Customer Reviews

Understanding Automotive Electronics (Sams Understanding Series)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The book title, Understanding Automotive Electronics, is an understatement. This book, in chapters 5, 6, and 7, gives one of the best explanations of modern engine control systems I have ever read. Every major concept of OBD-II vehicles is discussed in clear precise language. These chapters alone are worth the price of the book.

My favorite feature of the book is the end of chapter questions which can be used to test your understanding of the material. And in the back of the book, you can check your answers.

Be careful when buying automotive books. Many are written by good in-shop mechanics who have poor writing skills. This book is different. Mr. Ribbens not only knows his stuff but can communicate it to others as well.

Electronics has taken over control of the modern automobile, so much so that it is difficult to tinker with the car as we used to do in the old days, since all of the electronics is contained in embedded systems and diagnostics are usually performed by a PC. All the key functions are, or can be, controlled with electronics which has greatly benefited the driver.

There are 11 chapters and over 450 pages illustrated with diagrams, circuits and performance graphs, but very few photographs of the electronics. The chapters step the reader through fundamentals of combustion, controls, engine and motion control and diagnostics. After each chapter there is a multiple choice quiz relating to the chapter. You will have to read the text in detail to answer the questions, not speed-read. It's an interesting textbook and ideal for education in the topic. I found it to be easy to read and informative. The book shows how the electronics works to improve the safety and performance of the automobile. There is little coverage on the type of componentry, wiring or reliability of different forms of assembly, so the book is only of interest to manufacturing engineers if they want to understand the reasons behind the circuits built into automobiles. Instead there are quite a few block diagrams, equations, snippets of assembly language code, and even explanations of more elementary electronic devices and systems that will probably be most interesting to the electrical engineer who is interested in how electronics controls the modern automobile.

Good books on automotive electronics are hard to find. Must not be much of a market for them. This book, Understanding Automotive Electronics, written by a professor at the University of Michigan, is by far the best book on this topic that I have found.

Still, it leaves a lot to be desired. Published in 2003, this book is the sixth edition. Even in 2003, much of it was outdated and should have heavily edited or dropped. The discussion of global positioning systems (GPS), for example, puts their adoption in cars well into the future. But the car I bought in 2003 has a very nice GPS system. The section of the book on GPS systems was outdated even before the book went into print.

Similarly, if you want to know how Controller Area Network (CAN) buses work, you will find little here. That's one topic I hoped this book would cover. That it focuses more on technology from the 1980s and 1990s was a disappointment. A complete rewrite of the book in 2003 would have been very valuable.

But you have to take what you can get. I'll take this book. In my opinion, there's enough here to make it worth reading.

Over all an excellent book. It doesn't assume any knowledge of electronics nor car mechanics and the first chapters explain the foundations of both. In my opinion the level of explanations in those chapters is a bit shallow but that what's probably makes it so easy to grasp. The later chapters are very interesting, informative and easy to understand, I found them quite useful. However, I think the part regarding on board diagnostics is quite thin, missing a lot of information and a bit obsolete. Other than that - a very fun read.

It assumes its readers to be Engineers. Good book and all too rare. There are lots of other good Automotive electronics books around but they are, as far as I've seen, all from a test and repair/diagnostic-technician perspective. None of these others have any real engineering content. This book is jam packed with engineering insights that no one writing for a technician audience would bother with or perhaps even dare to bring up.

You won't be disappointed, from air/fuel/spark to control systems, this is a very well written and informative book.

Several pages are dedicated to old CRT technology, yet only a few paragraphs for CANbus. Navigation discusses LORAN and dead-reckoning, but GPS is said to have "a number of problems" and is portrayed as a future technology. Even the illustrations are hilarious, showing outdated technology such as phonograph players and DIP IC packaging.

This book is marginal in electronic theory and as a how to trouble shoot and repair information.All subject material is given a broad brush.Not recommened for the automotive gear head.