which is a non-reactive noble gas, and as such, surface physics is typically limited to computing charge flux and sputter yields. You may want to take a look at one of these books for more details: Lieberman and Fridman

Here are 2 recommended from this forum. I haven't got to reading them yet but they were well reviewed.

https://www.amazon.com/Control-System-Design-Guide-Fourth/dp/0123859204/?pldnSite=1

https://www.amazon.com/Programmable-Logic-Controllers-Emphasis-Application/dp/097662592X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1465689582&sr=8-3&keywords=PLCs+an+emphasis

This is a "must have". It's not a textbook, but rather a manual put together by a large design company in Germany. Since it doesn't come from a textbook publisher the book is very cheap compared to most books (I think you can find cheap new copies on eBay):

• Trilogy of Magnetics - Würth Elektronik
  
  These are two books that I keep in my bookshelf at work:
  
  
• Digital Design and Computer Architecture - Harris
  
  
• Signal and Power Integrity - Bogatin
  
  Plus these:
  
  
• Designing Analog Chips - Hans Camenzind
  
  
• Microelectronic Circuits - Sedra & Smith
  
  [Edit] Added a book to the list

If you can get your hands on a copy of 'Fundamentals of Power Electronics' read chapter 12. The chapters on magnetics design are extremely helpful if/when you start winding your own transformers and inductors.

Hands-down, my favorite circuit theory text is "Fundamentals of Electric Circuits" by Alexander and Sadiku (https://www.amazon.ca/Fundamentals-Electric-Circuits-Charles-Alexander/dp/0078028221). It's one of the only books I reference from time to time as a working professional.

Thanks, that book looks like a very informative read! Although the price tag on it is a bit insane. I did stumble across the book on a cheaper website listed at $16,- and marked as shipping from India called "Abebooks".. hmm.

Noise Reduction Techniques in Electronic Systems, 2nd Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471850683/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_GhV1Cb4EFNT1Z

This is a good book. The book deals with understanding and mitigating unintended RF emissions (or noise) generates due to operating electronic systems. In short, currents and voltages in the board caused due to field propagation, if not handled correctly, ends up radiating out.

Fundamental of Photonics provides a good overview of photonics and optics.

Silicon Photonics Design: From Devices to Systems might be more in your alley if you're going for chip-based applications.

A readable reference I've found useful in debugging EMI/RFI issues is:

https://www.amazon.com/Noise-Reduction-Techniques-Electronic-Systems/dp/0471850683/

It answers a lot of questions regarding different ways (trade-offs) to diagnose & address EMI/RFI issues.

I was thinking about using Designing Analog Chips by Hans Camenzind along with The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz as a guide for projects to do. I also recognize its important to know to design digital electronics (even though it may not necessarily be my strength) and know how to do research if I do end up doing the PhD so I was also looking into these books: link 1, link 2, and link 3. Are there any other books I should look into?

You mentioned Arduino, so I'd recommend this book and Make:Electronics

For the more academic side of things I'd recommend, The Art of Electronics Student Manual

Allen-Bradley PLCs: An Emphasis on Design and Application

If you're working with allen bradley PLCs, this is an incredible book. There is a thicker version that encompasses more brands of PLCs. I have both and they are incredible books that take you from zero to advanced quite fast. It's very detailed and encompasses most instructions. They touch on networking but if you are looking for an incredibly detailed book on it, I am actually looking for the same

I'm a chemist doing some work on x-ray spectroscopy, and I was recommended this book by my teacher who is a physicist.

I just passed (no idea by how slim of a margin). I used this book; didn't really read the finer points but worked most of the problems, especially the easier ones.

The Bible.

The slides.

Fundamentals of Electric Circuits https://www.amazon.com/dp/0078028221/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_8CcgAbXJ1MZGB

That's the one we use for my class and its helped me a ton

I don't use a lot of reference material (outside of data sheets), but I do have the textbook from when I took circuits 1.

https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Electric-Circuits-Charles-Alexander/dp/0078028221/ref=zg_bs_13698_11?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=N0HAN2GYR7V8RH48QT43

​

This is the newest version, I didnt use this version, I used the 4th edition, but It did a REASONABLE (not great) explanation of circuits, KVL, KCL, etc.

The Art of Electronics

The Art of Electronics Student Manual

The Arcade Manual Archive

PINBALL MACHINE MANUALS

Re-read my post above... it’s been edited.

NCEES reference handbook:

https://account.ncees.org/exam-prep/359

Lindeburg Review Manual (Electrical and Computer):

FE Electrical and Computer Review Manual https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591264499/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_EVM1CbK7GT24S

Sorry to hear your struggles to pass. I believe a part of your problem is the fear of not knowing how to approach the problem. For me, I just studied the FE Computer and Electrical Review Manual by Lindeburg. Read the review for sections that intimidated you and look up terms you don't understand and for concepts I didn't understand I did a deep dive on youtube for further intuition.

​

Hope this helps!