Harry Kybett - All New Electronics Self-Teaching Guide, 3rd Edition

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Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. To my wonderful wife Nancy. Thanks for wandering through life side by side with me. About the Author Earl Boysen is an engineer who, after 20 years working in the computer chip industry, decided to slow down and move to a quiet town in the state of Washington. Boysen is the co-author of three other books: Electronics for Dummies (Indianapolis: Wiley, 2005), Electronics Projects for Dummies (Indianapolis: Wiley, 2006), and Nanotechnology for Dummies (Indianapolis: Wiley, 2005). He lives with his wife, Nancy, in a house they built together, and finds himself busy as ever writing books and running two technology-focused Web sites.

His site, www.BuildingGadgets.com, focuses on electronics circuits and concepts. The other site, www.understandingnano.com, provides clear explanations of nanotechnology topics. Boysen holds a masters degree in Engineering Physics from the University of Virginia. Credits Executive Editor Carol Long Development Editor Kevin Shafer Technical Editor Rex Miller Production Editor Eric Charbonneau Copy Editor Mildred Sanchez Editorial Manager Mary Beth Wakefield Production Manager Tim Tate Vice President and Executive Group Publisher Richard Swadley Vice President and Executive Publisher Joseph B. Wikert Project Coordinator, Cover Lynsey Stanford Proofreader Sossity Smith Indexer Johnna VanHoose Dinse Acknowledgments I want to first thank Harry Kybett for authoring the original version of this book many years ago. It was an honor to update such a classic book in the electronics field.

Thanks also to Carol Long for bringing me on board with the project, and Kevin Shafer for his able project management of the book. My appreciation to Rex Miller for his excellent technical editing, and to Mildred Sanchez for handling all the mechanics of spelling and grammar in a thorough copy edit. Thanks to the people at Wiley, specifically Liz Britten for coordinating the creation of all the diagrams required and Eric Charbonneau for keeping the whole thing on schedule. Finally, thanks to my wife, Nancy Muir, for her advice and support throughout the writing of this book. Introduction The rapid growth of modern electronics is truly a phenomenon. All of the things you see in the marketplace today that utilize electronics either did not exist before 1960, or were crude by today's standards.

Some of the many examples of modern electronics in the home include the small (but powerful) pocket calculator, the personal computer, the portable MP3 player, the DVD player, and digital cameras. Many industries have been founded, and older industries have been revamped, because of the availability and application of modern electronics in manufacturing processes, as well as in electronics products themselves. Modern electronics is based on the transistor and its offspringthe integrated circuit (IC) and the microprocessor. These have short-circuited much of traditional electronic theory, revolutionized its practice, and set the whole field off on several new paths of discovery. This book is a first step to help you begin your journey down those paths. What This Book Teaches The traditional way of teaching electronics is often confusing.

Too many students are left feeling that the real core of electronics is mysterious and arcane, akin to black magic. This just is not so. In fact, while many areas of our lives have become almost unbelievably complex, the study and practice of electronics in industry and as a hobby has surprisingly been made much simpler. All New Electronics Self-Teaching Guide, Third Edition , takes advantage of this simplicity and covers only those areas you actually need in modern electronics. This book is for anyone who has a basic understanding of electronics concepts, but who wants to understand the operation of components found in the most common discrete circuits. The chapters in this book focus on circuits that are the building blocks for many common electronics devices, and on the very few important principles you need in working with electronics.

The arrangement and approach of this book is completely different from any other book on electronics in that it uses a question-and-answer approach to lead you into simple, but pertinent, experiments. This book steps you through calculations for every example in an easy-to-understand fashion, and you do not need to have a mathematical background beyond first-year algebra to follow along. In addition, this book omits the usual chapters on semiconductor physics, because you don't need these in the early stages of working with electronics. Electronics is a very easy technology, which anyone can understand with very little effort. This book focuses on how to apply the few basic principles that are the basis of modern electronic practice. Understanding the circuits composed of discrete components and the applicable calculations discussed in this book is useful not only in building and designing circuits, but it also helps you to work with ICs.