The book is quite a good reference material for those who have some background in electronics. It sumerizes many concepts and presents them in a concise and organized manner. A good refernce book for electronic fans.

The book is quite a good reference material for those who have some background in electronics. It sumerizes many concepts and presents them in a concise and organized manner. A good refernce book for electronic fans.

In an attempt to begin a new hobby I've been buying books on this subject. Most have left me guessing. This book gives you hands on plus the theory and equations to understand why it works the way it does. Though I have not finished (I am building the project)I understand more about electronics than after completing several projects from other books I've read.
If you want to know why, and how, the projects from other books work this is the book to buy. If you just want to build them and use them without understanding how they work or how you might safely substitute parts or alter the project then this will be more than you need.

I would highly recommed this book to anybody interested in electronics as a solid starting guide. A vast amount of material is covered and is covered on a basic level.

That being said, I do have to deduct a star based on the current flow convention used by the author. Conventional current flow as defined by IEEE (Institue of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) is from + to - voltage (or higher to lower reference voltage), which is the opposite of electron flow (electrons flow from - to + terminals). The author defines current flow to be along the same path and direction as electron flow, which any electrical engineering student will tell you is incorrect.
Other than the current convention problem and a few minor flaws, an excellent source of information.

I think this book is the worst of both worlds as a text or reference manual in that there are no real-world analogies in the first two chapters, and there aren't any really good tables for reference either. Also, in chapter two the description of capacitors (and their markings) makes no sense and the first page of chapter that ends with "this is why all common household current is AC" also makes no sense because it is preambled by a description of AC and no transformer action.
I read chapter two a couple of times but still lack a good understanding because I NEED (as I imagine many do) some connection with the real world. The water pump example is good but it stops there. I dove into this text with an excitement and desire to diagnose and repair some old audio equipment that can see new life. I think I'd better find a better book before i get completely discouraged, or start working without good knowledge.

Randy Sloan does a fairly decent job of dragging you through the mud of complex and confusing concepts, but there are sections of this book that aren't clearly explained.

The book starts with a well-executed section introducing Ohm's Law; the first fundamental concept you'll need to understand if you hope to eventually comprehend electronic circuits. You are immediately presented with hands-on labs and projects to illustrate and reinforce the text.

You are led from the basics of volts, amps, ohms and watts, into building a power supply for your new electronics workbench, then on to audio amplifier projects you can build that make use of your power supply project.

The chapter on transistors was not as clearly explained as the rest of the topics in the book, and that turned out to be detrimental to the successful comprehension of all subsequent topics. Even re-reading that chapter over and over didn't clear the cobwebs, and I will seek the help of other books for this.

Having said that, I think Randy Sloan writes well and this book is excellent in most respects. I recommend it as one resource in your quest to understand the basics of electronics.

For most people, this a probably the best book available to self-teach yourself electronics. It briefly introduces the theoretical concepts, but it is mostly focused on the practical side of things. The first two chapters deal with the basics-- setting up a workstation, selecting tools, briefly introducing each component (later chapters go into much more detail), and finally about 35 pages or so on the underlying theories & laws. From there on, each chapter introduces a specific component type, covers more of the theory relevant to those components, and in most cases the chapter ends with one or more projects that use the component. The projects range from short (one or two pages) circuits, to fairly involved projects spread over multiple chapters. Unlike some eletcronic books, most of these projects will be generally useful. In most cases, you are building tools that you will probably continue to use as you skills develop (The first project, for example, is a dual variable power supply that any electronics hobbyist will find quite useful.)

There are a few minor problems with the book, though none of them warrant deducting a star. The biggest thing that I've noticed so far is the lack of photographs. There are a few photos in chapter one and two showing each tool and examples of the components, but there are no photos at all showing any of the projects. The projects are illustrated with line drawings & schematics, but in some cases the instructions would be clearer with the addition of photos. The section on soldering has the same problem. The text is quite clear, but the addition of a photo or two would be beneficial.

Another reviewer complains about schematic symbols being used without being introduced. He's correct, Slone doesn't actually define any of the schematic symbols, nor does he include a section on reading schematics. That's clearly a pretty big oversight, and it should be fixed in a later edition. That said, all of the schematics are quite clearly labeled. While it may not be immediately obvious to someone with no electronic knowledge what T1 refers to on a schematic, it shouldn't be to hard to figure out that, considering you are reading a chapter on transformers, it probably means "the first transformer". Anytime that it's not obvious the component is labeled specifically.

The same reviewer also complains that the book is focused to heavily on projects, not enough on theory. Most people will probably think that's a good thing, but rest assured that you will learn enough theory here to get you started. Writing a book like this is a fine balancing act between introducing enough theory to make the concepts clear, but not so much as to turn off the casual hobbyist. This book does an outstanding job of walking that tightrope. If you still feel you need more theory after reading this book, you there are dozens of other books that you can graduate to from here, and this book will get the groundwork in place so you will be able to understand those books.

For most people, this a probably the best book available to self-teach yourself electronics. It briefly introduces the theoretical concepts, but it is mostly focused on the practical side of things. The first two chapters deal with the basics-- setting up a workstation, selecting tools, briefly introducing each component (later chapters go into much more detail), and finally about 35 pages or so on the underlying theories & laws. From there on, each chapter introduces a specific component type, covers more of the theory relevant to those components, and in most cases the chapter ends with one or more projects that use the component. The projects range from short (one or two pages) circuits, to fairly involved projects spread over multiple chapters. Unlike some eletcronic books, most of these projects will be generally useful. In most cases, you are building tools that you will probably continue to use as you skills develop (The first project, for example, is a dual variable power supply that any electronics hobbyist will find quite useful.)

There are a few minor problems with the book, though none of them warrant deducting a star. The biggest thing that I've noticed so far is the lack of photographs. There are a few photos in chapter one and two showing each tool and examples of the components, but there are no photos at all showing any of the projects. The projects are illustrated with line drawings & schematics, but in some cases the instructions would be clearer with the addition of photos. The section on soldering has the same problem. The text is quite clear, but the addition of a photo or two would be beneficial.

Another reviewer complains about schematic symbols being used without being introduced. He's correct, Slone doesn't actually define any of the schematic symbols, nor does he include a section on reading schematics. That's clearly a pretty big oversight, and it should be fixed in a later edition. That said, all of the schematics are quite clearly labeled. While it may not be immediately obvious to someone with no electronic knowledge what T1 refers to on a schematic, it shouldn't be to hard to figure out that, considering you are reading a chapter on transformers, it probably means "the first transformer". Anytime that it's not obvious the component is labeled specifically.

The same reviewer also complains that the book is focused to heavily on projects, not enough on theory. Most people will probably think that's a good thing, but rest assured that you will learn enough theory here to get you started. Writing a book like this is a fine balancing act between introducing enough theory to make the concepts clear, but not so much as to turn off the casual hobbyist. This book does an outstanding job of walking that tightrope. If you still feel you need more theory after reading this book, you there are dozens of other books that you can graduate to from here, and this book will get the groundwork in place so you will be able to understand those books.

Good book for learning the basics. Seems to lean toward the audio electronics stuff. Makes you want to work hard to find parts to build the projects, so you know what to expect while pursuing this hobby. No kits included, you have to search the net for your parts.
Covers alot of ground and you have to really want to study to learn it all, because it is a text book.
After years of taking stuff apart and wondering how to fix it, I feel like I'm on the right track to learning how to do that. I'm looking forward to trying to fix, rebuild or modify, and I also want to build, Audio equipment. Today, with the net you can get parts for anything.

How some people gave this book a five star review is way beyond me. First of all, I'd just like to mention that this nice book gives you schematic diagrams using symbols and other things without explaining them first! Secondly, if you want to understand electronics it can only be assumed that you want to understand the physics behind it! This book dedicates about a sentence to a paragraph to physics for each section. Horrible! So basically, this INTRODUCTION to electronics doesn't do a lot of introducing you to anything! I'm on transistors right now, and I've spent days researching the physics of how they work on the Internet, and guess what? It's using schematics I don't understand, and yet again I'm going to have to do more looking on the net. This book is not worth it. Don't buy it! Just please, for your own sake, find another one. Also, half the book is dedicated to projects. That is, actually building electronic circuits! Why didn't the author just entitle this, "How to build electronic devices", then? It's beyond me! As far as explaining things are concerned, the book does very little, and assume you know more than you do. Unfortunately I'm going to have to end up buying another electronics textbook, because this one is just horrible. I was really wanting to learn something from this book, but it's just not happening. For every chapter I've read on this book I've had to do research on the net, and I'm sick of it. I'm on pg. 154, and I'm closing it. DO NOT buy this book! I've already found a better book on amazon.com (just buy reading the Table of Contents!!!!!!!!!!) and I'm going to get it!

Unfortunately I found this book only after having taking many electronics classes, but I still love it. I have enjoyed other books by Mr. Slone and if he were to write a more advanced electronics book, similar to this introductory book, I would buy it no questions asked.

I want to say that this is the best electronics teach yourself book for beginners I have ever read (if this changes I will edit this review to reflect it). While I have advanced to more sophisticated books my footing is firmly planted in the theories and applications this book taught me.

After two years of electrical engineering schooling at the University of North Dakota I was doing well but always felt I didn't quite have a grasp on a lot of the basics (especially transistors, capacitors, and inductors). In engineering all we hear is theory and math and never is there anything really explained at a practical level (Such as for use in DIY projects). So I got this book without really knowing all that much about practical electronics principles. This book (along with Mr. Slone's other book (The Audiophile's Project Sourcebook)) got me through all of my labs and assigments in electronics (three semesters worth).

This book does not describe the nitty gritty theory of everything, but that isn't its purpose. The purpose of this book is to give the reader a working knowledge of electronics principles, and it does that VERY well. I wish I would have had this book many years ago...

As a compliment to this book I also read "Practical Electronics for Inventors" by Paul Scherz. In fact, I would be say that if you studied this book well and combined it with the previous two books (which will provide even more real world experience) you will come out of it with a better general knowledge of electronics than almost any electrical engineer out of college.

If you are reading this and ARE an electrical engineer or EE student you should seriously consider this book and the others to enhance your current breadth of knowledge if you feel you aren't quite connecting it all, as I wasn't at one point. If you are neither of these but rather somebody who is interested in learning about the field of electronics with the thought of creating your own circuits someday, this book will be invaluable to you.

Overall this book is excellent and very easy to read and I highly recommend it to beginners and experienced people who might need a refresher course. This book is very simple, and one should not expect to become an expert in the subject with just this. As for weaknesses, I cannot think of any, since this book is exactly what I needed to tie everything together in my mind. So for the inherent value of a "non-textbook" approach to electronics along with its easy to understand flow and do it yourself projects, I give this book a perfect 5 stars.

I want to say that this is the best electronics teach yourself book I have ever read. After two years of electrical engineering schooling at the University of North Dakota I was doing well but always felt I didn't quite have a grasp on a lot of the basics (especially transistors, capacitors, and inductors. In engineering all we hear is theory and math and never is anything really explained at a practical level. I got this book without really knowing all that much about practical electronics principles. This book (along with Mr. Slone's other book (The Audiophile's Project Sourcebook) got me through all of my labs and assigments in electronics (three semesters worth). I can say that this book does not describe the nitty gritty theory of everything, but that isn't its purpose. The purpose of this book is to give the reader a working knowledge of electronics principles, and it does that VERY good. I wish I would have had this book many years ago... As a compliment to this book I also recommend "Practical Electronics for Inventors" by Paul Scherz. In fact, I would be willing to say that if you studied this book well and combined it with the previous two books (which will provide even more real world experience) you will come out of it with a better general knowledge of electronics than almost any electrical engineer out of college. And if you are reading this and ARE an electrical engineer or EE student you should seriously consider this book and the others to enhance your current breadth of knowledge if you feel you aren't quite connecting it all, as I wasn't at one point. Overall this book is excellent and very easy to read and I highly recommend it to beginners and experienced people who might need a refresher course.

This is one of the best books I've seen on any subject in a long time. The writing style of the author is both informative and pleasant.

If you're interested in electrical engineering, or electronics then you can not go wrong with this book. Although this book is primarily focused on analog electronics, I highly recommend it.

I'm a systems analyst, and wanted to get into building *things* instead of just code. So, I bought a few electronics books and set out to learn. I quickly found out that many books expect a lot of background knowledge, or just briefly touch on something and then use the concept extensively later on. This all made learning quite frustrating.

That was until I found this book... This book is leaps and bounds above the others... The author explains things very clearly, and really starts from the begining. The writing style is very easy to read, and the projects in the book are actually useful. I've since bought this author's audio projects book, which is also very good.

Another thing that really impressed me about this book is that the author answers his email. I had a question about a modification I wanted to make to one of his designs, and he gave me a very detailed answer, and even sent me part numbers that would be appropriate for the task.

If you're setting out to learn electronics - this is definitely the book you want :)

I found this book to contain a wealth of information. Being new to electronics, I enjoyed Randy's easy to read writing style. The book makes a excellent prerequisite to better understanding his two latest amplifier books, both of which I own.