Hey! I can relate exactly to where your'e coming from. I, some years ago, decided I wanted to get into building synths. I ended up getting a job at a pedal company and have spent more time learning to build and repair pedals than synths. I don't work there anymore, but it gave me a lot of perspective into the field as we also made euro-rack modules.

First up: I don't want to scare you off from this, but just want to give you a realistic perspective so that you go into this knowing what you are getting into. Making synths is hard and it's expensive. As far as electronic projects go, making a synthesizer is up there on the list. I've repaired powerplant turbine controller circuitboards that were simpler than some of the synths I've owned. This isn't to say, "don't do it!" but, expect to learn a lot of fundamental and intermediate stuff before you ever have something like a fully-featured synth that you built in your hands.

It's also expensive. A cheap synth prototype is going to cost a couple hundred bucks, easy, while a more fully-featured prototype could cost into the thousands to produce, and that's just to build one working prototype. If you want to make a run of products you're going to need money up front, and not a small amount. So, just be prepared for that inevitability.

One final note is that my perspective is broad (digital and analog) but is rooted in analog electronics because that's where I started. This isn't the only path you can take to get to where you want to go but honestly in my opinion, even if you're going to go mostly digital later, you need to understand analog.

If you have never messed with electronics much before I highly recommend the Make: Electronics book. I'm a hands-on person and this was the most effective book I found that let me study electronics fundamentals the way I wanted to; by making stuff! No matter which direction you go on (digital, analog, hybrid, DSP, SID, etc) you're going to want to know how to pick the right resistor, or how to pop an LED into a circuit, and this book will teach you that.

Solid follow-up books from there are Make: More Electronics, Practical Electronics for Inventors, How To Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic, and The Art of Electronics. All of these books are good books that touch on different concepts you will find useful, so I encourage you to look through them and decide for yourself which of these interests you.

Around this same time, I'd encourage you to start getting into kits. Honestly, before you build anything synth, I'm going to recommend you build some pedals. Effects pedals are fun and rewarding to build without being too hard. Start with a distortion circuit and work your way up from there. Once you can build a delay pedal without freaking out, move on to euro-rack kits, or other synth kits. While you're building these kits, don't just build them, play with the circuits! Try swapping components where you think you can, or adding features. One of my first kits was a distortion pedal with a single knob, but by the time I was done tweaking on it it had five knobs and two toggle switches!

Once you're feeling somewhat comfortable with electronics, then you can dive into the holy grail of analog synth design: Make: Analog Synthesizers this amazing book was written by the brilliant Ray Wilson who recently passed away. His life's goal was to bring the art of building analog synths into the hands of anyone who wanted to learn, and there is no better place to receive his great wisdom than this book. You should also check out his website Music From Outer Space along the way, but the book covers so much more than his website.

If you make through most or all of those resources you are going to be well-equipped to take on a career in synth-building! I'm personally still on that last step (trying to find the time to tackle Make: Analog Synthesizers) but hope within the next year or two to get that under my belt and start diving in deep myself. It's been a fun journey of learning and discovery and I wouldn't trade the skills I've gained in electronics for much.

Hope this helps, good luck!

> code things into real life seems like a blast

It is! :-) And it's so easy compared to starting with a bare microcontroller.

> 0 experience whe nit comes to working with hardware

Kits usually explain a bit about resistors and such, but I'd strongly recommend to also pick up a beginner electronics book. These are simple and fun to read! :-)

• Getting started in electronics
  
  
• Notebook doodle style, super simple. Not only for kids despite the electron smileys showing you how electricity works. Electronics in an intuitive fashion, from winding a coil around a nail to build an electro magnet to simple circuits (and beyond).
  
  
• Practical electronics for inventors
  
  
• Still an easy read, but more background info :-)
  
   
  
  > sensors and motors and stuff
  
  > laserpointer
  
  Laser modules cost $0.15 or so at Aliexpress, Servos $1... Everything is so inexpensive it's great to build all sorts of crazy machines ;-)
  
  
   
  
  > What arduino
  
  Most guides and books will probably talk about the UNO. You can get a compatible board for around $3, but a Nano also works in the same fashion and sits nicely on a breadboard.
  
  For the UNO, you have all sorts of modules/shields, but there's nothing you can't hook up to one of the smaller boards.
  
  Also order an ESP8266 based board, like the $3 Nodemcu or D1 Mini. The ESP8266 has wifi built in and can run stand-alone, as it's a microcontroller with more memory as the UNO/Nano :-) But it's 3.3v, has only one analog input, and it's a bit more work when starting out.
  
   
  
  > What
  
  You could get a kit if you would like all sorts of sensors and modules.
  
  The Chinese starter kits are super cheap ($22 with UNO compatible, $26 with MEGA). As Aliexpress links often trigger the spam filter, search for 1207150873 or 32543887265.
  
  The differences are subtle, some kits lack the ultrasonic sensor (<=$1), etc.
  
  What's also a LOT of fun is a 2wd robot car kit, you can get them for $15 or so. Two geared motors, dual H-Bridge, put an Arduino + Ultrasonic sensor on it, and with ten lines of code, it will be an obstacle avoiding car or line follower ;-)
  
   
  
  These kits usually don't have great instructions. If that's what you want, get the official Arduino starter kit, or something from Sparkfun, Adafruit etc.
  
  The Arduino site, instructables, and all kind of blogs have examples for almost every module/sensor/device you can find :-) Find a good guide, such as t
  h
  [e](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYutciIGBqC34bfijBdYch49oyU-B_ttH
  )
  s
  e, and see if that would work for you.
  
   
  
  The only down-side when going with the compatible Arduino boards: You will have to install a different driver manually (oh noes).
  
   
  
  If you don't have one already: A soldering iron.
  
  I know, when starting, soldering sucks. You want to do everything on a breadboard, reservable. But I found out way too late how great and time saving soldering is once you use a decent soldering iron ;-) Most will recommend something like FX888D or better, but a $15-$20 adjustable soldering station can work as well for the occasional soldering job. And there's a soldering comic :-)
  
   
  
  A multimeter is a must-have as well. $3 ones work for simple resistance and voltage readings. For high voltage / high current tasks, they might burst into flames and double as fire-starter, ideal in the cold winter time.
  
  Part testers for $15 can be neat, they identify parts (is this a NPN or PNP transistor... or something else?).
  
  Cheap regulated $20 power supplies can be nice as well.
  
   
  
  Edit: Bunch of capacitors, resistors, transistors (Bags of 100-500 for $1-$2 via ebay), and whatever sensors you need ;-)
  
   
  
  
  Sorry for the long post :-) It's always difficult to tell how much experience and equipment someone already has.

Okay, you're definitely at the beginning. I'll clarify a few things and then recommend some resources.

1. Places to buy components: Depending on where you live in the world, the large component suppliers are almost always the way to go, with smaller suppliers like Adafruit/Sparkfun if you need development boards or specialised things. I buy almost exclusively from Digikey -- they have $8 flat shipping to Canada, which typically arrives the next day, with no customs fees. They have some sort of agreement in place where they cover these costs. This *always* saves money over going to my local stores where the prices are inflated. It's crazy how cheap some things are. If I need a few 2.2K 1206 resistors for a project, I just buy a reel of 1000 because they are so cheap.
   
2. "Steer a joystick with an app" Do you mean connect motors to it and have them move the joystick for you? You're going to want some sort of microcontroller platform, along with a motor controller and way to communicate with a smartphone app. You mention you know C++ so it will be easy to switch to C. This is both true and false. Programming for microcontrollers is not the same as programming for computers. You are much closer to the hardware, typically manipulating many registers directly instead of abstracting it away. Each microcontroller vendor has their own tools and compilers, although *some* do support GCC or alternatives. You mentioned PIC, which is a line of microcontrollers by a large company called Microchip. There are 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit PICs, all at different price points and with hugely differing capabilities. Selecting the microcontroller for a project can be half the battle sometimes. Or, like me, you can just go with whatever you have on hand (which is usually MSP430s or PIC32MX's)
   
3. A lot of people will recommend the book The Art of Electronics. It's decent, but it's not for everyone. Some really like the conversational style, others don't. Many people who want to get into microcontroller programming and embedded development want to skip over the fundamentals and just get something working. For those, I point them to Arduino and let them on their merry way. However, if you actually want to learn something, I highly recommend buying an actual microcontroller development board, learning the fundamentals about electrical circuits, and programming in actual C with actual IDEs.
   
4. As far as resources go, again it depends on your actual goal. Whenever I want to learn a new tool (like a PCB layout software, or a new IDE) I always start with a simple project. Having an end point to reach will keep you motivated when things seem complicated. Your controlling a joystick with motors is a great starting point. I would buy a development board, Microchip PICs are popular, as are ST32s, and MSP430. It doesn't really matter that much in the long run. Just don't tie yourself too hard to one brand. Then pick up some stepper motors, and a stepper motor control board (grab one from Sparkfun/Adafruit, etc). Get yourself a breadboard, and some breadboard jumpers, a cheap power supply (there are tons available now for cheap that are pretty decent), and then jump in head first!
   
5. I highly recommend the book Making Embedded Systems by Elecia White, once you've covered the basics. It's a great way to learn more about how professionals actually design things. For the basics, you can watch *EARLY* EEVBlog videos (anything past around video 600/650 he gets progressively more annoying and set in his ways, another topic entirely, but the early stuff is decent). I'd also recommend picking up your choice of books about the fundamentals -- Electronics for Dummies, the aforementioned Art of Electronics, Making Embedded Systems, The Art of Designing Embedded Systems, and even stuff like Design Patterns for Embedded Systems in C. Again, it all depends on what your goal is. If you want to do embedded design, then you'll need to focus on that. If you're more into analog circuits, then maybe check out The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design. Either way, grounding yourself in the fundamentals will help a LOT later on. It will make reading schematics way easier.
   
   I feel like I've gone off on a few tangents, but just ask for clarification if you want. I'd be happy to point you towards other resources.

I did learn all of this stuff from experience. Honestly, I had a little bit of a tough time right out of college because I didn't have much practical circuit design experience. I now feel like I have a very good foundation for that and it came through experience, learning from my peers, and lots of research. I have no affiliation with Henry Ott, but I treat his book like a bible . I refer to it just about every time I do a board design. Why? because it's packed with this type of practical information. Here's his book. I bought mine used as cheap as I could. At my previous job, they just had one in the library. Either way, it was good to have around.

So why should you care about electromagnetic compatibility (EMC)? A couple reasons:

1. EMC compliance is often regulated by industry and because a product requirement. The types of tests that your product has to pass is dependent on the industry typically, but in general there are tests where bad things are injected into your board and tests where they measure how noisy your board. You have to pass both.
   
2. EMC compliance, in my opinion, is very well correlated with the reliability and quality of a product. If a product is destroyed "randomly" or stops working when the microwave is on, you're not likely to have a good opinion of that product. Following guidelines like the one I did above is the path to avoiding problems like that.
   
3. EMC design is usually not taught in schools and yet it is the most important part of the design (besides making it perform the required product function in the first place). It also is very hard to understand because many of the techniques for improving your design do not necessarily show up on your schematics. Often, it's about how well your layout your board, how the mechanical design for the enclosure of your board is considered, etc.
   
   Anyways, it's definitely worth looking at and is a huge asset if you can follow those guidelines. Be prepared to enter the workforce and see rampant disregard for EMC best practices as well as rampant EMC problems in existing products. This is common because, as I said, it's not taught and engineers often don't know what tools to use to fix it. It often leads to expensive solutions where a few extra caps and a better layout would have sufficed.
   
   A couple more books I personally like and use:
   
   Howard Johnson, High Speed Digital Design (it's from 1993, but still works well)
   
   Horowitz and Hill, The Art of Electronics (good for understanding just about anything, good for finding tricks and ideas to help you for problems you haven't solved before but someone probably has)
   
   Last thing since I'm sitting here typing anyways:
   
   When I first got out of college, I really didn't trust myself even when I had done extensive research on a particular part of design. I was surrounded by engineers who also didn't have the experience or knowledge to say whether I was on the right path or not. It's important to use whatever resources you have to gain experience, even if those resources are books alone. It's unlikely that you will be lucky and get a job working with the world's best EE who will teach you everything you need to know. When I moved on from my first job after college, I found out that I was on the right path on many things thanks to my research and hard work. This was in opposition to my thinking before then as my colleagues at my first job were never confident in our own ability to "do EE the right way" - as in, the way that engineers at storied, big companies like Texas Instruments and Google had done. Hope that anecdotal story pushes you to keep going and learning more!

A couple of recommendations:

First, there are the classic Forrest Mims books they are the quintessential beginner level books. Radio Shack used to sell them. They are very introductory and tend to be rather brief for easy consumption. I'm not a huge fan of the style personally but others LOVE them a lot. Many many many hobbyists and engineers got their start with these books.

Another option I like a lot is Practical Electronics for Inventors, 3rd Ed. by Paul Scherz and Simon Monk. This book is a great beginners book that will take you nicely into circuit theory and things like that. Not as advanced as an academic tome but advanced enough for you to learn a good amount and establish a solid foundation.

Lastly, there is the very advanced Art of Electronics 3rd Ed. by Horowitz and Hill. This is the classic introductory text for engineers and hobbyists alike. It is very math heavy but you will have a very very good understanding of what's going on.

One non-book recommendation is the AllAboutCircuits online textbook tutorial. It is pretty well enumerated and detailed, though it is a bit lacking in sample problems. A great free resource that you can start learning now.

Beyond this, once you get a solid foundation. You can start focusing in specific areas like digital, power, precision measurements, etc.

I remember doing 2 years of almost solid maths, thermodynamics and fluid dynamics, solids, materials etc. It was so uninspiring that I started teaching myself programming (C++) and playing around with 3d graphics (ah, good old days when Quake was the shit!)
I got good grades, but I was not a model student. So, although my 3rd and 4th year focused on 'mechatronic' subjects, I graduated not really knowing what a transistor was or how to solder anything. I was a decent programmer though.

Luckily, I got a job with a really patient, knowledgeable guy who helped me fill in the gaps. I coded stuff, but he explained how the hardware worked, I sometimes understood (or pretended, and when I couldn't figure it out later we went over it again).

I highly recommend this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336

So here's what worked for me: (eventually :) )

• Get a practical grasp of basic electronics. Thevenin and Kirchoff and all that are important, but ...
  
• No matter how good the book/teacher, the best way to learn something is to actually DO IT.
  
• Learn C or C++
  
  So, as far as practical stuff goes:
  
  Start basic.
  
  
• Get a LED. Turn it on or off with a switch. Make it brighter. Make it dimmer.
  
• Use a transistor/FET in the switching circuit.
  
• Use a GPIO / micro controller to turn it off and on.
  
• Make it turn on for 1 second, off for 1 second. Repeatedly.
  Bonus
  
• Make the duty cycle dependent on a trimpot / variable resistor
  
  Get More Practical:
  
  
• Get an old printer.
  
• Take the stepper motor out of it. (Don't throw anything else away yet)
  
• Make a circuit to drive the motor from GPIO/ microcontroller
  
• Figure out how to make the motor turn. Both ways.
  
  
  
• Make an assembly where the motor drives a "crane arm". You can make it a rotating crane or a linear crane arm (eg, like how the printer heads move). You may need a gearbox.
  
  
• Hang a small weight (load) on the crane.
  
  
• Figure out how to make the crane move from/to a certain position. With minimal load movement.
  Bonus:
  
• Figure out how to move the crane from/to ANY position with minimal load movement.
  
  Old computer power supplies are great if you are on a budget.
  

• I work in the semiconductor industry doing applications engineering for precision op-amps and voltage references. At its most basic level, the goal of apps engineering is to work with customers to design parts into their systems and solve technical issues that come up. The reality is that we're used for anything our superiors deem worthy of our time, but that's a story for another reddit thread.
  
• Not much specialized software -- maybe OrCad for a SPICE simulation from time to time. Standard office apps for editing datasheets and app notes. Lots of email. MS Outlook is quite possibly the worst email client ever created. Skype for talking with colleagues overseas. Firefox for cruising reddit.
  
• I work for Analog Devices in San Jose.
  
• Answers to your questions:
  
  Let's start with the basics. When you first start working with op-amps, they give you a couple of golden rules: 1.) Gain-bandwidth product is infinite, and 2.) when there's a feedback loop, the voltage at the inverting and non-inverting terminal are equal. What they don't often tell you is that there is no such thing in real life.
  
  Non-ideal traits for an op-amp include things like offset voltage, bias current, offset temperature drift, and limited gain-bandwidth product. You can think of offset voltage as an extra little DC voltage source sitting on the non-inverting input, and bias current as a little current source sitting between the two input terminals. Maybe these are the non-idealities you had in mind. These shouldn't throw you off too badly, though -- if you can solve an op-amp circuit normally, the easiest thing to do is use superposition to solve for each input separately, then combine them to get the response for the whole thing. I'm sure you can google for how to do this.
  
  Nearly all op-amps are designed to have a huge open-loop gain over a small frequency band, but they are way unstable and hardly usable as such. That's why we use feedback loops. What a feedback loop essentially does is sacrifice the high open-loop gain for a lower, more stable closed-loop gain over a larger frequency band. That's where the gain-bandwidth product comes into play -- if you have an op-amp with 80 dB of open-loop gain over 100 kHz and a cutoff slope of -20 dB/decade, you can sacrifice 40 dB of gain and use it to amplify signals over 10 MHz instead.
  
  My best advice is to ditch the book and use google to your advantage. I found this note that will probably help you with what you're trying to do.
  
  Also, try searching for app notes on op-amps on semiconductor manufacturers' websites. National Semiconductor, TI, Linear Technology (and yes, even Analog Devices), have tons of app notes that can explain nonlinearities. Another good resource is this book.
  
  Enjoy.

On the pure electronics side, I have gone through a lot of allaboutcircuits.com, but not all of it. I bought a "wee blinky" a while back as a simple soldering exercise before I was comfortable enough with soldering to trust myself on more expensive components, and when I realized that I had no idea how it worked I did some research. I quickly found this link http://www.falstad.com/circuit/e-multivib-a.html and the site has some fantastic applets of other circuits that I found very useful in quickly understanding how they work. It is much more useful to me than a simple circuit diagram at this point. I also picked up a used copy of this book http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071452818/ref=oh_o03_s02_i00_details on the cheap, which is generally reviewed well other than it containing a lot of mathematical errors. I am comfortable enough with the math to work through it myself if I need to be sure of something, so that was not a concern for me. At some point I might pick up the "The art of electronics", but costs more than I want to spend right now.

On the projects side I have the Arduino Cookbook, which has been handy for helping me pick out projects to bite off from the comfort of my couch. It also has given me a good sense for what can be done in general and how much effort is involved. Obviously I keep an eye to the discussions here, and I also have spent time looking over the Arduino pages. "Interfacing With Hardware" (http://arduino.cc/playground/Main/InterfacingWithHardware) has some really good stuff linked from it. I look at the stuff John Boxall is doing at tronixstuff. I keep an eye on the make blog, and stuff on ladyada.net. I also look at any interesting Instructables I come across. I suppose I regularly scan most of the popular online channels for this stuff.

Other than that, I have just been biting off projects with no particular end goal in mind. I pick a component I want to get some experience with, get one, and do something with it. Then I pick something else and repeat. I have an assortment of parts on order from taydaelectronics that should arrive mid to late this month. When they get here I will experiment with them for a few weeks, and then order some more different things. Right now I am very much in exploration mode.

Edited for typos, and completeness.

I can recommend you a few things, speaking as a CS/EE double major :)

• Hands on skills are quite important. Learn how to solder, use a DMM, strip wires, etc. There's a lot of tutorials on Youtube and such that show you how to solder well,etc. Watch them and practice.
  
  
• If you're still in school, you may want to consider taking a intro EE course as an elective or similar. If you're not in school but have the time and money, you may want to consider taking a few classes at a nearby college (ie. community college). Alternatively, get a few books/online tutorials and such and self study. I believe MIT OCW has a quite a few EE courses available.
  
  
• Books wise, i recommend the following: Beginning Arduino, Practical Electronics for Inventors, Arduino Cookbook (excellent refference book). Website wise, I recommend t ro n i x s t u f f.
  
  
• Start with the basics. This includes both theory (understanding and applying Ohm's Law) and practice (building actual circuits). Play with the Arduino and LEDs, motors, servo, ultrasonic sensors, etc. Follow tutorials for these BUT know WHY certain things are done in a given way and the reason those things are done. For example, understand why you need a resistor(s) when using LEDs.
  
  
• Once you have the basics down (ie. how to hook up and drive a motor), start a small project. I personally recommend something like an obstacle avoiding or line following robot as it's quite cheap, lots of online help available, easy to understand, etc. Read my post here for more details.
  
  
• Equipment wise, you'll need a few things. Take a look here: http://redd.it/1hoc03 You don't need everything on that list, but get the basics like resistors, capacitors, wires, general purpose PNP/NPN MOSFETs, etc. Then get a few sensors (ie. ultrasonic sensors, photo detectors, temperature sensor, etc) and a few other useful things like shift registers, LCD, piezo buzzer, etc. Also, check out this from /r/electronics.

A lot of my professors put their video lectures on youtube now so those are a lot of great videos to watch, but I'm not sure on the rules of whether or not I'm supposed to share them so I can only link the ones that have public Youtube channels.

For Electronics (BJTs, MOSFETs, Feedback networks and things like that) you're gonna want to eiter download or buy a copy of this book (https://www.amazon.com/Microelectronic-Circuits-Electrical-Computer-Engineering/dp/0199339139). It's a pretty easy to follow text that is great for learning all the basics of micro electronics. Most universities use is so there are a lot of lectures using that text as reference.

For Digital systems (El E 235), and some useful Engineering matrix math and probability (Engr 310) on this channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf4G95tHQPnphwpfrkzelgA
and https://www.youtube.com/user/OleMissVLSI (EL E 385 for computer architecture and the like)

For basic circuits this channel is good.
https://www.youtube.com/user/RebelsLoveCircuits

Programming is best learned on codeacademy.com unless you want to learn C or something lower level, in which case i'm not too sure where to do that other than a course or reading a book online.

For your basic math and calculus you'll want
https://www.youtube.com/user/patrickJMT (the real mvp)
and Kahn Academy of course.

Then once you've gotten down the Laplace Transforms and understand the Laplace domain and Frequency domains, you can go onto my favourite topic in El E which is control theory. For that you're gonna want:
https://www.youtube.com/watchv=oBc_BHxw78s&list=PLUMWjy5jgHK1NC52DXXrriwihVrYZKqjk.

I'm not really sure what else there is, but If you can think of any specific topic I can try to find the best material I remember using.

While I understand the desire to make something and see the fruits of your labor, true understanding will come best through reading and research. I mean, you could start making circuits of someone else's design and then play around with the arrangement and values of components, but at best you are really just generating a case-by-case feel of how a particular circuit operates. Doing some calculations with many sets of hypothetical circuits (rather than building a bunch of circuits and playing around and taking measurements) will be a much more efficient way to really get understanding of how these things work.

I would recommend the discrete electronics bible, Horowitz And Hill's The Art of Electronics as well as Malik's Electronic Circuits. (Edit: actually, it's been a while since I've used these books and I can't remember what scope they really cover. I know Malik is a little more advanced and concentrates on state devices like diodes and transistors. Really, a basic engineering circuit analysis textbook might be best)

You should also check out this java applet. It is surprisingly powerful and gives a really good general idea of what electronic components do ('visually' and numerically)

This is a really good question and I'm not sure why exactly you were downvoted. I suspect the elephant in the room is that it's a question but it needs some in depth thinking rather than shitposted to the bottom in two minutes.

As for reading material, I'd go for paper every time myself.

Practical Electronics for Inventors 3e has a lot of nice analog material that's easy to get into and well explained: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071771336/

It doesn't hit digital at all until about 70% of the way into the book and is in very small chunks of information you can read and think about for a bit. It's huge and cheap for what it is.

You will come out of it with "yay I managed to design a common emitter RF amplifier and filter" rather than "yay I connected to an LED to an arduino and it's flashing!"

Well worth the investment IMHO as one comprehensive and well written text.

After a dive into analog, the best thing is experimenting. Nothing quite works exactly how the textbooks say it does.

It's a fun hobby. Biggest learning curve is learning how to code. I didnt know a thing when I first started but the arduino community (link below) is really helpful with the process. They will even go over code you've written if your having issues.

Arduino community forum:
https://forum.arduino.cc

Book for learning arduino program language:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1430247762/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_jqgLBbP544HBT

A good starter kit. Comes with alot of goodies like the program used to write the code and compile it, the arduino itself, super sonic sensor, DC motors to name a few as well as data sheets for each piece:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EWNUUUA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_krgLBbN85GPHF

Book recommended to me that helps with the more complex builds: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_UrgLBb7STEDSA

My first project I made/wrote was to make a couple LEDs blink in specific intervals. May not seem like much but like I said, biggest learning curve is learning to program the arduino itself.

Good luck

A Great book to get started:
http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Electricity-Electronics-5th/dp/0071741356/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377040953&sr=1-1
Great Forum:
http://www.diyaudio.com/
Great company for kits(although I usually just order my parts myself these days, but for getting started...)
http://www.gyraf.dk/:
Bunch of cool projects and neat parts here:
http://www.hairballaudio.com/
Another great site:
http://www.diyrecordingequipment.com/

You can learn a lot by building, lets say, and 1176 or something, but I'd recommend starting out with smaller things. When i started fabing my own stuff, I did mostly fairly simple guitar effects, 9v circuts and such. Also, I've learned to simpilify many of my controls and such using an Arduino, which is a cool little cheap gadget. My other piece of advise is this: you might WANT to jump in and start the audio stuff right away, but learn the fundmentals first. Good Luck!

Arduino is a great learning tool and to go from idea to finished project is quite fast. I definitely recommend starting with arduino and see if you like it. If you continue, you'll find that you have to purchase an arduino for each project you start, which can get quite expensive, or you'll be ripping apart old projects to get the arduino.


I purchased arduino and a few shields, but I felt like I really didn't know how everything was working electronically. I really enjoy programming, learning about electronics and making devices, so I decided to stop using arduino and just use the atmega microcontroller, which is the MCU that arduino is based on.


If you wanted to go this route then I would suggest buying an AVR ISP mkii programmer and downloading atmel studio. It's much easier to program the chips than any other method I've tried. Less fiddling. If you have experience in C programming then it will be really easy.


This is the best beginners tutorial I've found for atmel AVR:
https://www.newbiehack.com/


This book is an excellent follow up to that tutorial:
http://www.amazon.ca/Make-Programming-Learning-Software-Hardware/dp/1449355781/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398472387&sr=8-1&keywords=make+avr+programming


A good book on electronics - 1000 pages:
http://www.amazon.ca/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336

digikey.ca or .com has lots of parts and next day shipping for $8.


how to make an arduino on a bread board:
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Standalone


Breadboard, Schematic and PCB layout software
http://fritzing.org

Soon you'll be etching PCBs at home

Coax publications! Their books are decent, I wouldn't say the best, but decent. I'm 2/3rds the way through studying for my Advanced as well and I've found it very helpful. Nice thing with their books is access to a practice exam site that got me through my Basic Qualification exam.

Full disclosure I have a computer engineering degree and have a pretty strong background in electronics as well, so I'm able to fill in some gaps. I've found a couple of errors or gaps in the edition I'm studying from. So I'd possibly recommend some supplementary material. Good book for electronics if that's the area you're struggling with is The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill: https://www.amazon.ca/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542256671&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+electronics

Beyond that study and good luck! I'm hoping to take my test early 2019. Been distracted with getting my HF station up and running.

Learning electronics is a lot like music. There is an insane amount of information, but if you get an economic working knowledge under your belt, you can really do some amazing things. In order for you not to get lost in the rabbit hole, I will provide you these methods of learning practical hobby electronics.

First, is simply just a suggestion. There are two "domains" of electronic thinking and analysis: digital and analogue. Fuck analog right in its dumb face. The math used in analog is fucking super duper hard, and analog circuits are prone to interference problems. Digital is where you want to be. It's vastly simpler to use programmable digital parts, and analyze digital circuits. Don't get lost in AC equations of capacitor, or the god damned transistor equation (seriously, fuck that. )

Okay here is how I learned hobby digital electronics:
First buy this, and go through all the examples in the workbooks. When you learn electronics you 100% HAVE TO DO HANDS ON LEARNING! DONT LEARN IT FROM A BOOK! MAKE CIRCUITS!
https://www.amazon.com/Radio-Shack-Electronics-Learning-20-055/dp/B00GYYEL8I

At the same time, read this (which is a good topical explanation, and free):
http://jacquesricher.com/NEETS/

And buy and read this (which is an EXCELLENT formal introduction into the physics):
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336

Also you are going to learn how to program, which is an entirely different topic. Programming and hobby electronics make you a master of the universe, so it's worth it. I learned programming in the electronics domain and it was awesome. I made a microcontroller FM synthesizer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TvuzTK3Dzk

So basically, the way I learned programming in general was self-teaching with books. Again, you have to do it hands-on. Actually complete the examples in the books, and you'll be fine.
First, learn procedural c programming using C primer plus. Buy an older version so it'll be super cheap:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0672326965/ref=sr_1_3_twi_pap_1_olp?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465827790&sr=1-3&keywords=c+primer+plus

Next, learn Object oriented programming using head first java. They do a great job of tackling OOP, which can be a difficult thing to learn.
https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Java-Kathy-Sierra/dp/0596009208/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465827860&sr=1-1&keywords=head+first+java


You're overwhelmed because they're deep topics. But, seriously, its the most fun shit ever. You'll love learning how to do it.

Wow, thanks fro the great answers /u/crb3 ! Really interesting stuff.

Number 3 I'm going to read through really slowly again to try to makes sure I get it all. Reverse protection diode makes sense. I think I can leave it out since I am using only 9v DC from the wall wart so it'd be hard to get it backwards like a battery. It seems like increasing the value of C3 would allow a larger reservoir of power and less sag?

One question, why does it matter it it is a 0.1 uF MLC cap vs some other type of capacitor, i.e., What desirable properties are exclusive to MLC?

This is exactly what I has hoping for. I'm slowly working through this book now to get a better understanding of this stuff, but practical explanations like the ones you provided are really interesting and provide an awesome supplement to what I have learned so far from the text book!

Next step is the breadboard to try some of this stuff out!

As a student, I can recommend "Practical Electronics For Inventors, Fourth Edition" by Paul Scherz, accompanied by the occasional youtube video and reddit question :)
You can buy it from Amazon here

I havent read any others, so I cant compare the quality, but you can go through it like a book and be able to understand everything. You may run into some problems in the real world that requires some fairly advanced calculus, which the book doesn't cover. (It does cover where to apply it, just not how). It is really extensive (1256 pages on my desktop e-reader), so if you have an idea for something specific you want to build, there might be something more efficient out there :)

I would think that not a lot of electronics books, if any, explain the math in full, so I would suggest that you find an online source for whatever specific piece of math you've run into. I can recommend Kahn academy.

Good luck :)

Hey there! Welcome to the hobby!
For reading, I recommend Practical Electronics for the Inventor. If you're brand new and want something a bit less dense, the Make series is a good place to start.
The box you've got looks a lot like a component kit a friend of mine gave me. He tried the electronics program at ITT before they went under and this is what they gave him. It's got some nice stuff in it and it's great for a beginner.
Now, you want to know what's in there? Google is your best friend. Everything has an identifying code on the side. Punch that into the search bar and 90 percent of the time you'll find everything you need to know about it. It's tedious, but it's the way of things.
Good luck and have fun!

Practical Electronics For Inventors was the one and only reason why I got an A in my Digital Electronics, Circuits I, Circuits II, Electronics I, Electronics II, Elab II, and Elab III classes. It is completely unheard-of at my school for people to get an A in all those classes, but this one book summarizes every topic in a wonderfully practical way. This one book enabled me to get a grasp of all the major basic electronics topics in a unifying, intuitive way.

AllaboutCircuits.com is also very good, and the forums are great, but if you want to genuinely learn in a concise, concrete manner, get this book.

It also teaches you about exactly how all the major types of transistors work in a way that Freshman/Sophomore-level engineers can understand. Honestly, this book will be the best $25 book you'eve ever bought from Amazon if you take Electrical Engineering seriously.

Glad to see you're approaching this from the correct angle. We get this sort of question here all the time, but it's usually "how do i electronics" and they get upset when they find out math is involved.

Definitely follow the math up through precalc, calculus, and differential equations. Learn Laplace transforms if you have time. You'll also want to explore physics pretty far, much of it will apply when you least expect it. Electronics is a mix of applied physics and chemistry. Finally you'll want to learn some thermodynamics. Understanding heat transfer and energy will be pretty useful. For all of these, I would just hunt down some college textbooks and some related Schaum's outlines.

While you're doing that, make sure to dabble in electronics to keep you focused. Build up some assembly, soldering, and possibly circuit layout skill. Definitely find this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957

Well, electronics is a huge field, and especially if you're going to get into software radio, basic fundamentals of amplifiers and modulation techniques is a must. Don't get discouraged though, internet is abound in information.

Here are some books that may help to start:

The Art of Electronics

Especially if you can get the used Cambridge Low Price Edition. Either way, it's a good book for fundamentals, a classic too.

This book is ok:

Communications Receivers

For general electronics knowledge, some undergrad EE textbooks are solid gold.

Here's one that's great:

Circuits, Devices and Systems

Edit:

Another excellent resource for folks dabbling in electronics are these free simulators:

Paul Falstad's Circuit Simulator

Hades

The above are great before one gets to dip into SPICE.

If cost is a concern for your prototype, there's OSH Park. They pool and panel orders and make the boards at a place in Illinois I believe. I haven't used them yet, but will be placing an order in a couple days. For layout help, you might ask on the EE stack exchange site or the Sparkfun forum. Before laying out your board, be sure to set the design rules in your software to those from whichever fab you select. Here's a comparison of boards ordered from OSH Park and two other inexpensive options.

The Art of Electronics has a section on board layout, and there are a bunch of application note PDFs out there from semi companies:

• Circuit Board Layout Techniques (from Op Amps for Everyone)
  
• PCB Design Guidelines
  For Reduced EMI
  
• Using Decoupling Capacitors
  
  These guides are specific to certain microcontrollers, but still have good info:
  
  
• System Design Guidelines for Stellaris Microcontrollers
  
• Getting started with STM32F10xxx hardware development
  
  As someone who recently transitioned a prototype from Arduino/breadboard to a custom board, I'd also suggest you take a look at ARM if you aren't tied to Atmel. The performance for STM32 and Stellaris chips is great considering the cost, and they are almost price competitive with PIC and Atmel chips. TI has a Stellaris launchpad board now, and ST has several cheap eval boards. There is a gcc toolchain for ARM, and the MikroE ARM compiler is a reasonably-priced commercial option (demo up to 8k program space).
  
  What software are you using for layout?

Modern Recording Techniques for actual audio. Professor was a wealth of information, so we used a lot of handouts, but he did give us a recommended reading list:

Assistant Engineer's Handbook

Mastering Audio

Master Handbook of Acoustics

personally, i found having a copy of Practical Electronics for Inventors laying around super useful, as it explains circuits and what different diagram symbols mean and how to build basic circuits - awesome if for some reason you need to troubleshoot a piece of gear or you're just curious about what's going on under the hood

I've used Fundamentals of Microelectronics by Behzad Razavi and I thought it did a great job. I've also followed up with his book on analog CMOS IC design in more advanced courses. I unfortunately don't have any recommendations for comms textbooks.

As far as software goes, there are a few basics you should learn: matlab, a scripting language (python, perl, or tcl depending on where you go and what you do), and enough C programming to get by, or a lot of C programming if you go into embedded systems. You will also want to develop a familiarity with linux, especially when it comes to using ssh and a shell in general (shell scripting is a plus). People will argue left and right about matlab vs. numpy+scipy but realistically it's not hard to learn both, and as a student you likely have access to matlab through your school, so the cost is a non-issue. Matlab remains a de facto standard, and python is gaining popularity.

A lot of this stuff just sort of comes up incidentally in coursework, but I really think the linux fluency is something that is overlooked by many. Knowing how to use version control (learn git, everything else has feature parity or is simpler), knowing how to edit from a command line (it barely matters if it's vim, nano, or emacs, you just need to know how to open a file and make some changes without spending time trying to scp files around or googling how to use the editors, if you're in a hurry), and knowing how to perform basic tasks like renaming files or folders, which I've seen other grad students struggle with, are all pretty important. I've considered putting together some key points on this, along with software to understand how to use to improve your effectiveness, which I'd be willing to do up in the next week or so if there's interest.

I started with circuit bending. I took a student-taught class as part of the Oberlin College ExCo, which is the Experimental College, where any student can teach a class for a single credit, provided they can demonstrate to a faculty panel that they have something to teach and a plan on how to teach it. That got me started on instrument building, and also on circuit design. I worked on that as a hobby for several years, until eventually I was friends with some people who were getting into Eurorack manufacturing: the 4MS crew, when they were still in Austin. Ralph and Dan encouraged me to move from bending (and breaking) toys into creating circuits, and gave me a few good starting tips (and copies of a few Forrest Mims books, which are absolutely invaluable). Another year or two after that, I was talking with Mickey, and he mentioned that he had the good problem that his modules were selling too fast, and he was bored of soldering, and wanted more time to design. I piped up quick. "I know how to solder! I'm very good at it." The second part was a lie. It's true now, though! Everything more advanced that I know about circuits I've learned from Mickey, the internet, and a bit more book learnin', especially from The Art of Electronics. I told the story of getting started on the pedal (which was my first commercial pedal) elsewhere in this thread.

The biggest hiccup was finding ROHS compliant vactrols! But we're cool on that now. Thanks, XVIVE!

OK, you seem like you are trying to learn, and are asking questions, that is a good thing, and even if someone cringes at your terms, that's OK, you have gotten some good links for the terms and how to use them. Don't be put off.

Now I am going to recommend you see if you can get The Art of Electronics 3rd ed and Learning The Art of Electronics, get the ones with the gold covers. They are expensive, but you will learn huge amounts by working through the Learning book. When I was teaching college labs, I would recommend students get these books (2nd ed at the time). You can find all this information online, and you can learn it that way, but these books are excellent and well worth the cost if you can pull it together.

Read read read and experiment!

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336 is one of my favorite books that explains in great detail the workings of components, without getting overly mathematical. (Math is critical in understanding the behavior, however.)

Then get a basic scope/dmm (or get access to a lab) and build circuits to exercise your knowledge. It won’t work on the first couple tries, but google is your friend, and thats when the learning really materializes — when you understand why something didn’t work, and when you understand how to fix it.

Youtube is a great reference too. Here are some channels I’m subscribed to. Good luck!
https://www.youtube.com/user/w2aew
https://www.youtube.com/user/engineerguyvideo
https://www.youtube.com/user/LearnEngineeringTeam
https://www.youtube.com/user/sutty6
https://www.youtube.com/user/msadaghd
https://www.youtube.com/user/EEVblog

Buy yourself of copy of the art of electronics. Pick one or two topics from that book every day and read about them. It covers pretty much every aspect of EE without going into an insane amount of detail. Use that to narrow your focus once you find something that really interests you. EE is a huge area of engineering and you’re not gonna like all aspects of it but the art of electronics is a great start.

The Art of Electronics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521809266/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_FeY5BbNKDNXSF

Edit: to add on to this. Adafruit has a ton of more entry level friendly tutorials and stuff. Find a component on their store and they’ll have tons of projects and tutorials using those components. They don’t get much in to how it all works. You’re going to have to read for that. Kahn academy is pretty good at explaining stuff too.

There's definitely something to be said about being self-employed. If you can pull it off, being your own boss is probably pretty liberating. I was actually having a conversation with my roommate last night about work and money, etc. He graduated college a few months back with a 4-year degree and now he's making $30k/year at a job he already hates after working there for a month. It does suck to feel like a pawn of the system - you work for pennies while other people profit immensely off of your productivity. So going freelance might ameliorate that problem for you.

In regards to printing PCBs, yeah, that's electrical engineering. There's a book my EE friend made me buy that you might find useful for that endeavor: Practical Electronics for Inventors. Though that link to American Amazon might not be the best based on your usage of the word "flat." I've been working my way through a different one - Essentials of Computing Systems, which I've found pretty cool. Starting with NAND gates (in a hardware simulator) it has you build up a fully functional computer, which you then write software for. Pretty cool stuff. For context I'm a 23 year old chemical engineering graduate who's 2 years into a 7 year MD/PhD program. So lots of tests left to take and reports to write for me at least.

maybe check out this book and see if you can do a little better with it. it still has math, but you can't really get around all of it: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-Scherz/dp/0071771336


you at least have to be able to do some ohms law and some basic calculations. A lot of other things have seemingly impenetrable calculus behind them but I've found a lot of the time you can just read a data sheet and they'll give you some simple formulas that you can just plug into that work well enough. You don't need to know how they came up with the formulas, just plug in your parameters and go.


You should go on youtube and watch some videos of people repairing amps. there's lots of good ones and you can pick up a lot of stuff through osmosis. also check out EEVblog.


lastly, instead of messing with your nice guitar amp, build a cheap one yourself and mess with it. there's tons of schematics online you can use and it's pretty fun to build one. I put this one together and I really like it: http://www.runoffgroove.com/ruby.html You can buy all the parts from digikey.com

Electronics is both easy and hard. The easy parts are following a schematic and plugging existing circuits together. This is usually much easier with digital electronics since all the electronics are doing are turning the current on and off or bringing the voltage high or low. The hardest part is making sure you connect all the wires correctly, and most devices are protected, and voltages are low, so crossing wires won't fry the device (though LEDs are easy to burn out). You can get very far with this "lego" mindset to circuit design. If you want to understand how current flows through an electrical network, and why resistors need specific values, how analog circuits work, and why digital signals need certain components like capacitors, then you'll need to invest more time in understanding electrical theory. This book is really good for that: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336

You have to "bootstrap" somewhere. At the VERY bottom is generally NOT a productive or practical way to do it. We used to have a joke in EE school: "If want a good laugh, ask a physicist to design a circuit for you". The reason it's funny is they'll start designing from quantum mechanics or Maxwell's equation as they usually don't ever learn all the tricks we have in EE to "short-circuit" the process.

Basically start with analog circuits (Ohm's law) for DC, advance to AC and then to circuits and systems. You can go deeper but at the start frankly most people will get wrapped around the axle and give up first.

Everything from Grand Unification up to your iPhone is built on approximate models with assumptions that are not strictly correct all of the time if ever. In electronics you have circuits bounded by Quantum Mechanics and Maxwell's Equations as "actual physics". You can't actually use these for 99% of anything practical so these are not the best starting points.

Instead you use approximate models like Lumped Equivalent Model (which is what resistors, capacitors and inductors are: that resistor in your hand - it's not real - just an approximation). But you don't really want to learn that up front.

However if you want a reference that goes into the physics of electronics I'd recommend The Physics of Information Technology. Not cheap so borrow it from a library first.

But ONLY use it when you get that itch to naively dig into the physics for a quick dip or overview or orientation. Otherwise use regular electrical engineering (EE) intro analog circuit textbooks or something like Horowitz' Art of Electronics

Unless you have a physics or engineering degree TPIT will still go straight over your head mostly (the author is an MIT professor and he relatively gentle by BSEE/BS Physics standards on the math but it's brutal if you haven't had several years of university math).

The Synopsys book club has a list of EE/CS books that are either the clear standouts in their topic area or at the very least a good presentation of the material.

Two less theoretical books you might also be interested in, depending on what you are looking for:

The Circuit Designer's Companion by Tim Williams is a good overview of the practical aspects of turning a schematic into a working circuit. Grounding, how to choose the right type of cap/resistor/inductor, EMC, etc.

Practical Electronics for Inventors by Paul Scherz is similar to the Art of Electronics but is written at a more introductory level. It includes a lot of the important small details that either aren't covered in EE coursework or tend to get muddled in the slog through theory and are therefore easy to forget.

Best way to get back into EE stuff is to build some projects! Hackaday and EEVBlog are your friends, as are Sparkfun, Futurlec, and Digikey.

I would highly recommend Art of Electronics. I've read dozens of books on this category and it is by far my favorite; useful both for initial instruction as well as later reference. Yes, it is expensive, but IMHO is well worth it.

The other book I'd recommend is "Practical Electronics for Inventors" by Scherz and Monk. Best breakdown of capacitor types and applications that I've seen. Link here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0071771336

It's best to learn by doing, but sometimes those kits don't cut it. Like others, I recommend toying with a breadboard, but I also think getting your hands on these books will also help. They're beginner's books, are easy to follow, and have some interesting circuits to play around with. Additionally, there is a tiny bit of theory in it. If you want to go hardcore into the theory without having to do much math, go for the electronics bible, Horowitz and Hill.

EE yes. If you can EE than you can program. Taking a few CS courses will teach you the finer points of programming. But if you want to play with hardware than EE is the way to go.

Between EE and CS, both types learn programming. Focus on EE if you are thrilled by hardware. Focus on CS if you love logic puzzles and high level abstractions. FYI EE pays more and you can always get a programming job with an EE. The reverse is not true.

(Although I have to say that most EE's I know are terrible programmers. But that doesn't seem to stop them.)

I think a book that would be perfect for you is
The Art of Electronics
. The first half is all basic electronics. Then it gets into logic circuits and finally simple computer circuits.

One nice thing about this book is that the chapters are very well organized. So if you don't want to learn everything there is to know about transistors, just read the first few pages of the transistor chapter and the move on.

https://learn.sparkfun.com

https://learn.adafruit.com

This is not Arduino specific though there is a chapter on it but it's a very good how to reference book: Practical Electronics for Inventors, Fourth Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/

It's sort of like getting a $20 textbook except with less theory and more about how to do various things, what parts to use, etc.

There's also a free textbook here that is pretty good:

• http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/direct-current/
  
• http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/digital/

assuming you have all the fundamental physic, you can start with the textbook from allaboutcircuits's textbook. A introduction to electronic book. It is about 2000 pages covering all basics of electronics. I think it is a great read and easy to understand, written for beginners.


After that you should read Make:AVR programming. It is quite enjoyable read and I read it in 2 sitting. A computer engineering book specifically targeting microcontroller. And as the name imply, it is about 8 bit AVR which is easily the most popular arduino variant. It covers a lot of detail on microcontroller basics and underlying electronic concept and working principles.

To supplement the above book, read a atmel datasheet on one of their microcontroller (atmega328 is a good choice).


For optional knowledge you can try Make's Encyclopedia Of Electronic Components It basically covers all electronic components and introduce you to it. I didn't like too much because you cant read it as a book but should use it as a reference to a particular component you are interested it. It is a great way to broaden your scope on what components is available to you.


Then for the advanced stuff you can read the The Art of Electronics By many it is consider the holy grail of electronic textbook. But I think it is difficult to read without an formal EE education.

This looks like a good book

http://www.amazon.com/MAKE-Electronics-Learning-Through-Discovery/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279769926&sr=8-3

This IS a good book but deals with advanced theories.


http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279769926&sr=8-16


And this looks pretty good.

http://www.amazon.com/Circuitbuilding-Yourself-Dummies-Ward-Silver/dp/0470173424/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279769941&sr=8-21


Go to the book store, pick up some books. Go the the library and see what they have. Pick up old radios and junk off of the street take them home and pull them apart but be careful of the capacitors, if you dont know what a capacitor is then read one of the above books.

Look on craigslist for free electronics and start taking them apart. Be careful of anything that uses Alternating current, anything that plugs into a wall deals with large voltages so be sure to start small.

Personally, I think the best place for a lay-person to start getting a technical grasp of electronics is from the "Navy Electricity and
Electronics Training Series" (NEETS) modules. The modules don't always describe the electrical behavior in a rigorous physics/engineering based way, but instead, they provide more practical explanations and applications. The best part is that they are freely available here.

As a next step, the standard go-to book is The Art of Electronics, which while it is a little pricey, covers a greater breadth of topics at a greater depth.

edit: typo.

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.

Yuuuuup, feeling the same way except i think i'd like to get more into the microcontroller/FPGA field of EE.

I ended up getting this book a while ago and it's actually been quite helpful in explaining things in a manageable and very equation-lite way. Definitely gonna need another source for more in-depth but for the basics it's quite good.
Something like this would also be good to have for reference.

I would say the Art of Electronics is great for people who don't have an exceptional math base. So in that sense yes it is good.

I've always found however that the Art of Electronics is not as great as a book to read from front to back. To me it is better as a reference text.

To know what else to recommend I would need to know what exactly your skill level is. The first book where I truly began to learn electronics in university was Sedra and Smith's Microelectronic Circuits. For the most part the math is not too difficult, however it is still university level so it helps to know at least basic calculus. I think you could probably get by without calculus however for at least the early chapters (first half or so) which comprises a first course in electronics.

Now that the 3rd edition has been published, used copies of the 2nd edition of The Art of Electronics is super cheap. I think this is the best intro circuits book for self study. Alternatively, I've really enjoyed Practical Electronics for Inventors too, and it covers more modern stuff (like it has a chapter on arduino). Both of these start with the basics, though Practical Electronics written for a more general audience so it is easier on the math.

For electromagnetics, I've heard Electricity and Magnetism is pretty good. It does cover some circuits stuff, but so much of circuits is about electronic components that you really need a dedicated circuits book to understand them.

My electric circuits professor sophomore year of college was completely and totally dedicated to teaching. She was one of the brightest people I know: Went to MIT as a graduate student, then worked for a small contracting company working for NASA on the first space shuttle, but then decided to come back and teach at my college. She wrote her own book for the class, and made damn sure you knew the material, as it was the base for the rest of electrical engineering. It is the only class I have had where the teacher deliberately made test answers round numbers to make sure you were doing it correctly.

An example of her dedication: her son has a debilitating disease, and he cannot speak or communicate with very many people. One day, he was having complications and had to go to the hospital, so she stayed awake all night by his side to make sure that he was alright, then came in at 9 AM to teach our class. She is an unbelievable person and I hope to one day be as hard working as her.

Luckily it's never been easier to start learning electronics. I know you want hands-on experience but you gotta learn some theory first - I'd recommend a book like Practical Electronics for Inventors to learn the basics (some people swear by The Art of Electronics but it is not a beginners book, rather more of a intermediate-advanced reference). Then something like the Arduino Starter Pack that will start you on the path to building circuits!

Along the way, watching electronics tutorials and teardowns on youtube, and taking apart stuff to see how it works would also really help.

I had the same approach as you when I first started learning electronics; I'd recommend Practical Electronics for Inventors. While it does explain just about every topic in great detail, it does so at a pace that's neither too slow nor too fast; you can easily skip the more technical chapters, and stick to the easy bits too.
However, if you want to do more than create simple signal clipping distortion pedals, I would suggest that you read the technical stuff as well, to learn what actually goes on in a circuit, and to understand how you might modulate your guitar's sound.

I think it is dependent on the field. For several areas in experimental astronomy you deal with extremely large datasets. Advanced statistical methods and 'machine learning' can be very valuable tools. Whereas for someone studying solid state experiment this would be a waste of time. Better time would be spent on learning the physical hardware and electronics and noise (I think, never done solid state myself). Although you would be surprised, I knew someone who was using neural networks for a project involving solid state and transitions.

As a whole, compared with theorists, you may want to develop a better understanding of statistics, computing/programming, electronics, hardware, and several fields I'm not thinking of. However which of those are most applicable depends on the work you are doing. Although a solid foundation in statistics is most likely useful for all scientists.

To add a text, The Art of Electronics is practically an experimental bible for many people.

The book is pretty good for a highly theoretical treatment of the subject. I had S&S for two semesters and it went fine. However for the practical aspects of circuit design, you need something like Practical Electronics for Inventors.

Also, a pretty good book on microelectronics is Fundamentals of Microelectronics by Behzad Razavi

> With all of that said, I feel as though I am seriously lacking in more complex electronic knowledge: solenoids/inductors, capacitors, relays

No offense, that's still the basic stuff. An EE degree would have covered all of that stuff in the 1st year.

You're still in the beginner stages if you are unable to analyze basic inductor, capacitor, and resistor circuits. You may have the math-chops for the differential-equations and get a jump-start into filter design (year 2)... but you're not yet ready to even tackle transistors or designing with op-amps yet (year 2 or 3ish).

Still, its good that you've got Op-Amp experience. That's real good, but without understanding capacitor circuits... it really makes me wonder. Ex: There are a lot of capacitors in a lot of Op-Amp use-cases. Integrator, differentiator, as well as very important filter designs.

> So what are some good resources I can use to supplement the knowledge that I already have without having to dig out small pieces of knowledge from beginners guides?

You're in an awkward position. You're an advanced beginner that is missing some fundamental knowledge due to the ad-hoc nature of studying a bit of this or that.

Fortunately, there's really no reason you couldn't just march forward in whatever interests you anyway. Go to your university's library, check out Sedra / Smith and just have at it. The basics are covered in Chapter 1 and the Appendix.

You'll of course run into issues due to your gap in knowledge, but whatever. Just pickup a beginner book and scan through the formulas you don't know as you come across those gaps. There's no reason you can't just jump into the interesting stuff when you're doing self-study.

------------

I highly suggest you start with:

• Sedra / Smith Appendix C: http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780199339136/student/app/app_c
  
  
• Sedra / Smith Appendix D: http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780199339136/student/app/app_d
  
  
• Sedra / Smith Appendix E: http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780199339136/student/app/app_e
  
  
• Sedra / Smith Appendix F: http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780199339136/student/app/app_f
  
  
• Sedra / Smith Chapters 1 through 3. (Which covers basics of Diodes, Op-Amps, and Electronics)
  
  It'd be advanced, but it would be far more interesting than covering the basics from a beginner book. The "practicality" of 3rd year material of EE stuff is obvious. Playing with resistors and capacitors... while important fundamentally... is kind of arcane. Its difficult to see the applicability of an LRC circuit, but amplifiers are just... grossly obvious in their applicability.
  
  Appendix C, D, E and F are a summary of everything you'd learn from year 1 of an EE Degree. They are missing phasors and other stuff... but you'll find that these ~30 pages or so cover a huge amount of ground. They would provide you a decent starting-point to read the rest of the Sedra / Smith book.
  
  You'll probably need to go back to a "beginner book" to learn about AC circuits and phasors. But you probably can totally just tackle Sedra / Smith right now if you wanted.

I'm sure we'd all be willing to help, but you need to ask better questions. I work in the telecommunications industry for a company that develops carrier networking products, and yet I've little idea what you're really wanting. So for now, I'll answer the question that you have asked, though I doubt you'll like the answer.

>So what I would like is some books that explain what parameters affect the energy consumption at the telecommunications infrastructure.

The parameters that effect energy consumption are resistance, capacitance, and inductance. As far as books on the subject? I don't know. Maybe The Art of Electronics?

Think of it like a mountain lake and a river. Volts are like the lake. It is a bunch of stored water that potentially could do work. Once the dam is released the water can flow, like a river. Current, or amps, is like the river.


A battery has a certain voltage that you can measure. Once you put it into a circuit, or attach a load, that will pull a certain amount of current which you can measure.

Resistance is all the rocks and stuff that limit the flow of current, or the speed of the water flowing in the river.


Watch youtube videos, and read The art of electronics


Another good thing to remember is volts are pushed and amps are pulled.

These aren't websites, but The Art of Electronics and its companion Learning the Art of Electronics are often referred to as learning resources, for good reason.

​

There are of course web sites that teach you electronics, but not on the level these two books, imho. If you don't want to buy books, then I'd recommend you to go watch bigclivedotcom and EEVblog, they have some great content. There are lots of other YT channels with similar content.

Best online resource: All about circuits

Best Book: Art of Electronics

Best starting projects: Working with the basic stamp (though any other microcontroller kit would work just as well)

Both books include a fair amount of information transistor/structural level. LaMeres' is didactically one of the best books available on the topic and well suited for non-EE students. If you really want to beat the software engineers with a big electronics book, then I would rather recommend Practical Electronics for Inventors by Scherz and Monk instead which has good didactic quality and even covers digital electronics, programmable circuits and Verilog in sufficient detail.

Good idea. I did an "electronics for scientists" class from the physics department when I was an undergrad. Can't remember what book we used, I think it was by a guy at Duke University maybe. It was a good starting point, covering LRC circuits, transistors, and opamps.

Edit: It's this book: https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Electronics-Lloyd-R-Fortney/dp/0195178637/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469462772&sr=8-1&keywords=Fortney+electronics

Horowitz and Hill is a really good reference. I have another book on my reference shelf, I think it's this one: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469455654&sr=8-1&keywords=electronics+for+inventors

Here is a great website with some circuits that are common building blocks of instrumentation:

http://www.ecircuitcenter.com/

(see "Circuit Collection" link).

Finally, Linear Technologies has a free version of Spice called LTSpice that you can use for circuit simulation on Windows (hope I'm not violating any rules on commercial stuff; I just happen to use it and like it). If you use Linux, there is a package called gEDA that has a schematic entry tool and a version of Spice. I haven't used the Spice tool yet from that package, but it's probably good.

An op amp is a differential amplifier with an enormous gain, something along the lines of 10^(6)

This causes some interesting things, for instance, with input voltages above, say 1/1000 of a volt, it will act as a comparator, the largest voltage immediately sending the input high or low.

Because of this high gain, it is easy to construct a circuit for an amplifier that is determined by the ratio of two resistors alone, the gain disappearing entirely from the equations.

Op amps can also be used to add DC bias to a signal.

​

These are some useful resources

How to bias an Op Amp (MIT)

The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz (worth every penny)

Khan Academy's course on the subject

Best two:

• Practical Electronics for Inventors - a new version is supposed to be coming out in 2015 to correct the bugs in this book, there quite a few errors in the book, but its still a great read
  
  
• The Art of Electronics - an old college text book, out of print and hard to find, but a classic. I always considered this book to be a sort of the electronics version of "Joy of Cooking". You can find used copies sometimes at a decent price on Ebay. The new 3rd edition is coming out in April 2015, but its going to be a >$100 hardback textbook and its kinda pricey.
  

Practical Electronics for Inventors is an amazing book which covers the basics of essentially every aspect of electronics a beginner would need to know. Seems to have had a problem with poor editing but it's cheap (under $30) and still far better than anything else out there.

The Art of Electronics is twenty years old and is still pretty much the standard reference for practical electrical engineering topics. Some sections show their age but still incredibly useful. A new edition is supposed to be coming out eventually.

Someone posted a great BLDC paper a week ago I'm still using. http://www.amazon.com/Circuit-Designers-Companion-Edition-Engineers/dp/0750663707 is indispensable. Xilinx, Atmel, and LT parts manuals and app-notes. I use Switching power supply design by Pressman, but your pdf looks better. Also http://www.hottconsultants.com/techtips/decoupling.html , http://www.analog.com/static/imported-files/seminars_webcasts/High%20Speed%20System%20Applications%20%28PDF%29/HS%20Systems%20Part%204%20for%20Print_A.pdf, though I haven't used that in years (moved away from hs stuff lately).

Schaums when I fall over, and The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design when things get heavyish. When it comes to wireless stuff it's mostly stuff like wikipedia so I can remember how to do the encoding systems, too many for me to remember more than QAM and PSK offhand easily, the rest just exist in my brain as "other".

The Horowitz/Hill bible is great, he's a physicist/EE. For some people, though, his interest in the physics isn't necessarily what they geek out on, and so for those people I'd suggest also Practical Electronics for Inventors.

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336

I found this book to be very easy for beginners to pick up and enjoy, and get started on building far more quickly.

I bought the official kit a few months ago and I finished all the projects.

• The kit contains a lot more components than you need to complete the projects. Lots of resistors, capacitors, temperature sensors and LEDs.
  
  
• The book doesn't explain much of the science. If you want to know more about the science I recommend this book.
  
  Its an good kit. It got me started but I really wanted more in depth explanations.
  
  Another great resource is Sparkfun. They sell kits which are very well documented and provide lots of other information

Assuming you’re a beginner, and are starting with little to no knowledge:

I bought the 3rd edition of the book called “Practical Electronics for Inventors” by Scherz and Monk it starts from the basics and you slowly build more and more complex and practical circuits.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_eTs2BbXN9S1DN

Another fun on by Monk is “The Maker's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse: Defend Your Base with Simple Circuits, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi”
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1593276672/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_XVs2BbYMVJT5N

If you are looking for something more theory based (I wouldn’t recommend initially unless you’re just curious) there’s a whole slew of texts books depending on what exactly you’re interested in you can pick up for cheap at a used book store or on amazon.

Remember build slowly in the beginning until you get a good grasp on the content and have fun. Diving in too deep to quickly can overwhelm and kill morale.

Happy learning!

I'm in the same boat. Most of the Arduino tutorials I see are aimed at hardware people. They tediously explain what an if () statement is but assume you know how to hook up a MOSFET.

I bought this book. I've not read it yet, but from what I've skimmed of it so far it seems pretty great -- just what I need. After that I think it's all about practical experience. Be ready to waste some money either damaging parts or buying the wrong parts. Luckily it's all pretty cheap.

What kind of robot do you want to make?

As an electronics engingeer, purchase a copy of "The art of electronics"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0521370957/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1321710457&sr=8-1

This book, although expensive, covers almost everything you would learn pursuing a degree in electrical or electronics engineering. Its a great bench reference book when you need it.

The trick is find an area of electronics that interest you. The Arduino is a great place to start.

I favor books over websites and youtube videos for most technical learning projects like this.

Practical Electronics for Inventors has been in one of my amazon wishlists for a while now, saved for when I decide to start tinkering more myself. It looks pretty decent and isn't uber expensive.

It's difficult to tell without seeing it, but "Learning the Art of Electronics" looks like a book to accompany "The Art of Electronics". If you're a beginner, The Art of Electronics might be a bit overwhelming. My recommendation as an absolute starting point is Getting Started in Electronics by Forest M. Mimms. It's old and used to be sold at Tandy, but it gives a really quick and simply overview of the basics, and you can get the 3rd edition here for free:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5jcnBPSPWQyaTU1OW5NbVJQNW8/edit

If you're still interested after reading Getting Started, it's probably appropriate to move on to either The Art of Electronics http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0H11CKC3J5KJMF8BHHA8

or the much cheaper Practical Electronics for Inventors (as mentioned elsewhere - 4th edition is out in April)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452851192&sr=1-1&keywords=practical+electronics+for+inventors

The guys over at www.circuitlab.com are building a really awesome, free, in-browser schematic drawing tool and simulator.

Practical Electronics for Inventors is also a good mix of theory and telling you what you need to know to make things blink.

White noise posting here.

Obviously not everything in there...but both do a really good job at pointing out not only typical circuits + intuition, but also on what common configurations of passives do and what they are used for. Sometimes you can look at some circuit and there are three or four resistors/caps/inductors that don't seem to do anything but touch the ground rail...figuring out what those do is very handy as well, and those links to a good job at helping you sort that out.

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.

-----
-----

BOOKS

Children Electronics and Electricity books:

• "Electricity for Young Makers" by de Vinck.
  
  
• "Make: Easy Electronics" by Platt. (12 experiments)
  
  
• "Electronics for Kids: Play with Simple Circuits and Experiment with Electricity!" by Dahl.
  
  
• "Electronics For Kids For Dummies" by Shamieh. (13 experiments)
  
  Newbie Electronics books:
  
  
• "Make: How to Use a Breadboard" by Ragan and Culkin. (10 experiments)
  
  
• "Make: Electronics" by Platt. (34 experiments)
  
  
• "Make: More Electronics" by Platt. (36 experiments)
  
  
• "Lessons in Electric Circuits - Volume VI - Experiments" by Kuphaldt. (free book)
  
  
• Series "Engineer's Mini-Notebook" booklets by Forrest Mims. (download archives)
  
  
• List of books about 555-series Timer ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  Basic Circuit Theory books:
  
  
• "Electrical Circuit Theory and Technology" by Bird. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Introductory Circuit Analysis" by Boylestad. (download old edition)
  
  
• Series "Lessons In Electric Circuits" by Kuphaldt. (free books)
  
  
• List of books about Diodes, Transistors on Wikipedia.
  
  Analog Design books:
  
  
• "Microelectronic Circuits" by Sedra and Smith. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Electronic Devices and Circuit Theory" by Boylestad and Nashelsky. (download old edition)
  
  
• List of books about Operational Amplifier (OpAmp) ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  
• List of books about LM-series Analog Linear ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  Digital Design books:
  
  
• "Digital Fundamentals" by Floyd. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Digital Design: Principles and Practices" by Wakerly. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Digital Design: with Introduction to Verilog, VHDL, SystemVerilog" by Mano and Ciletti. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Digital Design and Computer Architecture" by Harris and Harris.
  (download old edition)
  
  
• List of books about 7400-series TTL Digital Logic ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  
• List of books about 4000-series CMOS Digital Logic ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  Digital Signal Processing books:
  
  
• "Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing" by Smith. (download or online)
  
  Computer Design books:
  
  
• List of books about
  6502,
  6800,
  6809,
  8080,
  8085,
  Z80,
  68000,
  x86
  processors on Wikipedia.
  
  
• List of books about
  8051,
  ARM,
  AVR,
  PIC,
  RISC-V
  microcontrollers on Wikipedia.
  
  Electronics Reference books:
  
  
• "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill. (download example chapter)
  
  
• "The Art of Electronics - The X Chapters" by Horowitz and Hill. Shipping in 2020.
  
  
• "ARRL Handbook" by various ARRL authors. (download very old edition)
  
  Historical books:
  
  
• "The Intellectual Rise In Electricity - A History" by Park Benjamin in 1895.
  
  
• "Electricity - It's History and Development" by William Durgin in 1912.
  
  
• "Bibliographical History of Electricity & Magnetism" by Paul Mottelay in 1922.
  
  
• "History of Communications Electronics in the United States Navy" by Linwood Howeth in 1963.
  
  -----
  -----
  
  

  MAGAZINES
  

  
  Current Electronics Magazines: (subscribe now)
  
  

• "Circuit Cellar"
  
  
• "Elektor"
  
  
• "Everyday Practical Electronics"
  
  
• "Nuts & Volts"
  
  Historical Electronics Magazines: (archives)
  
  
• "Electronics Today"
  
  
• "Everyday Electronics"
  
  
• "Popular Electronics"
  
  
• "Practical Electronics"
  
  
• "Radio Electronics"
  
  Historical Computer Magazines: (archives)
  
  
• "Byte" - 2nd group
  
  
• "Dr Dobb's Journal"
  
  
• "Interface Age"
  
  

• "Kilobaud"
  
  -----
  

Okay, I think i may have came across a great source for those who want to learn more about video.

Video Tutorials

Also some books I would suggest for those who are at least somewhat knowledgeable of electronics:

Active Filter Cookbook

CMOS Cookbook

Art of Electronics

​

I would also highly recommend brushing up on your math, if you want to build more advanced electronics. It's not impossible to learn, just take your time.

Not an eBook but this book has the best intro to electronic components I have ever seen. I have been using it to help my wife learn electronics: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-Scherz/dp/0070580782/

As a ECE this book is awesome and only $20. Great practical as well as theoretical info. https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541

What you're looking for is hobbyist electronics more than engineering. I'd suggest checking out a hackerspace like Pumping Station One. They're sort of community workshops that allow you to use their equipment and attend more informal classes/events.

If you'd like some books that are a good starting point I recommend Make Electronics and Practical Electronics for Inventors

No, I don't, it was just the best ASIC textbook from when I was in grad school. It really helped me understand how transistors work. If you want a good book on discrete components I would recommend The art of electronics. It is written more as a practical guide, with part suggestions for op amps and filters. Like it compares and contrasts different discrete components and will give you suggestions for what op amp to use for different applications. 10/10, would buy again.

If you really want to learn electronics I recommend the book "The Art of Electronics" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456842742&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+electronics)

I know it's a bit pricey but it's the most complete book i have read and also very easy to follow. It's magnitudes better than any school litterature I have used.

I still use it as a reference in my work as a electronics engineer.

Hey buddy!

I'm a college senior studying computer engineering (the hardware side of computer science). I'm about to hook you up.

For the circuits and electronic components. This book is so good we used it for two of my classes. Oh and it is relatively cheap. It also explains the physics in a really approachable way.

You are going to need to learn to program in C, This game is free and is a great place to start!!

You are also going to need a good, cheap source of electronic components. Mouser is what I use.

In short here is your checklist!

1. Learn to program in C.
   
2. Read practical electronics
   
3. STUDY MATH (you can't get around it. You need Calculus, Trig, and Differential equations. Wave related subjects are especailly important. For computers throw in algorithms.) If all that seems overwhelming just know you don't need it at first but if you hit a roadblock or don't understand why an equation works you probably just need a more advanced math.

Personally I love Practical Electronics for Inventors. It is massive and covers the basics as well as so many different subdisciplines that you can pursue. Also to my surprise it is only $20.

But more practical advice would be to research your university’s EE course path and read through the course syllabi. Find out what topics are covered in the core/required courses. See what electives you think you’d be interested in. Consider buying 1st edition (cheaper) versions of one or two or more of the textbooks that are used in those courses.

This page explains it fairly well, I think. So do Horowitz and Hill, if by chance you have their book handy.

I have used that basic design on a few different occasions, although my triangle wave generator looked more like this one. I believe I used an LM741 for the integrator (that's the amplifier with the capacitor in its feedback loop) and the two halves of an LM393 for the comparator in the triangle wave generator + the comparator used to make the PWM. Those exact parts aren't critical by any means, and I don't see anything wrong with Paul Hills' circuit (the first link) either except the part count is higher.


Edit: If you can find an MC33030, or if you care to trawl through catalogs looking for a modern (i.e. orderable) substitute, it will do do the PWM generation for you and it even includes the H-bridge to drive a motor (or in your case, coil) up to 1 amp.

I dig it, good work. To help sort out some of the necessary fundamentals, I recommend you pick up a copy of The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill - 3rd edition. This is a staple for anyone that does anything with electronics. A couple of reads through the first handful of chapters and you'll have a good understanding what a bipolar-junction or field-effect transistor is, what a capacitor is, and how a capacitor and frequency relate to one another - and a whole bunch of other stuff too.

Try 'Practical Electronics for Inventors' by 'Paul Scherz'. This book is awesome. It is quite cheap too.
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541

You can also try 'The Art of Electronics'. Its 3rd edition was released a year back I think. It has an informal style, so, I suppose you'll like it.
https://www.amazon.com/d/cka/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/0521809266

This site is also good.
https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/

Johnson's High Speed Digital Design has a few chapters on power planes and multi-layer stackups, as well as being a good overall reference. The Circuit Designer's Companion is another popular book that covers PCB design techniques as well as several other electronics basics.


The best way to learn is to have your designs reviewed by experienced engineers; but if you're asking here I'm guessing you are doing this as a hobbyist. Maybe post your designs on some EE forums for review?


Also knowing 'how' is not as useful as 'why', ECAD tools generally are different enough that the specifics of how to accomplish something are not the same. Which tool do you use? Most have online user groups or forums for specific questions.

1. Read those two books and understand them. Now you can calculate the closed-loop gain of any opamp circuit.
   
   
2. Find an Opamp Circuit Collection, either in manufacturer's Application Notes or in books. ONE , TWO , THREE , FOUR , FIVE , SIX . Do a table lookup: find your circuit in their collection. Then read their analysis, including their calculation of its gain. Then decide whether you trust them.
   
   
3. Find an EE who has taken and passed a couple of courses on circuit design with opamps. Pay her to analyze your circuit and explain it to you.

Mostly YouTube videos and online articles. One book in particular I do recommend however is "Practical Electronics for Inventors". Tons of great information, but may be a bit too much if you're a complete noob.

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541

These websites also have lots of great info:

http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/

"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.

Get a practical electronics book right off the bat if you are into electronics. Something like this (or perhaps this):
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336?ie=UTF8&keywords=electrical%20engineering&qid=1460691202&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

Also note the price-tag. This book is a gem.

University textbooks often don't have the right mindset to them and now that I've finished my degree and out in the workforce I'm realizing this. You want a book that will actually teach you how to build something. The field of EE also loves to apply a whole bunch of meanings to a few terms, for example "electricity" and "grounding", which can very easily confuse and mislead beginners. Practical books tend to address these things a bit better in my opinion. This applies to any field - I'm an Industrial Engineer (power, motors, control, safety) and also own a book of this type on my field - here in Canada we have Techs and Engineers. The Techs tend to learn how to actually do things, and these are the types of books they read.

Regarding textbooks: something I've only discovered recently is buying Eastern Edition textbooks as they're much cheaper and essentially the same thing.

It's pretty good, but arguably the best is Horowitz and Hill's "The Art of Electronics". Pricey, but you won't find a better, more accessible, comprehensive treatment of both analog and digital electronics.

This is an IEEE standard book for it. You can probably find it online as a .pdf for free. It's a pretty good book.

The transistor acts like a switch, when the GPIO pin goes up (current applied to base), the transistor opens and high current flows between collector and emitter. If you are interested in understanding and learning more, I can recommend you a book (it helped me A LOT): Practical Electronics for Inventors. It explains this and much more in words that most would understand and doesn't go into the math or formulas that explains how it works. You'll learn to use IC, transistor, diodes, to create your own schematics, etc.

I have had good results with this book.

Practical Electronics for Inventors

If youre asking a question about a resistor and an LED, I bet you will have more complex questions about EE topics as you go forward. The book is good for engineering minds that havent studied EE in my experience. Plus the book is pretty cheap for the amount of knowledge inside.

1. https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
   
2. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/pcb-basics/all
   
3. There are companies that will do all of this for you. If your idea is fundable, you can probably just hire a firm or in-source to an ECE to do this for you, and may be better than the 10k-ish hours you'll need to get decent at this.
   
4. One strategy when pitching to investors is separate "looks like" and "works like" prototypes. You can demonstrate your (physical) vision for the product while still demonstrating that it's actually technically feasible.

For those that want a great physical book, i'm sure many will agree, The Art of Electronics is a must have.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210174245&sr=8-5

if you look hard enough, you can find a pdf

I recommend this book to get started.

Practical Electronics for Inventors, Fourth Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_9lFwDbXMV8B57

It covers electronic basics and some more advanced components.

PCBs aren't too bad for hobbyist work; kicad is free, oshpark is cheap and fast. If you're planning anything at high frequency though, that's kind of a different level.

Be patient with yourself.

The Art of Electronics is an oldie but is very well written and quite entertaining. It goes through just about everything to the 68000 microprocessor (think the first Macintosh and a number of other platforms). For example, transistor man.

It's easier than you think. Grab this book http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071771336/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 you'll learn a lot.

Anyway, even if you learned some theory you will need to practice and practice, the more you practice the better you become.

There's a lot of tutorials online, you can learn a lot and fast.

I my self am a CS student, I design my own custom board using Cadsoft Eagle, etch it, solder it and so on...

Nothing is hard, you just need to practice. Just search a bit online and start with the easy and small tutorials.

Edit: Grab your self an Arduino Kit or buy a bunch of each component (Jameco, Digikey, Mouser, DX.com, Aliexpress.com, Sparkfun....) and the required tools (soldering iron, plier, breadboards.....)
Also, you can buy some unsoldered boards with their components and read the manual to learn more about circuits and soldering.

There are 3. The 2 that are connected together are probably ground. So, tip to one, ring (middle connection) to the other, then sleeve (ground) to the 2 that are connected. Can't really be sure about left/right at this point. would require some experimentation.

Also, don't blow a pair of headphones! just go down to a radio shack and get an 1/8" connector. Then, find some cheap stereo wire. You need a wire with 2 conductors (as in, jacketed wires) and an outer shield. the outer shield is ground, and the two inner wires are the left and right sides. This completes the circut.

Oh, also, go to radio shack and by a good volt/ohm meter if you're interested in this stuff. It'll help you in the future detirmine things like which leads on this tape head are what. Also, read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Electricity-Electronics-Edition/dp/0071741356/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371353158&sr=8-1&keywords=Stan+Gibilisco

Stan Gibilisco's Teach yourself electricity and electronics. Fantastic book. Huge, but take it in chunks. You'll understand how this works and many other things!

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

Understanding a circuit does require understanding the fundmantal building blocks. For that, there is no better guide than the Art of Electronics. While you might find a guide that says, "this circuit works with a common emitter amplifier," you aren't going to find guides that alway explain those fundamental circuits.

That's where AoE comes in. All of the building blocks are explain in plain simple language. It is worth every penny and I recommend everyone who is interested in circuit design to have a copy. If you can get a good deal on the 2nd edition (e.g. half the price of the 3rd), then go that route. The vast majority of the information is still fine on the older book.

Is [this] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521809266/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_1FnRybW1CCK94) the book you're taking about? It sounds like that is exactly what I was looking for! Thanks a lot ☺️

For electronics I started with this book: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369542421&sr=8-1&keywords=Make%3A+electronics
It has lots of cool experiments to get you started with concepts.

Then there's this: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1369542421&sr=8-10&keywords=Make%3A+electronics
This will go much deeper into theory and give you a strong foundation.

Though if you want to delve right into the programming part: http://www.makershed.com/Getting_Started_with_Arduino_Kit_V3_0_p/msgsa.htm
and
http://www.makershed.com/Raspberry_Pi_Starter_Kit_Includes_Raspberry_Pi_p/msrpik.htm

MicroCenter will have the kits, and RadioShack should have the tinier parts, as well as the Raspberry Pi.

Read The Art of Electronics. It's a pretty great book.

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 Art of Electronics is the best all-in-one resource for practical discrete electronics. Add individual device data sheets and plenty of Digikey/Mouser searches with filters and you'll start to get a good feel for general availability of components.

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/ This might be a good place to get started, I am taking a physics electronics advanced lab as an undergraduate in physics, and I have found this textbook to be pretty useful. Also Hororwitz's the art of electronics is probably the best text on electronics, however very dense (1200 pages). There is definately a lot to learn, and this is just getting you started in the electronics of it... idk specifically about tube amps though, but understand circuits is probably going to be a must

link to buy horowitz: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521809266/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687442&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0521370957&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0PSJGQA7WTQYDCZ7632X

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.

The Art of Electronics - The EE bible
ARRL Handbook - Great for analog and RF circuit knowledge, but tons of general stuff too.
How to Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic - For hands on, real world circuit diagnosis. I've been doing this a long time and I still learned a lot from this book. This book will save you a lot of magic smoke.

Electrosmash has some great analysis articles on some classic pedals. They get into different components and design choices in exacting detail. If you don't know anything at all about electronics, a lot of stuff will be a mysterious (what's an op amp??) until you read about a specific part (oh, it's a miniature integrated circuit with some transistors that lets you amplify a signal using a fixed gain set by some resistors). But seeing the parts in context will give you an idea what they're doing. A lot of electronics guides focus on on the abstract mathematical relationships between components, which are important but don't give you the "what's this do" information you might be looking for. Practical electronics for inventors is a good book that covers fundamentals with common examples.

Several people recommended more entry-level books in the thread, these may be a good pick if you want results fast. They probably won't give you a full picture, but at least you will be able to put some basic circuits together to see if it's something you want to explore further.

My coworker speaks fondly of Practical Electronics for Inventors, but that's all I have.

For electronics, go with The Art of Electronics. Great reviews, very engaging read.

Interesting. I have more reading to do. But that's good. Hmmm I could have sworn there was a section in this book that talked about ohms law could t be used to both ways or something or other. Oh well.

Oh? First year EE student? That's cute. Go buy a copy of this book right now, and don't wait 'til after completing a BS to brush over important concepts. This was singlehandedly more comprehensive than most of my individual courses.

Practical Electronics for Inventors is a great resource.

Investigate your local community colleges. It's becoming more and more common for them to have prototyping labs (with things like 3D printers and general machine shop resources) that are available (essentially) to the general public.

This is pretty great, especially for the price. It is sectioned off into multiple topics, but refers to the other sections as far as design is concerned. It does have some basics, but gets pretty complicated in some of the opamp sections.

I found the book "Practical Electronics for Inventors" to be very helpful explaining things when I was getting started. It starts from results and metaphors and then introduces theory. Sort of the opposite of a lot of textbooks that are theory oriented and light on practical uses and metaphorical explanations of components.

With that book and some Arduinos I have gone on to fame (well my mom thinks I am famous) and fortune (I am a hundred-aire!) selling electronics I design and program.

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.

I use this in my Electrical and computer engineering course in college...

Practical Electronics For Inventors

We are really only going over theory and some diode/transistors. But it was cheap and it looks like an excellent book that I will keep in my own personal library

and 20 bucks aint too shabby

I would do it, but with family obligations, I just don't have the time.

There are plenty of good tutorials on how to solder on YouTube. The gist of it is to heat up the components with the iron, then add solder. It just takes practice. And don't buy the cheap solder -- you'll get poor results even with the proper technique.

As far as electronics theory, I like this book as a basic reference.

When you get to building a tube amp, I would recommend modifying or refurbishing one before you go for a scratch build. Do you mean a tube hi-fi amp or a tube guitar/bass amp?

> 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

It looks like you haven't run across 'dimensional analysis' yet. It's a really important engineering tool, and helps get calculations correct:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensional_analysis

Have a look at this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Electrical-Engineering-101-Third-Edition/dp/0123860016

It has a short section on dimensional analysis.

Last summer while on holiday I was laying on the poolside chairs (hiding from the intense midday sun, the sea/pools were empty around noon), reading The Art of Electronics. I had it on the foot side on my chair, laying on my stomach so you could see the book when going around.

The hotel staff was running around, giving out cold water, entertaining kids etc. One of them went by me, did a double take on the book (I was on some page with a lot of circuit diagrams, graphs, ... ), stopped and asked if he could have a look. I said sure, he picked it up, flipped through it, shook his head and went away without saying a word.

Not really sure what he though, but it certainly wasn't the standard beach reading material.

This is a pretty good guide to the electronics part. Find kits on AliExpress for the components.

Thank you! I think I might buy Make: Electronics or Practical Electronics for Inventors just to have on hand as a quick reference manual.

I am in a similar boat like yourself and found the following useful.

• Designing Embedded Hardware by John Catsoulis, 2nd Ed. - A very logical approach to HW without drowning in Electronics.
  
  
• Introduction to Embedded Systems by Jimenez, Palomera et.al. - Just enough explanations of HW accompanied by how to use it in SW.
  
  
• Practical Electronics for Inventors by Scherz, Monk 4th Ed.
  

+1 for recommending Practical Electronics for Inventors. I highly, highly, highly recommend this book. I am currently an electrical engineering grad student and I still reference this book from time to time when working through simple circuits, either for debugging or optimization.

http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336

Thanks!

link for anyone interested: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957

I very much recommend this book as a basic intro to electronics. There's no need to complicate this with analogy.

I bought this 'recommended additional reading' as a student and have since loaned it to several non-EE friends who have gotten a lot out of it as well.

This book by Paul Scherz was recommended in one of these threads, and I've just started reading it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1259587541

It seems to cover what you're looking for... a good overview of a large number of topics. It does get into some detail, but I like it so far.

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957

That will help with electronic circuits. For basic passive networks, any book on linear electrical circuits would be ok.

The defacto bible is "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill which still sells for $100 even though the latest edition is from 1989. It is a thick book, but is better than most textbooks IMHO. They refer to many part numbers that are long past gone, but it should give you the vocab and keywords for you to search out the current parts.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342471024&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+electronics

Other than that, if you want more beginner books - look at Make: Electronics
http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342471247&sr=1-1&keywords=make+learning+electronics or the Forrest Mims books

As far as power supplies specifically, I believe I found a couple of howto webpages that described the basics - I'll edit this post if I find them again.

Honestly, the Art of Electronics. There's nothing particularly special about audio on the electronics front. It's just electronics where you care about noise a bit more than average.

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

The Art of Electronics, 2nd Edition. You can easily find free pdf versions of the book online just by typing "the art of electronics pdf" into google. Or you can purchase the book on sites like amazon for ~$100.

I would recommend Practical Electronics for Inventors. This book is awesome for all electronic concepts. Plenty of examples and working problems. Here’s a link on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=electronics+book&qid=1567720843&s=gateway&sr=8-1

If you want to do it all on your own and have 0 experience you are going to have to learn a lot about programming and electronics.

You can start here for programming:
http://www.amazon.com/C-Programming-Modern-Approach-2nd/dp/0393979504/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426519326&sr=8-1&keywords=c+programming+a+modern+approach

For electronics start here:

http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-Electronics-Forrest-Mims/dp/0945053282/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426519459&sr=8-1&keywords=getting+started+in+electronics

Then here
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-Scherz/dp/0071771336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426519443&sr=8-1&keywords=circuit+design

Once you've done that then I suggest you start buying Arduino kits etc. I'm not saying you need a lot of experience to start with Arduino, but if you are looking to make a commercialized project and have a budget I think it's better to know what to buy before you start throwing money away in things (e.g. kits) you won't even use.

Totally not a smartass answer: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957

This book taught me many amazing things.

A very good introduction to electronics and circuits is The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill. There is an accompanying lab manual that takes you through building some cool circuits.

This is often referred to as "The Bible" and is a common text for undergrads in physics. I still use it as a PhD student.

This book is a must have in my opinion.

Electrical Engineering 101


I've been an electronics technician for 12 years and an engineer for 3. I still reference this book all the time when I need a review of the basics. Really awesome approach to teaching the very basics of electronics.

I was at your stage not long ago and had the same concern. Then I stumble on this book, available in electronic version that start you at the very begining and explain very well the basic of electronic, each excercise add a little bit more complexity till you reach arduino stuff.

http://www.makershed.com/products/make-electronics-2ed

And

http://www.makershed.com/products/make-more-electronics

And a good reference book:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1259587541/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_1259587541

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.

for a person with a visual mind I would suggest you start with [practical electronics for inventors] (http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-2-E/dp/0071452818/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1373135646&sr=8-2&keywords=practical+electronics+for+inventors) and an arduino (a specific microcontroller with a lot of helpful tutorials) to [cut your teeth on] (http://makezine.com/arduino/). Once you do a couple projects maybe interface with a couple chips you'll be on your way to creating whatever electronics you want.

Fundamental of microelectronics

I'd recommend between this book and Sedra & Smith's book. But, Razavi's book might be easier to understand.

Would probably be better to post this to r/ECE rather than to Hardware, but either way:

Shortly summarized:
A MOSFET is a 3-terminal device (4 if counting bulk, and there's also a 6T type), where you have Gate, Drain & Source. Assuming you know BJTs, you can "map" them as:

• BJT - MOSFET
  
• Base - Gate
  
• Collector - Drain
  
• Emitter - Source.
  
  If again, we're comparing MOSFETs to BJTs, we can say that a MOSFET is a VCCS (Voltage controlled current-source), while BJTs are CCCS (Current controlled current-source). In other words, when you apply a voltage to the gate of a MOSFET you'll create a current at the drain of the MOSFET. The current that's generated depends of the operating region:
  
  
• Subthreshold (Voltage over Gate-Source are less than the threshold voltage; Vgs < Vth)
  
• Linear/Triode region (Voltage over Gate-Source are more or less than threshold, but Voltage over Drain-Source are less than the Gate-Source voltage; Vgs >= Vth, Vds < Vgs)
  
• Saturation region (Voltage over Gate-Source are more or less than threshold, and voltage over Drain-Source are more than or equal to Gate-source voltage; Vgs >= Vth, Vds >= Vgs).
  
  Normally one operates in the the saturation region.
  
  Not sure how much details you want, but if you want to read more about MOSFETs you've got books such as Sedra & Smith or Razavi

The latest update to the Student Companion to AoE was also just released as well: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521177235/

It's written by my professor and it's very good.

This Book is like the bible for basic electrical engineering topics.

It is a text book, so it's less of a "I'd really like it if someone could just give me all the infos on the electronics" and more of a dense technical reference.

Art of Electronics is pretty comprehensive. Also the unofficial bible for electrical engineers
https://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266?&linkCode=wey&tag=maggicom0e-20

I love this book. It covers a wide range of electronics design for practical use.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071771336/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_kOc4tb1KNM6BD

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

buy it

read it

love it

Practical Electronics for Inventors

The name is somewhat silly but I've found it to be particularly useful. Plus, its fairly cheap...

this book was kinda like the engineering bible when I was in school. Explains things in an easy to understand manner:

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1426750522&sr=8-2&keywords=the+art+of+electronics

Scherz - Practical Electronics for Inventors

I have the second edition and keep it at my desk for stuff. It's awesome.

I've heard great things about this book: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336

The Circuit Designer's Companion was a great resource when I was getting started. I've got the second edition and still use it from time to time. I think they're on the third edition now. ISBN 0-7506-6370-7

Scherz's Practical electronics for inventors is a good intro level book that includes theory at an understandable level and lots of practical stuff. The early editions had a lot of mistakes but presumably by now it's better edited

https://smile.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541/

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957

It's not synth-specific, but definitely get yourself a copy of Horowitz and Hill's textbook "The Art of Electronics". I've yet to meet a synth-head or electrician lacking one. This'll tell you all about op-amps, fundamental building blocks of filters, oscillators, and other complex elements, and even power electronics if you're interested in power supply design. (No exaggeration, it starts and Ohm's law and ends with complex filters, PLLs, and how to program your new discrete-digital computer in assembly.) Again, not synth-specific, but the book explores how all of these things may be used in application. This'll help you develop intuition to break down complex synth diagrams and how exponential converters work, for example.

Maybe something like this?

http://vetco.net/products/300-in-one-experimenter-kit

I'd also recommend the following books:

Practical Electronics for Inventors:
www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1259587541

Make: Electronics:
www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1680450263

Make: More Electronics:
www.amazon.com/dp/1449344046

I polled Reddit once, asking which books everyone would recommend. This one was by far the most suggested, followed by Practical Electronics for Inventors. I was gifted both last Christmas, but still haven't found the time to open them up. I'd like to go on a vacation somewhere cozy, and just power through this one.

The "... for Inventors" book is more something that you'd reference on an as-needed basis. Not as much teaching and instruction as this one.