Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Randy Slone's learn-as-you-go guide tells you how to put together a low-cost workbench and start a parts and materials inventory--including money-saving how-to's for salvaging components and buying from surplus dealers. You get plain-English explanations of electronic components-resistors, potentiometers, rheostats, and resistive characteristics-voltage, current, resistance, ac and dc, conductance, power...the laws of electricity...soldering and desoldering procedures...transistors...special-purpose diodes and optoelectronic devices...linear electronic circuits...batteries...integrated circuits...digital electronics...computers...radio and television...and much, much more. You'll also find 25 complete projects that enhance your electricity/electronics mastery, including 15 new to this edition, and appendices packed with commonly used equations, symbols, and supply sources.

Average Customer Rating:

a good reference book	Customer Rating:
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.

What I've been looking for

Customer Rating:

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.

Excellent for beginners, but incorrect convention used

Customer Rating:

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.

not very helpful for a beginner

Customer Rating:

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.

Pretty good -- especially if you're interested in audio amplifiers

Customer Rating:

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.