Customer Reviews

Principles of Electronic Instrumentation

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

 

 

Each chapter on has a couple of examples with minimual calculations, diagrams are unexplained and what topics that are explained are without diagrams. There are no solutions to any problems and typos are everywhere, including formulas. They can't even get the formula for equivalent capacitance of capacitors in series correct.

The text is exceptionally well organized, and does a marvelous job of covering a complex and rapidly changing field for the uninitiated. It is, however, sorely in need of a good proofreading by someone who knows the material. The difference between "R2/R1 + 2R2" and the correct "R2/(R1+2R2)" (P.227) could drive a student to drink. A table comparing octal and decimal numbers has the heading switched (P.253), reference is made to negative temperatures - in Kelvin! - and so forth. This really interferes with the learning process (I got an A, by the way).

I used this book in my undergraduate career as a physics and math major. I took Electronics Instrumentation as an elective because I genuinely wanted to learn the material, but I was sorely disappointed in the text. Besides being riddled with typos and errors, I found that the book was of no use as far as giving solutions (or even answers!) to any of the problems at the ends of the chapters. Additionally, I used the lab manual that accompanies the text, and it was equally error-ridden and unsupportive. It was as though no one ever proofed the texts prior to publication. Overall I think that with some editing, added solutions, and attention to student feedback this book could be a good resource as it covers a broad range of topics, but as it stands it is lacking.

I'm not sure why there are so many poor reviews of this book. I used the 2nd edition years ago and liked it - this 3rd edition continues to be very good.

It's approach is simple, clear & direct. The math is mostly algebra & trigonometry based with a bit of calculus thrown in here and there. This makes it very approachable especially if you don't have much experience with electronics. It's much clearer than Brophy ever was and more detailed than Faissler's book (Introduction to Modern Electronics).

I find many university level intro electronics books don't give enough motivation i.e. how you actually use the stuff. Electronics is, after all, an intensely PRACTICAL subject. This book throughout shows you where and how it relates to scientific applications. Chapter 7 on transducers and chapter 15 on noise are good intros to these areas in this regard.

dislikes: 30% (170/577 pages) of book is devoted to datasheets. Why I don't know. In every intro electronics course I've seen datasheets are rarely used. And just how likely is it that you'll need the ones in this book? - usually you'll need sheets for some oddball component in the lab portion of a course. These pages are a waste and should have been devoted to something else.

It should also have had end-of-chapter references for more advanced books. Glossary would have been nice too.

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if you want a more rigorous intro book use "Principles of Electronics: Analog and Digital" by Lloyd R. Fortney.

If you want more info on transducers, practical building and noise reduction techniques look at 1) "Electronics and Instrumentation for Scientists" by Malmstadt/Enke/Crouch, 2) "Measurement and Instrumentation Principles" 3rd Edition by Alan S. Morris, 3) "Signal Recovery from Noise in Electronic Instrumentation" by T.H. Wilmshurst, 4) "Electronic Instrument Handbook" by Clyde F. Coombs and 5) "Building Scientific Apparatus" by Moore/Davis/Coplan

This book is terrible. Having used it in an introductory physics course in electronics, I found it to contain many errors. It also lacks many of the proofs that give the student a solid foundation in electronics. The problems at the end of the chapters are fuzzy and don't reflect on the main topics in the chapter. Some of the problems are even dicked up and should be thrown out.

The book seems poorly edited, the presentation of the basic material is too short (a large portion of this book is data sheets), much of the mateial in the exercises at the ends of the chapters is not discussed in the text, and there ar no solutions provided. On the other hand, the book does some good in its short and to-the-point explanations of some basic to intemediate ideas in modern electronics, and it is up-to-date. I would not reccomend this book for self study, but it should work fairly well for an introductory course at the undergraduate level- as long as the instructor covers the material left out of the book.

The way in which some of the sections are presented is much more complicated than they have to be in this book. It also has a tendency to give you problems that it hasn't taught in the section, expecting you to understand the concept from the limited information in the question. The only thing I really like about this book is that all the answers are in the back, not just the even or the odd.

This book does a fair job of explaining the background of the electronics world and the apllications thereof, but the problems are either extremely simple or massively difficult. Even worse no solutions are given to any of the problems at the end of the chapters.

I am using this book for an undergraduate electronics class, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Concepts are not clearly explained, there are very few examples, the figures are poorly tied into the text, and the problems are not always explained in the text, and sometimes I'm not even sure what they are asking. All these issues are in addition to the fact that there are several typos and errors throughout. My classmates feel the same way. I have found that using Electronics for Dummies is an excellent resource to learn the material. It does not go into the math much, but it explains the concepts very well.

Used this as the textbook for our basic college electronics course. It is riddled with major mistakes that made it impossible to trust any information. It is impossible to do many of the exercises without extensive knowledge not found in the book. The explanations are often difficult to follow. Definitely not for the novice. I would stay away from this book!