Knowledge is Power

I love reading new stuff and I’m a self taught programmer.  I thought that would give me the proper tools to be able to learn electronics by myself.  I started by reading a book one of my friend lent me, called “Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics, 3rd Edition”.  I thought the book was pretty good even though I never got to finish reading it.  Instead I read Forrest Mims’ “Getting Started in Electronics”.  At the time I started reading, I was going on a trip to Cuba with my wonderful girlfriend, and carrying a ~1000 pages book seemed a bit too much for me.  Mims’ book on the other hand is only 128 pages of straight to the point information and sample sketches.

After reading it, I was confident enough to start wiring up my own designs, and yup, it worked!

I also bought “The Forrest Mims Circuit Scrapbook, Vol 1″ and “The Forrest Mims Circuit Scrapbook, Vol 2″ to read on the bus on my way to work.  These are collections of articles Forrest published in many magazines over the years.  While I already have concrete plans on what I want to do with electronics, doing small projects on the side will definitely help me grasp all the concepts and learn new techniques to solve problems.

When ordering “Getting Started in Electronics”, I decided to add to my order all the notebooks Mims published on the recommendation of Steve Watkins of Hack a Day:

• Volume I: Timer, Op Amp, and Optoelectronic Circuits & Projects
• Volume II: Science and Communication Circuits & Projects
• Volume III: Electronic Sensor Circuits & Projects
• Volume IV: Electronic Formulas, Symbols & Circuits

I think these books fall in the same category as the “Game Programming Gems” books, they seem to target really specific problems so I guess they’ll come to good use when I’ll do more complex stuff!

Like in programming, I try to diversify my sources of information, but so far Mims’ writing seems pretty decent and from the reviews I’ve read online, it’s top not introductory reading.  If you have recommendations, feel free to post them!