Customer Reviews

Electrical Engineering 101, Second Edition: Everything You Should Have Learned in School...but Probably Didn't

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If Horowitz and Hill have got your perplexed [ISBN: 0521370957], you need to read Ashby first. Without a firm grasp of the fundamentals delved by Ashby, a reader could be very lost. This is a book you can read BEFORE an electronics course, to guide you through what could be a confusing maze. This book is not focused on design, but on a faster way to understand fundamentals in electronics by developing intuition and removing as much math jumble as possible. Included are chapters for dealing with EE management and other EE related companies.

This book is also exceedingly helpful for those in a non-Engineering track electronics courses, who maybe overwhelmed by the depth and audacity of a non-Engineering text like Horowitz and Hill.

Here are its key points:

Pros

Very easy to read, user friendly;
Easy to comprehend;
Key concepts summed as rules of thumb on a side bar [ I use all regularly since I graduated in 1980 to this very day];
Superb editing, I noticed but one typo p. 166 "Let'ss";
Helps EE students focus on the essentials of key fundamental component function;
Broad audience, applicable to the technician level versus EE;
Touchy feely chapter works in many fields beyond EE;
Helpful tidbits in the EMI chapter were superb!


Cons

Not enough material to get a design together, some assumption one has tried design and knows some in-outs;
Need examples of a "putting it all together" using rules in sample design problems;
No surface mount tips for a book written for the 21st Century EE?
No catalog of manufacturers for construction?
No tips on free samples?
No tips on free evaluation boards?

In my view, the hallmark of a good electronics student is the capacity to design a working electronic device. True design skills gives students the insight to fix, alter, salvage or improve most anything made in electronics even if a student never ever builds a device from scratch ever, after graduation. However, the reverse is not true, a student raised on "fix-it" can not necessarily design.

Comments:
While praise is heaped on the LM324 as an historical op amp, I believe it was the LM741 that clearly made op amps the workhorse of analog design. Much has improved since in op amps, but understanding the 741 is to understand them all. The 324 was a popular chip due to single rail supply but the 741 set the specs to beat. No mention is made about the 555 timer, although one can always build a RC oscillator with just an op amp.

The CD:

The enclosed software is extremely useful, to me. However, its enclosed PCB123, a routing PC board designer, is more likely for EE 202 than 101. I think students need to learn to do layout by hand at least once, just as they need to know how to do math +/-*
functions by hand even if they use a calculator throughout life.

Filter Pro is also in the same vein, EE 202. Very useful software but not discussed much in the text. At least one type of each has to be designed by hand: hi, lo, bandpass, band reject from all passive, then to active, before contemplating automation.

Conclusion:

Although passive components and isolated op amp designs are less practical these days, it absolutely necessary to grasp the fundamentals of RLC to make any electronics as easy as 1-2-3, from Course 101 to 999. One must not be lost in details.

Ergo: Crawl before walk, even if running is all we really do in the real world ;) we walk a lot too, and we can always crawl if we need to.

This is a great book because the author is taking basic theory and providing the reader with some good intuitive tools to gain a foothold on how components work.

Many textbook authors in the circuit analysis arena (or electrical engineering as a broader area) tend to do one of 3 things;
a) Over explain a concept until the reader loses track of what he is doing
b) Skip too many steps in showing the derivation of a formula or the solving of a problem.
c) Place more emphasis on the mathematics associated with specific problem rather than the problems significance.

The author clearly avoids these traps. His text is reminiscent of a bygone era where engineering books actually sought to explain concepts and their significance.

This book is well written and relatively easy to understand for beginning students or those that would like to refresh their knowledge. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in electronics. This book helped me understand concepts that I struggled with in class and for years after school.

This is what more educational institutions need - someone who can take a subject and simplify it so that it is easy to recall. I have a BSEE and these topics were always taught from just a mathematical standpoint. The author takes the subject and teaches it in a way that is easily memorable.

With the exception of one error on the formula for calculating resistance in parallel it's a great book. While (R1*R2/(R1+R2) is correct, (R1*R2*R3/(R1+R2+R3) is not. The first trick only works for 2 resistors, and the corresponding formulas for Capacitors in series and Inductors in parallel act the same way. Other than that, the book does and excellent job of explaining things. I would recommend this book to any college student who is struggling with Electrical Engineering 101 courses since it does such a good job of presenting the information in a clear way.

Please be aware that the error in the equations has been corrected and all new books are shipping with it fixed.

thanks,

Darren

This book is an easy read after you've gone through EE. Makes you see the forest from the trees. Spend so much time in early circuits classes just trying to figure out currents, gains and voltages that all I could do was the math (the trees). This book has helped not only to review concepts, but to help me see what these components are doing (the forest). Enjoying the book.

The Author has done a great job. I am a non practicing EE. I found this book in a local bookstore when I was looking for a basic book for my son on electronics circuit for his school project. As Daniel Petersen has pointed out the only typo in this book is in page 31/32 where the formula is wrong for 3 resitors/inductors in parallel or 3 capacitors in series.
I think the Title of the Book should be Electronics Circuits 101. I am from India where we have a clear demarcation between Electrical and Electronics Engineering :-)
I would love to see books like this in Power Engineering and Electromagnetic Theory. Are you listening Darren?

I like the book. I have about 20 years experience as an EE and welcome this book. It is not a book which grounds you in EE but a basic refresher with some good practical advice.

I'm an ME student who has just found himself thrown in the deep end on some EE courses. This book seemed to be the perfect supplement to the somewhat harder text books I have been given to study.

The book opens very nicely, friendly and chatty. I did though expect the book to spell everything out, but it seems to make many of the same mistakes my lecturers made. In the opening pages it starts talking about RLC circuits without any explanation of what one is. The author seems to be falling for the same trap engineers always fall for; assuming laymen (normal people) understand what they're talking about when they use abbreviations or new terminology.

I finally stopped reading and write and this review when I found a paragraph repeated twice on the same page. This book means well, but seems to full of oversights and poor editing leaving the reader somewhat disappointed by a book that promised not to be like their education up till now.

I will now return to reading as this book does offer many good explanations and insights. I will adjust this review if the book manages to redeem itself.