I just noticed that the third edition is out. So I'd probably get that. I'd definitely do the problems. Do you think I should get the Student Workbook too? Edit: Thanks, the prices if right. I've downloaded it and will check it out soon. My knowledge is pretty basic. I understand Ohm's Law. I'm just about finished reading "Electricity & Electronics" by Gerrish, Dugger and Roberts. So I now have a little understanding of RL, RC and RCL circuits. However, the book doesn't provide clear examples and I fall down trying to understand even moderately complicated AC circuits. Here's an example of not enough explanation for me. Maybe you or somebody else could explain it. "Electricity & Electronics" give an example of a crystal oscillator circuit using an opamp. The output of the opamp is fed through a NAND gate and part of its output is feed back through the crystal. The authors state that the purpose of the NAND gate is to "start the output from the opamp". They don't explain how it does it. I'm guessing that at startup, the opamp produces no output, which causes the NAND gate to output the voltage for a "1". This then feeds back to the crystal charging it up, which then goes through a capacitor and charges it up and the voltage coming out of the capacitor while it charges, goes into the + input of the opamp. This effectively "primes the pump" and the circuit then operates as a normal AC oscillator. I never thought of how digital components such as logic gates behave when AC passes through them. I don't understand the behavior of the NAND gate under AC. Again, I'm guessing that the output of the digital component either turns on or off as the V1, V2 and V3 levels are passed, depending on the direction of the AC (i.e. going more positive or more negative). I have no idea how a digital component reacts to less than 0 volts input. I have the meters and soldering iron. I need to know the basics so I understand how to debug and fix the problem. Yep, I want a reasonable understanding of electron theory and practive. Thanks, I will. I'd like to grasp electronics. I need that to actually understand the circuit and how to debug it. I think that your Haynes example is backwards. Haynes manuals have no automotive theory, they assume that one has the basic automotive knowledge and then explicitly tell you the steps to take to do some maintenance specific to a vehicle or family of vehicles. I doubt that there are many, if any, Hayne's-like manuals for electronics. About the closest I can think of are the assembly instructions that come with kits. I'm looking to learn the basic knowledge, not how to assemble or fix a specific implementation. Certainly I'll also have to actually build and debug circuits along the way as part of the learning experience. But I need to understand the underlying theory. I'll look for the practical electronics book. I'll check that out too. I'd like to thank everybody who has replied. I found all of the input valuable.
