Gibilisco - Electronics Workshop Companion for Hobbyists

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In memory of Jack,
mentor and friend

About the Author

Stan Gibilisco, an electronics engineer and mathematician, has authored multiple titles for the McGraw-Hill Demystified and Know-It-All series, along with numerous other technical books and dozens of magazine articles. His work appears in several languages. Stan has been an active Amateur Radio operator since 1966, and operates from his station W1GV in the Black Hills of South Dakota, USA.

If you like to invent, design, build, test, and tweak electronic circuits and gadgets, then youll like this book. Its aimed at beginning and intermediate-level hobbyists and home experimenters, although technicians and engineers should find it useful as a reference from time to time.

offers suggestions for setting up a basic home electronics workshop: a sturdy bench, plenty of organized storage space, a test meter, an ample supply of components and connectors, a modest computer, and a reliable source of electricity. Once you have your lab together, Ill show you a simple experiment you can do there.

describes the types of resistors available for use with electronic circuits, defines some of the more technical jargon that youll encounter, offers a few useful formulas for resistance calculations, and concludes with three simple experiments you can do without spending a lot of time or money.

offers a brief refresher on capacitance, along with information about the types of capacitors you can easily obtain and use in your electronics adventures. Youll learn a few capacitance-relevant formulas. Two experiments will give you some insight into how capacitors behave and how to measure their values.

. Youll learn about coil core types and optimum coil configurations for audio versus radio-frequency circuits. You will also be shown some simple inductance calculations. In the experiments, youll build a simple DC electromagnet and an inductor-based galvanometer.

involves transformers and their uses, from changing voltages to matching impedances. Youll learn formulas to help you choose the best transformer for your evolving creation. Youll test a small transformer module and then conduct an experiment where you connect two identical modules back-to-back.

gives you an overview of diode applications including rectification, frequency multiplication, signal mixing, switching, voltage regulation, amplitude limiting, frequency control, oscillation, and DC power generation. Youll do a couple of experiments to reduce DC voltage and convert AC to DC.

deals with the fundamentals of bipolar and field-effect transistors, including metal-oxide devices. Youll learn which transistors work best in particular circuits. In the experiments, youll use a multimeter to test a bipolar transistor and a junction field-effect transistor (JFET) for proper operation.

describes integrated circuits (ICs), emphasizing the advantages but noting the limitations. Youll get familiar with linear versus digital IC technology, learn IC functions, and fortify your understanding of binary logic hardware. In the experiments, youll use resistors and diodes to simulate the operation of OR and AND gates.

offers an assortment of hardware manipulation and lab techniques, such as cells and batteries, wire and cable splicing, soldering and desoldering, commonly used connectors, oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, frequency counters, and signal generators.