Reddit mentions: The best electronics books

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.

>So, I prefer perhaps a longer definition like "plant growth from light."

No, this is photosynthesis. Photomorphogenesis (photo morpho genesis) is how plants react and develop to light. Photosynthesis only has about 60 metabolic steps and I consider it easy to understand compared to photomorphogenesis. There is some interesting quantum mechanics involved with photosynthesis. FRET measurements are vital to my research in determining photosynthesis efficacy by spectra for different leaves. This is a good book to read if you go to that level.

>there is a lot unknown about this

Much, much more than you realize. A plant may have over 1000 light sensitive interacting proteins. There are at least 5 different phytochrome proteins. PHY-E works differently than the other 4. Arabidopsis thaliana, a model plant and "lab rat", has about 1400 light sensitive proteins. The function of the vast majority is still unknown.

>ratio of red to far-red goes into determining a plant's stockiness versus tall/thinness

Blue plays a bigger role through the phototropin proteins in every plant I've worked with.

>more blue light = more leaf expansion

Depends on the plant. You often end up with crinkled leaves since the leaf vein cells may not expand as much as other leaf cells. I got basil leaves to grow 4 times larger than normal using a minus blue light source (warm white 24 watt LED with a filter). I have generally found the opposite to be true- blue creates smaller leaves.

http://imgur.com/HzXKreR

Normally, sweet basil will not grow without some blue light. In this case I used blue light only on the stems. This is known as Selective Light Training.

In photomorphogenesis there's what's known as the "blue wall" and the "3 finger action response" (google them). 470nm greatly affects most blue sensitive proteins. 490nm does not- at least the phototropin proteins.

You're overlooking green/yellow/orange. Look at the front page of the lighting guide. This spectra also boosts auxin levels and important in the biosynthesis of ethylene, another plant hormone. There's a good reason that the spectra of HPS does so well in flowering.

>what is the "best" ratio of red | far-red | blue lighting? How are the different per plant type?

Hate to say this but it depends on the individual strain. Purple basil can react differently than lettuce leaf basil or sweet basil. Short answer- I don't know, there's hundreds of thousands of different strains of plants. I've seen testing at the local research university plant growth lab where white light beat color LEDs with sweet basil.

100 watt per square foot for CFLs for flowering. I always encourage people to use a light meter. I never give watts per plant, only watts per square foot. Veging takes about half the light as flowering.

>How much should the light be dispersed? Is there a chart or something that gives more detail on the amount of lighting and lighting dispersion?

Use your light meter. The reflector/lens/etc makes a big difference. In the lighting guide I talk about reflectors for CFLs.

>Are these good questions?

Quite good.

> What other questions should I ask with the goal of better understanding a practical grow light setup to optimize photomorphogenesis?

Try different combos of wavelengths.

>Do you have any recommendations for the setup of these experiments?

Stick with small plants and use 7 for the experiment and 7 for the control.

Micro Tom tomato

Lettuce including dwarf lettuce

Dwarf sugar peas

Keep in mind that a lux sensor/meter works great with white LEDs, would not trust them with color LEDs. The cheapest meter that can come somewhat close for good measurements with color LEDs is this $200 quantum light meter. It will not reliably work with 660nm LEDs. For that you need a $800 Licor meter. This Licor meter will not work with far red LEDs. For that you need a spectrometer. Mine cost about $2700 including fiber optic cable, two sensor heads and NIST traceable calibration.

You can always use any light sensor for relative measurements as long as the light source is the same. But keep in mind that with a true lux sensor, 620nm will give 3 times higher readings than 660nm although the radiant flux may be the same. Never get luminous and radiant flux confused.

You can also buy quantum light sensors in the $150 range. These "low" cost sensors will also not reliably read 660nm and far red LEDs. Multiple places sell them.

http://solarlight.com/product/par-quantum-light-sensor-pma-1132/

I have well over a hundred research papers/pdf files on plant lighting. I'm going to try to dig up a particularly good one. Forgot the name.

Good book:

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Radiometry-Photometry-Optoelectronics-library/dp/0890066787

Do you by chance have an Andriod smart phone or tablet? There's a lot of good apps that would be of use to you.

edit- a little bit here and there

That paper I wanted you to read- google "The Guiding Force of Photons"

There are a lot of good suggestions in here, but I'm wondering if any of them are really applicable to what you want to do. An electrodynamics book like Griffiths will come at magnetism from the perspective of field and/or tensor mathematics. A solid state book like Kittel or Ashcroft and Mermin would come at it starting from a phenomenological perspective and moving into things like local moments and band structure. I'm guessing here, but it seems like what you want is more of an idea of the interaction of magnetism and materials or observable phenomena. Either of those approaches would get you there, but it wouldn't be the most direct approach and it would be a lot more work than you need to put in if that's all you want. They would also both require a lot more math than it seems like you're really comfortable with, and both topics are complex enough that physics/chemistry/MSE students struggle with them without good instructors (and sometimes even with them).

Instead of starting with any of those, I'd suggest you look at some lower level, phenomenology and observation based works. Nicola Spaldin's Magnetic Materials: Fundamentals and Applications might be a good place to start. It's pretty low level: I think a motivated undergrad could deal with it after taking a year of freshman physics, but I think that's what you want, at least to start with. It gives a good overview of different kinds of magnetism and the different kinds of magnetic materials, as well as field generation and detection.

Incidentally, if you decide to be a masochist and go with a solid state book, I think Ashcroft & Mermin is a better text than Kittel. Kittel spent 50 years and eight editions trying to fit the new developments in the field into the book without making it significantly thicker, so Ashcroft has a narrower scope but covers what it does have in more depth. I find the writing style clearer and more accessible as well.

Yeah, the laws explicitly allow transmission outside of your licensed limits for the preservation of life and property. The test is super easy. You should read the book it's based on at least once to get a broad understanding, and then download a free app that gives you all the test questions. Just go through the questions until you've memorized enough to Ace the test.

Testing costs around $15. I'd strongly recommend taking all the tests through amateur extra to get access to all amateur bands. If it takes you an extra couple months to memorize all the questions, that's totally fine (unless you're in a hurry to transmit, then just study more!).

In short, you'll need $20 for a Kindle version of the arrl manual (you can skip it and read free or lower cost manuals if money is super tight, but this is the official guide that you can come back to).

https://www.amazon.com/ARRL-Ham-Radio-License-Manual-ebook/dp/B07DFSW94G

Then you'll study with a free app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iversoft.ham.test.prep

You can just Ace the tests from the app by memorizing all the questions, but there's HUGE value to actually understanding the content in the study guide that you won't get from memorizing a couple hundred question answers.

Then, take a test for a variable cost -- mine was $15 (and that covers all three tests if you take them all, it's just a fee to help pay for the site and materials).

Finally, or maybe first, get yourself a cheap ham radio like the baofang UV-5R. It's only about $20, so I'd just get it and start playing with the relatively complicated controls (plenty of guides on the internet) and worry about any upgrades long into the future when you have money and you're sure you're interested.

Thanks for verifying that for me, it's left me a little concerned about my mathematical skills. I can't seem to get it to adjust to the range I desire, it seems to range from 15-20 volts and I can't seem to get it any lower, even after replacing the zener reference with an actual 7805 regulator. I'd like to be able to change the voltage of this with a single pot, but as I said it's not doing the range I desire. Do you have a suggestion for any good schematics for op-amp or transistor based adjustable voltage regulator that you've enjoyed? I have a book which contains several chapters leading up to the construction of a dual adjustable supply, but I can't seem to find much direct information in the book regarding what the expected range would be, so i don't know if I should build it or not yet. I know I could always grab a couple lm317's to build a nice dual adjustable supply, but that really takes the fun and learning out of the whole project for me :P

Thanks!

The Feynman lectures are really good, and they will take you from basic physics to quantum mechanics.

Get yourself a good groundwork in physics before you worry about flashy things like relativity. The ability to spout out fancy words about fancy-sounding fields really means nothing if you don't actually understand what you are talking about.

Now, this said, once you are ready to dive into quantum mechanics, I'd personally recommend Griffiths.

As a chemical engineer specialized in electron microscopy, I am partial to solid-state physics and physics at the atomic scale, so if you are interested in such small things, I would recommend Callister as an introductory book (it is basically the bible of materials science, and is an excellent beginner book and reference) and Kasap as a very readable book on solid-state physics.

With any such books, unless you are using the book for a class and it is required that you have a particular version, don't worry about getting the newest edition. An older edition will generally save you a lot of money if you purchase a hard copy. That said, it is easy enough to find most of them digitally if you are so inclined.

Some people already answered this, but I wanted to add some info on magnets.

Magnets are pretty nifty, let me see if I can help out with some of this. The type of magnet you have on your refrigerator is a ferromagnet. Its polar opposite is nicely named an antiferromagnet. These materials can also take on different forms, if you heat up a ferromagnet higher than its curie temperature, it becomes paramagnetic. If you heat an antiferromagnet up past its neel (nay-el) temperature it becomes diamagnetic.

So what does this mean at an atomistic level?

Electrons have spins that can be polarized in different directions. When you get a group of electrons to all spin in the same direction they create a magnetic field. A magnetic material has a majority of its electrons spinning in the same direction.

With ferromagnets, you can align the electrons by subjecting it to a magnetic field. The electrons will start spinning the same way and form large domains aligned with the induced magnetic field. When you pull the material out of the field, the magnetic effect will persist, because changing spin means breaking a domain wall, which costs energy.

Paramagnets will align when in a magnetic field, but once you take it out they will go back to their chaotic spin states, a paramagnetic material has enough energy to not care about breaking domain walls.

Antiferromagnetic materials have a net magnetization of zero, so for every up spinning electron there's a down spinning electron.

Diamagnets are much like paramagnets, only they don't like magnetic fields entering them. (They have a negative magnetic susceptibility)

Then there are some others, like ferrimagnets, which have electrons spinning in opposing directions, however one of the directions is much more prominent, therefore they act like weak ferromagnets.

If you want a really good book on magnets, check out Nicola Spaldin's book. It's not too physics intensive.


I did want to correct a post someone made earlier though, magnetics are based off of the electronic structure, not the atomic one. You can have single crystal diamagnets, and you can have polycrystalline ferromagnets. The grain structure is not the main contributing factor to magnetism.

You've got a lot of good advice in this post that pretty much covers what I was gonna say. I can relate to you when you say that you really understand the subject by working through all the details and the math. However, I've found that when it's time to actually put theory to practice, a lot of times you can't do it directly because the problem at hand is way too complex. And like you said, that approach takes a very long time. So, a compromise I've made is that I just start doing the project, and then learn the theory in parallel. That way, you sort of start to get both the intuition and the solid foundations behind what you're trying to work on.

Also, a practical book I'd recommend is Practical Antenna Handbook. I've skimmed through it and it seems like a really good book to get a feeling for working with antennas. It's definitely on my to-read list. If you really want the nitty-gritty of antenna theory, I've heard good things about Balanis and Kraus.

Where/how you figure this out?

By 1) getting into semiconductor processing and process design, 2) getting into device modeling, and 3) becoming an analog IC designer - and, of course, working in the semiconductor industry. In school you focus on upper division and graduate classes in these areas.

Generally you need all three to understand this area well. That's kind of how I fell into it. Leading edge analog design quickly becomes limited by the specifics of your simulation models and your specific process implementation. Usually parameters of process and device become factor in your analog circuit design and you may even adjust physical CAD layout to tweak them.

This is where SPICE models come in. Basically you keep getting new ones added to CAD systems over the last 40 years because of some corner that isn't well modeled. The simplest models (like MOS 1->3 and Gummel-Poon) worked OK for very large devices 40 years ago when SPICE was invented but process shrinks have created lots of nonidealities since (which is the nonideality? the device or the model? :-) ). Nature of the beast.

The simple fact however is that you can never get a device model to actually cover all corners of operation equally well. Such a model doesn't exist and probably never will.

Instead the reality is that you generally need fairly peaked experts extracting parameters and often even creating new models with the caveat that you always have to compromised on the model extraction accuracy to fit the particular application corner you are designing to.

So, for example, if are doing high power, you'll optimize one of the standard models for that corner and sacrifice low power accuracy or vice versa. If you are doing RF/uW devices, you make a different set of compromises than you would if you were doing digital or LF linear. In 40 years it's never become turn-key and automated - the degrees of freedom in the models generally don't properly match those of reality. Too many or too few cause problems with the extraction.

There are other areas related to SPICE model extraction that are very similar with just a small change of emphasis.

These include parametric process measurement which monitors each fabrication step using end-of-line analog testing of specialized test structures. This is more focused with manufacturing process control and device operational integrity "out the door". A side area to this is reliability testing - when with the devices fail in the field (and they will fail). Bread and butter to me. Been doing stuff in this general area for most of my career.

Some books on my shelf are the following (they are so common they are usually referred to by the author's name):

Physics of Semiconductor Devices (Sze)

MOS (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) Physics and Technology (Nicollian/Brews)


Semiconductor Device Modeling with Spice (Kielkowski)

SPICE: Practical Device Modeling (Antognetti)

Semiconductor Material and Device Characterization (Schroder)

Failure Mechanisms in Semiconductor Devices (Amerasekera/Najm)

Failure Modes And Mechanisms In Electronic Packages (Singh/Viswanadham)

You can also hang out at /r/chipdesign which is probably the closest subreddit to this area. I'm a moderator there.

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

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

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

Old as well :)

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

A book to add to your reading list

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

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

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

First do the hand calculations for the patch antenna size, they can be found in many textbooks.

Next, simulate the antenna and see how close it matches your hand calculations.

I can recommend:

Microstrip Antenna Design Handbook by Bahl, Bhartia et al.

Good antenna theory textbooks are:

Antenna Theory and Design by Stutzman and Thiele

Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design by Balanis

Older editions can be found on AbeBooks and are just fine.

Antenna-Theory.com is a good online antenna reference.

Try posting in /r/rfelectronics for help later.

Here is a link to a pretty thorough course in beginning analog circuits. I don't know how much you would get out of it seeing as you would probably know most of it from being a physicist, but it's there for reference. The next step up would be this book by Sedra and Smith. It will start off with Thevenin and Norton equivalents and work up from there. The book is very large and contains damn near everything you need to know about analog circuits (even has a chapter on semi-conductor physics :)). If you have any interest in digital circuit logic you can go here. Also, I think I see an Arduino in the article picture. There is plenty of documentation on their website. If you want to know more about microprocessors in general, Amazon has a long list of books that could probably suit your needs. Hope that helps! :)

Have you tried Electronics for Dummies?

No I'm not joking, you you with the pretentious comment about it being to basic, hop on your bike.

Seriously you seem like someone who doesn't need a 1000 page plus text book with chapters only relevant on certain applications right now, you can find Electronics for Dummies on Amazon second hand for almost nothing, its written with the plan to make you understand how a circuit works and form the very basic overview of schematics and electronic theory. At only 350 ish pages long and in rather large print you'll fly though it and give you a good notion of the basics and a clue about more advanced stuff.

Whats that, you wanted something dripping with physics and complicated maths? Hows about Microelectronics by Jacob Millman and Arvin Grabel, it has a good portion of its content for Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineers and looooooooooooooooooooooootttttttttts of math, it covers everything from how logic circuits work to the nitty gritty of circuit design. expect diagrams and plot charts with schematics and a brief explination of the circuits depicted as well as the math that shows how it all works. http://books.google.ie/books/about/Microelectronics.html?id=-yFTAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y

Why am I suggesting these books? Well these are on my desk. One of them has taught me a fair bit and the other has confused the snot out of me, guess which one did what.

As you're an engineer, Quantum Mechanics for Scientists and Engineers might be of interest. It's written by a EE professor at Stanford.

A potentially nice optional feature of this is that Stanford offers a free online 9-week course based on this book with the author giving the online class. The latest offering of the course started Oct 4 and goes until Dec 16. If you're interested in that, I don't know if you could take it starting on your own now with access to the videos and course materials, or if you'd have to wait for the next offering. Here is a review by someone who took this course a couple years ago.

Disclaimer: I haven't read that book or taken this online class myself; it's just a potential idea that might be a fit or not

During my engineering degree I studied semiconductors extensively. The two books I would recommend to you are Pierret for device fundamentals, and I think this is what I used for device fab. Since your lab does optoelectronics, I'll also recommend Kasap. These are all very much engineering oriented, so they are good if you're looking for a functional understanding of how these devices work.

Also, some of the solid state physics (learning about density of states, electronic structure, etc.) is probably better learned from Mermin and Ashcroft.

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

Edit: I also recommend this book for beginners.

You have to learn the concepts of digital signal processing. There are alot of really good books out there on amazon. You can choose to implement these algorithms in many ways, in C++ using various audio libraries, in CUDA/OCL on a GPU or even in hardware level via Verilog/VHDL on an FPGA.

If you want to deal with raw circuitry, you need to learn analog signal processing, you might have to learn the concept of analog electronics. BJT's/OpAmplifiers/ClassA/AB/D etc. I recommend this book, it is fantastic.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195323033/

I recommend reading up the concepts of DSP first. Discrete Fourier Transforms, frequency manipulation such as low/high/band pass filtering. All the various concepts basically. This coursera site shows most important concepts.
https://www.coursera.org/course/dsp

Also, unless you are working on an FPGA, there is not much point testing/starting out on an embedded system. Try it out on your PC/Mac first

And I get what you are saying. Thank you for your comment. I was opposing the usual ads with the "sweeter buds" claims and scepticism is like a Pavlovian reflex ;) I read two Cervante books and even he just scratches the surface on soil biology explains all the basics, reducing it for relevant growing routines. It is a whole class itself. Just like lighting.

Cannabis cultivation is a lifetime learning process and I think besides shading some light onto cliche bro science nonsense it also cleared up some up my half-knowledge. In this case a niche of soil biology, which is deep as an ocean trench. I also enjoyed the discussion between flushing from a strict scientific point of view and the opposite. In the end it is all about learning and always being open to adjust ones "data base". I ordered a "Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web" so this post was meant to be productive.

I am still reading and trying to understand Ross McCluney's Introduction to Radiometry and Photometry. Dense information, deep into the field, but highly recommended.

Cheers

> Natural gas and renewables are much cleaner than coal, but a lot of peoples' power is still coming from coal.

That's not how the grid works dude. Your post covers about 5% of the actual picture here. It's late, you'll have to read some books, I don't want to get into this now. But read these: (The Bin Wu one is fucking amazing, read it twice)
http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470593652.html
https://www.amazon.ca/Analysis-Electric-Machinery-Drive-Systems/dp/047114326X

This wouldn't hurt:

https://www.amazon.com/Power-System-Analysis-Design-Fifth/dp/1111425779/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=JWX7BQ73ZBNN7BCED44E (I have the 3rd edition, but the content is more or less the same)

Source: EE (CEAB)

EDIT: Oh! My point was...total shitpost on your end

You should first decide what you want the thing to do.

Read this:

https://www.amazon.com/Electronics-Dummies-Cathleen-Shamieh/dp/0470286970

Or check youtube for intro to electronics/circuits videos, there are tons. You'll need to be able to read an electrical schematic, since you're going to have to create one.

Then get yourself a microcontroller like a Raspberry Pi.

Then watch some coding tutorials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrUvhzz5bRs

You'll need a multimeter, a soldering iron, wire strippers, crimping tools, basic hand tools. You should also watch some videos on how to properly fabricate wiring harnesses. You'll need a working knowledge of fasteners and materials.

Don't set out to make a robot your first project. Start small, like getting an LED to spell out "Hello World" in morse code or something. Move up to something with one moving part that does only one thing. Up the complexity of your projects as you go.

I reached out to a friend (who has the Amateur Extra license) for guidance and he recommended the canonical ARRL book (link). I've been reading that and it's been VERY helpful. It organizes all the questions by subject matter and teaches more holistically, while still letting you see the exact content in the exam.

Some Sites (Google, this subreddit, and /r/breadboard are your friends!):
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/

http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/HomePage

http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/

I'm a grad student with a focus on embedded systems and I teach electronics to sophomores.

I'm particularly fond of the book Electric Circuits.

These are great too:
https://www.circuitlab.com/

http://www.falstad.com/circuit/

Remember, if this stuff lights your fire and gets you excited don't give up when it gets challenging. Seek help and press on. If it doesn't get you excited then keep it as a hobby and find something that does.

Edit: Accidentally added a new comment instead of reply.

If you put in the time and effort you can pick it up fairly well. If you really want to get into design and modding and stuff I'd say find a few fairly simple circuits and socket a bunch of the components so you can see how changing various parts impacts the sound. This is supposed to be an interesting book from Brian Wampler. Most of the negative reviews basically bash it for basically taking informations and schematics you can find online and putting them into a book, but the analysis and organization helps you work through some of this stuff. This is another good one too from Craig Anderton. The Anderton tube sound fuzz is the basis for one of my got to distortions.

Well first you’ll probably want to get a license to use it. Assuming you’re in the US, I recommend this book to help you get started. It’s not very difficult to get the entry level license (Technician), but if by “long range” you mean global, you’ll need to upgrade to a license that permits use of those frequencies, which would be the next step up (General).

There’s a lot of possibilities with this question and I think you’ll probably get more help at r/amateurradio as r/radio is more for broadcast radio rather than two way communication.

I have Michael Wilson for EE112. I found the 9th edition of the textbook online but I'm not sure if it's the same one. Here's the cover.
Thanks for the help

Selinc.com has a lot of white papers and application guides that can help.

Protective Relaying: Principles And Applications (Power Engineering) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1574447165/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_C1poDbEZP4C2F
Is a great book too.

There's the Brian Wampler book that people always talk about in this sub, I don't know if it's exactly what you're looking for, but you should check it out anyway, it's a great source.

My school had a course that all EEs took that covered the basics like ideal transformers and induction motors. Then there were power specific courses that got into more detail with phasors, per unit, etc. This was the book a few of the power specific classes at my school used.

The Physics of Solar Cells

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

Looks like he released the 4th ed recently

He also has Modern Antenna Handbook

And several others, thank you for bringing my attention to him!

I remember this one being pretty good. Mainly used it in the first couple of intro classes, so if you're doing a lot with transistors it may not be very useful.

http://www.amazon.com/Electric-Circuits-9th-James-Nilsson/dp/0136114997/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425422648&sr=1-1&keywords=nilsson+riedel+electric+circuits

http://www.antenna-theory.com/intro/books.php

> A good book on antenna theory would look nice on your bookshelf. And girls really like antenna books. Sometimes you get sick of reading things on the internet, and want a comprehensive antenna book to read. On this page, I'll review some of the popular antenna books available.


Seriously, you could do worse than Antenna Theory by Balanis:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118642066

When I took that class we used the same book, which I found to be one of the better ones I've used.

A lot of people seem to recommend the Sedra book

This is the first book I read on the subject! It starts with the water-flow analogy of electricity and identifying components, and goes up through analog and digital circuits with some great projects along the way. I built the analog power supply project inside the housing of an old radio and still use it at home.

Tab Electronics Guide to Understanding Electricity and Electronics

I would recommend Neil Storeys A Systems Approach.

This book is very well described, and was practically the baseline reference for all modules across first year digital and analog electronic modules, and some second year (BJTs, MOSFETs, FETs, Darlingtons, transconductance etc.)

(Un)fortunately to understand means a lot of reading, maths and experiments. Electronics is a practical subject and is the best way to learn. I would personally choose a DIY circuit, then read on the components, and their configurations i.e. RC, DC Couplers, potential dividers, negative feedback amps etc.

I am a huge fan of Electronics: A Systems Approach by Neil Storey. It has chapters on a wide range of subjects, with very practical and useful information, applicable to both analog and digital systems but also general principles of engineering. It was a 'must have' book to have during my EE studies according to my teachers and I must say they weren't wrong, I must have opened it atleast once for every course I followed.

It's not too expensive: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Electronics-Approach-Dr-Neil-Storey/dp/0273719181

It's not a reference manual, if that's what you're asking. If it was like mine, it covers all of the basics in analog circuit theory and analysis... how things work, finding values, and probably some design. Far beyond use of CAD tools (although that was probably covered too).

http://www.amazon.com/Electric-Circuits-9th-James-Nilsson/dp/0136114997/

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

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

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

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

Like dtfgator said start looking through the [IEEE PES] (http://www.ieee-pes.org/) stuff. I am currently and undergrad doing some research in this, so I don't have much field experience. My experience so far has just been setting up simulations (some hypothetical and modeled our campus grid) in Power World and ATP. I'm sure there are many other programs that have advantages over these two but it's what I'm familiar with.

Knowledge of how to design and analyze a power system is an obvious necessity. I have not designed anything yet, but have learned fundamentals from this book which also has a lot of examples to use or set up in Power World. There are also a few courses on youtube somewhere.

Tab Electronics Guide to Understanding Electricity and Electronics

This book seems to be the world's favorite intro book.

Sedra/Smith Microelectronics

You will learn more about electronics than you will ever need to know, in one book :)

Look no further.

This is, in my opinion, the best resource for semiconductor physics.

Here is a good book to get you started.
Tab Electronics Guide to Understanding Electricity and Electronics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0071360573/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_dY.ADb1263B4S

Another
Make: Electronics: Learning Through Discovery https://www.amazon.com/dp/1680450263/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_mZ.ADbV1KTHK3

This is considered one of the better texts on the subject: Protective Relaying, Principles and Applications

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

When I took my electronics class I completely hated Sedra and Smith during the first half of the semester. As things began to make sense and my time playing at the lab increased I finally understood how awesome the book is.

I think it is this book Splunlen is refering to: https://www.amazon.com/How-Modify-Guitar-Pedals-how/dp/1434801063

Please note that there seems to be a new version out soon.

Sedra and Smith is a great textbook if that is not what you are using already.

What part of Electronics I was the most troublesome? Large signal analysis? Small signal analysis?

If you're looking for a Semiconductor Physics book then Pierret is the standard from what I've seen.

From a circuits and applications side, go read "The Art of Electronics", "Troubleshooting Analog Circuits", and all the app notes from TI, Maxim, National, and Linear.

> "Electric circuits" by Nilsson, 9nth edition.

I know absolutely nothing about electronics but Amazon reviews are not liking this book at all.

EDIT: Many reviews are tipping to get this one instead :Fundamentals of Electric Circuits

[when the hat is phat] (https://www.amazon.ca/Microelectronic-Circuits-Adel-Sedra/dp/0195323033)

If it's the Sedra and Smith book I'm thinking about, probably because it's an integrated circuits book, which would be totally inappropriate for a beginner.

Double slit experiment for the most basic explanation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

And then, just get this book. Everything that I learned from the internet informally was covered in chapter 1 of this book:

Quantum Mechanics for Scientists and Engineers:

I always think of a bjt as a diode that blocks in both directions unless a voltage (and since it's a diode a little current must move) is applied to the base. Cutoff means no current flows, so you can remove voltage at the base to prevent current flowing from the collector to the emitter. Breakdown is what happens when you put soooo much voltage into something you literally break it. (Eg put too much voltage across a diode and it will leak current even though it should theoretically stop it)

There is a funny area used for amplification that is really complex where I usually just pull the bjt equations from Sedra/smith's http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0195323033?pc_redir=1395092360&robot_redir=1 and treat it like a math problem