Download Make Electronics Learning Through Discovery Charles Platt 9781680450262 Books
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"This is teaching at its best!"
--Hans Camenzind, inventor of the 555 timer (the world's most successful integrated circuit).
"A fabulous book well written, well paced, fun, and informative. I also love the sense of humor. It's very good at disarming the fear. And it's gorgeous. I'll be recommending this book highly."
--Tom Igoe, author of Physical Computing and Making Things Talk.
A "magnificent and rewarding book. ... Every step of this structured instruction is expertly illustrated with photos and crisp diagrams. . . . This really is the best way to learn."
--Kevin Kelly, in Cool Tools.
The first edition of Make Electronics established a new benchmark for introductory texts. This second edition enhances that learning experience. Using full color on every page, hundreds of photographs and diagrams convey concepts with unmatched clarity.
Platt uses a hands-on approach throughout. You learn by building your own simple circuits.
You begin by blowing a fuse or burning out an LED to demonstrate voltage, amperage, and electrical resistance. As it says on the cover, "Burn things out, mess things up--that's how you learn!"
The hands-on approach continues with basic switching circuits. You can cut open the sealed case of a relay to see exactly what goes on inside.
Unique 3D diagrams illustrate components as they are plugged into a solderless breadboard. A simple circuit reveals how a capacitor stores and releases electricity.
While Make Electronics minimizes the amount of theory that you need, it does show you how to figure out Ohm's Law and do the simple math to calculate the time constant of a capacitor.
A buying guide shows basic tools ranging from pliers to a low-cost multimeter. Components such as transistors and capacitors are shown in color photographs so that you will quickly recognize them.
A simple "finger test" demonstrates how transistors switch or amplify current. The book then shows functional circuits that you can build to create light and sound, leading to a plan for a simple intrusion alarm.
Platt includes three chapters explaining how to solder wires and build a permanent circuit. However, the skill of soldering is not essential for other projects in the book.
You learn all about integrated circuit chips how they work, what they do, how they are identified, and where you can buy them. Build your own oscillator and one-shot circuits, and learn how to chain timer chips together.
A simple circuit can test the speed of your reflexes. Other circuits include a combination lock for a computer, or a game in which players compete to be the first to press a button. There is a novel, simplified circuit to build electronic dice.
Make Electronics includes advice about setting up your work area, storing parts, and buying additional tools, if you decide to venture further into the field.
The final section of the book explains inductance and the components that make use of it, such as loudspeakers and a simple AM radio. Finally, three chapters explain microcontrollers, with projects that can use an Arduino.
A shopping guide will minimize your investment in parts for the projects. Alternatively, kits from independent vendors contain exactly the parts that you need.
Ideal for Beginners
This book assumes that you have no prior knowledge. It explains each concept in meticulous detail, and is friendly, patient, and fun. Positive reader feedback has been received from people ranging in age from 8 to 84. More than 200,000 copies have been sold. If you only buy one book about electronics, this should be the one.
Download Make Electronics Learning Through Discovery Charles Platt 9781680450262 Books
"I just finished Chapters 1 and 2. The best thing about this book is that you start building circuits right away. Mr. Platt gives just enough theory for you to have a basic understanding of why the circuit works. On the other hand, he doesn't really give you the opportunity to test your knowledge of the components and the interactions between components; instead, you robotically build the circuits that he has designed. It would have been nice to see exercises where you take what you have learned and apply it to solve a new problem. I think exercises like this would build confidence. By the end of Chapter 2, I felt like I had an understanding of how resistors, capacitors, and transistors work, but if I were asked to design a simple circuit of my own, I wouldn't feel confident that I could."
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Make Electronics Learning Through Discovery Charles Platt 9781680450262 Books Reviews :
Make Electronics Learning Through Discovery Charles Platt 9781680450262 Books Reviews
- I am about a third of the way through this book and I am loving it. This is the perfect introduction to hands-on electronics. I was an engineering student in college (although not electrical engineering) so I was always kind of upset that after spending countless nights of my life doing all sorts of crazy math problems with respect to circuits, I didn't know something as simple as how a relay works, or how to build anything except maybe a simple circuit with a lightbulb and a resistor. I could design and build an RC circuit and calculate its time-constant but why in God's name I would ever NEED to build an RC circuit was beyond me...
No more. This book lets you know that its safe to rip open a relay and see exactly why it works. It will give you a circuit design and then have you build it. It will explain why something is or isn't working, and why. This won't make you an expert in electronics, it is definitely on the simple side of things (like algebraic simplifications of mathematical models that are actually rooted in calculus or differential equations), but that's exactly what I was looking for. This book will empower you to build things. I am reading it side by side with the Electricity & Magnetism chapters of my old Physics textbook so I can make the connections with the real theory and the nastier side of the math, but I really couldn't be happier. In spite of years of college, this book is just now making me feel like I know something about electronics.
Also, I recommend buying the kit that's sold for this book because it will save you a little money and a LOT of time. has been out of stock of it forever, but I went to the closest Radioshack and they had it for $75. Other than that, you will need to buy Digital Multimeter, a pair of wire strippers that can deal with 22-gauge wire, a pair of wire-cutters, a pair of needlenose pliers, and a set of precision screw drivers. Seems steep but if you plan on making use of your new-found knowledge for the foreseeable future, you will be using these tools well after you've worked through this book. - This book is awesome for anyone starting off in electronics. I've been trying to learn from different sources online which got confusing. After reading this book, so many things I was struggling to understand were starting to come together and make sense.
There's a good amount of experiments to better your understanding of the basics. Which leads to the only part that sucks ... getting everything for those experiments. The kits they sell are super expensive!
I went the other route and got the components myself. This actually does save you some money and you'll end up with extras. For general components I purchased a few kits on and for the chips I went onto digikey. The chips are less than a dollar each and shipping was less than 4 dollars and arrived a couple days after the order went through. So don't let those pricey kits get in the way of you learning the right way. - **Intro**
This is a nice electronics book. It starts out basic enough that I would say an enthusiastic student in 4th grade or higher, with ample support from their parents could probably get into electronics as a hobby by beginning with this book. It is also suitable for much more advanced people if they are willing to skip the first third of so of the book where the basics are. I meet this category, since I'm a Mechanical Engineer (but importantly, not an Electrical Engineer), and I'm happy to have bought this book just the same.
**Notable positive features**
1.) This book is substantial. It has glossy pages, color photos, and is 325 pages long. The pictures are bright and sharp. This is the second edition, and the author described the things that have been improved from the first edition.
2.) There's a lot of basic info for accommodating beginners, and a good brush-up course for more advanced people. It tells how to solder, identify resistors, install and use things like IC's and LED's without burning them out, etc. It tells the basic facts about electronic components, like what IC's, LEDs, and capacitors *are*. It recommends tools and where to get tools and equipment from. It encourages you to experiment in order to learn, like it tells you how to actually go burn up an LED just to see how much (or how little) abuse they can take.
3.) It has helpful info to explain the subtle electrical engineering concepts that have always confused me, like the difference between a relay and a transistor, and what the three leads on transistors do. My college electronics textbooks didn't do a good job at this, so that's the sort of thing that I'm getting out of this book.
4.) It has safety information. Soldering safety. Shock hazard safety. What you should and shouldn't be afraid of.
5.) It doesn't jump into wiring diagrams instantly. It uses photos and other types of sketches for people who haven't mastered wiring diagrams yet.
6.) It has little bits of electronics history in it in the form of photos of the scientists and engineers from history, and captions under the photo. This keeps things entertaining without filling the text with unwanted extra info.
7.) There is information toward the end on how to program software for your own contraptions using Arduino, a fun, versatile, and cheap software that is good for programming robots and other things.
8.) There are some neat example projects, including a crystal radio (a radio that doesn't need batteries).
**Comparison to Hacking Electronics by Simon Monk**
This book is pretty similar to Hacking Electronics by Simon Monk, and those interested in the topic at hand should consider both of these books. Both are well written, cover a similar spectrum of topics, have color photos, and have glossy pages. I would say both are equally good in writing and content *quality.* This book is slightly longer than the Monk book, and thus has more content, so I like it slightly more for that, because I'm a little more advanced, and I tend to want as much info as possible so I can use it as a reference or handbook. Finally, this book seems a little better for hardware tinkering people than the Monk book, since the Arduino part in this book comprises a smaller percentage of the whole book than in the Monk book.
**Summary**
If you want to get into tinkering with electronics for fun, or want to learn more about electronics via a "learn by doing" approach, this is definitely a good book. It starts out basic enough that you can probably start from the very ground level, with knowing almost nothing. I think this book would also be good if you are teaching grade school or middle school students about electronics. Finally, this book would be a good handbook for the shop of a maker, circuit bender, hobby roboticist, or anyone else that likes to tinker with electronics, and needs an occasional reminder about resister color codes, for example, or how to hook up transistors.
I recommend this book with essentially no reservations! - I just finished Chapters 1 and 2. The best thing about this book is that you start building circuits right away. Mr. Platt gives just enough theory for you to have a basic understanding of why the circuit works. On the other hand, he doesn't really give you the opportunity to test your knowledge of the components and the interactions between components; instead, you robotically build the circuits that he has designed. It would have been nice to see exercises where you take what you have learned and apply it to solve a new problem. I think exercises like this would build confidence. By the end of Chapter 2, I felt like I had an understanding of how resistors, capacitors, and transistors work, but if I were asked to design a simple circuit of my own, I wouldn't feel confident that I could.
