Books Item ID: #347Electronic Circuits for the Evil Genius: 57 Lessons with Projects
WAS
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Item DescriptionThere is truly a lack of good, basic hardwire electronic “how-to” books. The market seems interested in this type of fun project compilation. This is another book in our extremely successful “Evil Genius” series. So far, each of the books has sold about $50,000 in less than 3 months. With this book and another (Scrap Electronics for the Evil Genius), we should have a nice “cluster” for our next catalog. The perfect addition to our “Evil Genius” series, this book details everything an electronics hobbyist would want to know about circuits and circuit design through 57 Lessons. Readers work through 5 distinct, useful projects to reinforce their learning. Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought Item Reviews5 Responses to “Electronic Circuits for the Evil Genius: 57 Lessons with Projects”Leave a Reply |
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I’ve used most of this book at home and borrowed from it to teach hands-on basic electronics to college students. I had to laugh at the severely negative reviews. The book is clearly written for the rankest novices and the crude graphics aren’t pretty, but I’ve found them helpful enough. A quick flip through the book should have made it clear to the experts that they should look elsewhere.
By the way, the graphics are explicit, there are enough to illustrate the steps in the build and operation of the circuits, and I think they are effective. I liked that the projects can be built with a minimum of equipment. I liked the mnemonic for the legs of the transistor: EBC = Enjoy British Columbia. How funny, and how Canadian! Something those of us south of the border have to learn to understand! Maybe the author’s humor isn’t for everyone but I did laugh at his jokes. Also his illustrations showing the range of capacitances, or currents. Graphic, simplistic, and very effective.
You may be a genius, and if so, the title alone ought to tell you that this book is beneath your level. But the very basic nature of the book makes it ideal for those with no education, or those with PhD’s in physics who have education but no working knowledge of circuits. A nice, non-threatening approach to a huge subject.
Okay, this is not to bad a book, it does give you a good understanding of some very basic electronics principles, but there is no answer key. You can waste a lot of time trying to figure out something that the book gives no clues to. For instance on page 134 he asks “Look carefully at the diagram for the 4046. Why is pin 3 connected to pin 4?”. There is only a very simple diagram that does not even come close to answering this question. Even after finding and reading the datasheet online (not provided by Cutcher) you can only start to answer this question. I think this book had great potential but fell short when not providing an answer key. Cutcher may have a vast knowledge of electronics, but it is my opinion that he is only a mediocre teacher. I would recommend “Practical Electronics for Inventors” over this book, even though it has some errors and even more math. It gives you a much better understanding of ICs and not only how to use them but how to read and understand their datasheets. You almost hit a home run Cutcher, you just failed to answer your own questions, which can leave your audience more puzzled than before they picked up your book. If there is a second edition and they correct this problem I can see them receiving 5 stars.
I bought this book to renew and review what I learned about electronics (specific analog and digital circuits) forty years ago in college. The book did not disappoint. The author is a teacher and he uses his teaching skills well in this refresher.
The student…er, reader…is taken from “What is a resistor?” to building an intercom. The approach is through a series (57, to be exact) of experiments using real components and circuits. The parts can be bought individually or in a kit online. You don’t have to actually DO the experiments to learn electronics, but it is a much better learning experience if you do them, since the author asks you pointed questions about the circuit or project and literally CHALLENGES you to learn more!
When I started out with this book, I thought it was WAAYYY to elementary for me, but I was pleasantly surprised, because by page 20 or so I was learning NEW STUFF about electronics. I have not completed all of the experiments/projects yet, but look forward to doing so and learning more about electronics with each one.
I highly recommended this as an introduction to electronics, or as a review, or as a simple “projects book” for the slightly more experienced experimenter.
When I first saw this book, I thought “this is for me!” I was, at the time, a beginner in electronics, although I had some experience years ago building musical effects boxes created by Craig Anderton whose instructions were very well written. I also purchased the kit that went with the book. I was very excited and couldn’t wait to get started. Soon I was sorely disappointed and cursing the author and the company that sold me the combo package. The book is filled with typos, grammatical errors and very poor analogies. The instructions are confusing at best, but I waded through the rest the best I could as I did not want to lose my investment. I searched the internet thinking that there had to be something better our there. Indeed there is. I found several courses that are offered free of charge that are leaps and bounds better than this piece of rubbish. I am sorry I spent my money. About the only thing I learned was to breadboard a few simple circuits and make a few LED’s light up, and this was done only after a great deal of frustration. I had to utilize the free internet courses to understand what this book was trying to teach. At one point the author even went as far as to make humiliating remarks, debasing the way a student constructed one of the projects and then laughing at the student for getting it wrong. If anyone should be laughed it is the author for his inept writing skills and inability to explain simple beginners circuits. Don’t bother spending your money. There are a lot better books out there and as one reviewer said, the kit is way overpriced. Consider instead an excellent book “Electricity and Electronics” second edition, by G. Randy Slone. Unlike the Evil Genius book, it is extremely easy to read, and filled with clear concise instructions, as well as theory, and 25 useful projects. I purchased it at Amazon for a mere $12.46.
I just finished reading this book cover to cover. I also read most of the reviews here.
First off, let me say that the points made by the 1 and 2 star reviews are correct. The style of the book is a little disorganized, the format is borderline awful, and it does look like something printed 20 years ago. The title might be misleading in that this is a very basic introduction to electronics book, and certainly not for Genius level anything.
After the first couple of chapters, all of the above negative points had me rather angry. Why I kept reading, I don’t know, but I did, and I ended up being pleasantly surprised. This is the first book I’ve encountered that presented electronic components and concepts in an applied, hands-on manner. My background is in physics, so I’ve learned something about the theory of electronics, and have studied transistors and op amps, but never knew what the darn things were used to do. For me, this book helped me connect the dots to actually understand the application of principles.
I want to point out this books strong suit – it walks the reader through the design of the circuits presented, not just the final schematic. You can see the thought process that goes into choosing components, and how you add stages to a circuit to produce the overall desired result. For the beginner, this is critical. For example, I’ve seen many schematic diagrams that don’t call out ground connections, or explain why certain parts of the circuit are wired to ground. To be able to design you own circuits, this is a critical piece of understanding. Advanced books assume you know it, and beginning books seem to assume you don’t care.
Am I qualified to design any functional circuit for myself now? No. But I do feel like I have the understanding to play with some ICs, and figure out what kinds of stages need to be added to produce the gizmos I want. (Incidentally, my desire to learn electronics stems from my hobby of building backyard haunted houses, and wanting to have some automation and animatronics)
I was going to give this book 4 stars (was going to ding one star for the format), but after reading the others’ criticisms, I find myself agreeing with their knocks on the book. Still, I have to say, having read several other books on electronics (including some of Horowitz and Hill) this was the book that finally lifted the veil for me and helped me understand the hows and whys of electronics – I plan on giving the book a thorough reread. So as a supplement to a text that give a little more theory, or for a practical hands-on first time exposure to electronics, I recommend this book to the beginning student.