Electronic Circuits for the Evil Genius: 57 Lessons with Projects (Paperback)

by Dave Cutcher (Author) "All components look the same if you don't know what they are..." (more)
Key Phrases: dark detector, gate oscillator, clock signal input, High High Low, Low High High, High Low High (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
There is truly a lack of good, basic hardwire electronic "how-to" books. The market seems interested in this type of fun project compilation. This is another book in our extremely successful "Evil Genius" series. So far, each of the books has sold about $50,000 in less than 3 months. With this book and another (Scrap Electronics for the Evil Genius), we should have a nice "cluster" for our next catalog. The perfect addition to our "Evil Genius" series, this book details everything an electronics hobbyist would want to know about circuits and circuit design through 57 Lessons. Readers work through 5 distinct, useful projects to reinforce their learning.

From the Back Cover
FROM CIRCUIT FAINT HEART TO CIRCUIT LION HEART IN 57 EASY AND FUN LESSONS

Featuring everything an electronics hobbyist could want to learn about circuits and circuit design, Dave Cutcher's Electronic Circuits for the Evil Genius makes it fun to achieve genuine mastery, one simple lesson at a time. What's more, when you're done, you'll have 5 complete projects to show for your efforts!

5 FUN AND INSTRUCTIVE PROJECTS
Cutcher's 57 lessons build on each other and add up to projects you'll be proud to display, play with, and put to practical use. You don't need to know anything about electronics to begin building:

• A night light that turns itself on as darkness falls, and off at dawn's first light
• A professional-quality burglar alarm
• A toy that thinks for itself with logic gates
• An application that counts -- built on your own design
• A two-way intercom using transistors and op amps

BUILD HANDS-ON EXPERTISE
Designed to teach through doing, Electronic Circuits for the Evil Genius provides hours of rewarding fun. That's not all. This book gives you valuable experience in circuit construction and design. You learn to test, modify, and observe results -- skills you can put to work in all the exciting circuit-building projects in your future.

Dave Cutcher makes it easy for you to master electronic circuits. Electronic Circuits for the Evil Genius gives you:

• Illustrated instructions and plans for amazing pretested projects advanced enough for sophisticated electronics enthusiasts but described in sufficient detail to be built easily by newcomers
• Frustration-free plans -- needed parts are listed, along with sources
• Full instructions on using a digital multimeter and turning your computer into an oscilloscope
• Templates for CAD work and a link to a great public domain CAD program
• Online access to an inexpensive kit (around $50) containing all the materials you need to build these projects (you can, of course, buy parts individually, wherever you choose)

GO TO: www.books.mcgraw-hill.com/authors/cutcher for:

• Animations
• Answers to worksheet problems
• Links to other resources
• .WAV files to be used as frequency generators
• Freeware so you can apply your PC as an oscilloscope

Complete kit (including a printed circuit board), tailored to the book and its projects, is available from ABRA Electronics, Inc. for $55. See coupon inside for details.

DEVELOP POWERFUL CIRCUIT SKILLS THE FUN WAY!

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Product Details

• Paperback: 225 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics; 1 edition (November 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071448810
• ISBN-13: 978-0071448819
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #142,855 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #61 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Computer Science > Circuitry > Circuit Components
  #87 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering > Electrical & Electronics > Circuits

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointed, March 10, 2006

By	R. Fox (Ohio) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have read most of the books in this series and they all suffer from the same problems. They are full of errors that could have been corrected before release if the publisher hired a proofreader. This book is especially frustrating with poor graphics, charts, and tables. You can find some corrections to the text if you search the web. Do not purchase components from the source listed in the book (they are extremely overpriced).

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Horribly written and illustrated, February 4, 2006

By	Malcontent (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews

This book sounded ideal, a beginner's book with clear explanations and projects to illustrate the electronics concepts taught in each chapter. The introduction lauds Mr. Cutcher's skill as a teacher so highly I was really anticipating a wonderful tour through the basics of electronics.

Mr. Cutcher may indeed be a great teacher, but he is a very poor writer. His writing is disorganized and confusing, his instructions are unclear and sometimes incomplete, and he works so hard to fit everything into his "electric circuits are like water" analogy that he forces it when he should find a better way to describe it.

Lastly, many of the illustrations in this book are so atrocious that often the reader has no idea what they are supposed to represent. In this age there is no excuse for graphics that look like they were produced by a six-year-old on a Colecovision. I am astonished that this book was deemed ready for publication. Are there no editors in this segment?

I am very disappointed in this book. A good beginner's book is a wonderful thing to find, and this isn't it. I cannot recommend this book to anyone interested in learning electronics; it will be especially difficult for young people who don't have the focus to follow poorly-written or confusing material. I would especially worry that young people would not recognize the faults of the book and come away feeling that electronics is "too hard" for them because they couldn't follow Mr. Cutcher's explanations.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review on Electronic Circuits for the Evil Genius, November 22, 2004

By	Brennan Williams (Burnaby, B.C. Canada) - See all my reviews

This book was great... I started the book thinking that when a LED came on it was pure magic. Now a have a vast understanding of electronics and I have been able to move on to more advanced projects such a building a sumo bot. I found that his book covered what most electronic books lack. It started with the simplest stuff and explained components where most other books expect you to know what the parts are and how they work. I especially enjoyed the amplifier lessons and the intercom. Over all I found this one of the best written, easiest understood and most enjoyable electronic text.