Google

Library

Look for the "The Radio Amateurs Handbook"
(older editions can sometimes be had for cheap, and most the info is the same)

Ask around sometimes people will just give you electronic books

"Electronics" is a pretty broad term.

http://www.bing.com/search?q=electronics+for+dummies&src=IE-SearchBox&Form=IE8SRC

Search "electronics theory", "electronics formulas", etc.

Electronic circuits?

Im wanting to learn what does what and why you would use a diode and where. Things like that. Help any?

The job Im at will require me to know some of this stuff so I figure I better learn it the right way as much as possible and not the wrong way.

I dont like letting out the "magic smoke".

Lets not concentrate on my job, it isnt a major deal.



Thank you again!!!!!

See if there is a HAM-fest near you coming up and go check it out..   This usually covers a shit ton of different electronics, not exclusively radios (at least the ones around here that I've been too)

The Art of Electronics is a college-level text on it. It was written by Harvard physicists for their students who needed to learn electronics to do physics experiments. You can buy it and its lab manual on Amazon.  It's also available free on the internet.  



http://www.accuratefiles.com/download/the-art-of-electronics-pdf



This site is run by an MIT grad who is interested in getting ordinary people interested in electronics



http://www.ladyada.net/make/index.html

"NEETS mods"



its a series of books made for the NAVY. It is excellent curriculum and I believe is better than a college education in EE nowadays if you can absorb it all.  It is probably the best series of books I have ever read. It will not only teach you electronics but the theory,  how the World around you works.



oh, and its free. Download the PDF's here



http://www.rarmy.com/coleman/neets/

I would recommend first subscribing to a hobbyist magazine or two, to get a feel for the subject.  These days there is very little to choose from.



http://www.nutsvolts.com/



http://www.epemag3.com/



As far as trying to make "electronics" a career, I would strongly recommend avoiding it like the plague.  This is a throw-away world, most consumer items are essentially unrepairable, and those that are repairable can only be done at the factory by the same people who built them.  Even at the factories and service centers most returned items are simply thrown away and replaced with a new or "refurbished" item.  It costs far more to troubleshoot and repair today's microminiature electronics gadgets than it does to replace them with brand new.



There's not much that actually gets repaired any more, and the working environments is totally "make me the most money possible you dumb fuck".  Repairmen are considered to be a dime a dozen, and when considering the actual skill and knowledge of most repairmen, it's an entirely appropriate attitude.  You don't want to even think about the manufacturing side of electronics.  Not much of it is still done in the US anyway.



You absolutely cannot become a competent "electronics guy" by simply getting inspired by an ad on a matchbook cover or on TV.  Unless you were taking everything in sight apart when you were a little kid, to see what was inside and how it worked, and unless you naturally built, modified, and repaired things around you, you are not going to become "that guy in the ads" by going to any school or by attempted self teaching.  If you haven't been doing this kind of stuff naturally your whole life and absorb all kinds of techno stuff as easily as breathing, you won't survive in any electronics field.



I've supervised and instructed and monitored a bunch of AAS tech school graduates, and the overwhelming majority choose poorly.  Most didn't survive the tryout period and went on to reupholster furniture and sell magazines door to door.  They may have graduated from a kind of college but somehow they couldn't manage to remember a single damn thing they were taught.  They got tired of stocking grocery store shelves, saw the TV ad where the young stud field tech comes in saves the whole goddam company, and went deeply into debt paying for a nearly worthless piece of paper and an empty head.



Check the newspaper help wanted ads to see what "electronics" or "computer" jobs there are - almost entirely network engineers, and very little else.



Trust me on this - the "electronics" field is a mere shadow of itself from 30-40 years ago, and even further back.  When was the last time you ever saw a TV repair shop?  Or maybe you never have seen one.  The stuff we have today is essentially unrepairable, and even when it is physically repairable, it's not economic to do so.



And, if you were biologically destined to be an engineer ........................................ you would already be one.

I'll second the ARLL thing.

The situation you mention (Why you would use a diode and where) leads to several different places...I think it's great that you want to learn, but I think you need to start with easily digestible bites, which is where ARLL comes in-they have a history of edjumacating people on electronics who come into it blind.

I don't mean to sound like a jerk-but there's no way to explain electronics without explaining the background issues such as Ohm's law...

I'm interested in it as a hobby and how to do stuff most people don't.



 

Thanks D_B. Im not looking to get into the career, just wanting to be able to work on our machines where I work.

They are not anything extravagant but, they still need to be worked on and Im willing to do some learning to get the job done.

I enjoy learning something new.



Thanks to everyone else for the links. It looks like I will have some surfing to get done.



I love this place!!!!

By all means pursue learning what you can on your own, but do not consider trying to make a living fixing or making electronic things.

Excellent advice.

Get a subscription, pick out a few of the electronic kits advertised in the magazines that appeal to you, and build them. This will give you some experience with soldering, wiring, theory of operation, etc.

Next, move on to building projects described in the magazine articles. This will give you more experience with theory of operation, as well as with selecting and ordering electronic components yourself.

Finally, design your own projects (either from scratch or by modifying existing kits), and build them. This will give you some experience with circuit design.

Art of Electronics is an Excellent book.  Find the teacher guide and student guide if you can.  I have the hardcopies, looking for the PDFs

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com is another free e-book to get started with basics.

Stay at a Holiday Inn Express.

Forrest M Mims has a lot of really good books on electronics.

This one is a good start

Then move up to this one

You'll need to tinker a lot! Get some packs of resistors and capacitors in different values. 555 timer ICs are fun to play with. Stick to battery powered circuits at first, then build a +/- 5,12 volt power supply. Move on to digital circuits and then microcontrollers like the PIC and AVR. Personally I'd stay away from the Arduino for a while just because it's so sugar coated that you won't necessarily learn much about what's actually going on with the circuit.

Get a breadboard for building circuits on.

That's a great site.  Her thesis is a good read as well.

There are plenty of "learn electronics" type web site. Tons, actually.

IMO, get a breadboard, a meter, and some components and start experimenting.

Join some professional society like ACM or IEEE.  They usually have access to tons of books and online classes that come with the membership.

Find a local "hacker space"

I took the first year of a Community College Certified Electronics Technician course as a HS senior 13 years ago.



We used the following book for our Analog Circuits and Devices class.  Very easy to follow and more design oriented.  Math up to Trig and Calc will be needed for the latter portion of this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Devices-Conventional-Current-Version/dp/013242973X/ref=pd_sim_b_5



This is one of Floyd's other analog books that is more troubleshooting oriented and very little math required.

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Electric-Circuits-Conventional-Current/dp/013507309X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_c



We used the following book for our Digital Devices class.

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Fundamentals-Thomas-L-Floyd/dp/0133984885/ref=tmm_hrd_title_4





Buying old edition textbooks at fund raising book sales has been a habit of mine for the past few years.  I can usually find them less than 10 years old at less than $5.  The last sale I went to, I found a Calc book from '64 that has better written problems than current; and a few engineering texts from the late '30s that may prove useful, if not valuable.



If I can ever find them you are welcome to both my analog and digital lab manuals.



Just a note: I fail at embedding links correctly on this forum, even though I can write basic HTML.  

Thanks Brassoe!!!



PEW PEW PEW PEW





 

I will second this as he is legend.  His books got me to understand the basics of it and I was lucky enough to find them a a thrift store for $0.99 each.  I went on to learn how to use/program a simple microcontroller like the Atmel tiny2313.  This little microcontroller with the right software can do just about anything!  Definitely get a proto-board/bread-board so you can just stick the components in place.

Learning a microcontroller, such as Arduino or PICAxe expands what a beginner can do about a thousand-fold over what was commonly available a decade ago.

Easy to make robots, projects with LCD displays, and a ton of other advanced stuff.  Lots of code out for the PIC and AVR controllers so you don't need to do so much brain sweat.

The other thing to learn a lot of (after basics) is the Op Amp.  

With the basics, op amps, and microcontrollers, you'll be caught up to 75% of the hobbyists and building battlebots within a year if you try.

It helps to have been doing it for life as a hobby or profession, but not required.  Things have advanced so quickly, especially in microcontrollers and "all in one" sensors that are plug and play, that a decade of experience can't really touch.

Learn Basic Electricity first

This

I learned electronics type stuff by taking things apart, researching the components and then putting it back together.  You know you are learning, when stuff works again.  

Thanks to everyone for the replies.

Ive gotten some great info from a few here.



THANK YOU!!!!!



VRMN

Get involved in Ham Radio.

Get involved in building your own computers.

Google electronic kits.

Google learn electronics

Get a Jameco catalog

Get a Mouser catalog.

Subscribe to Nuts and Volts

Find/Download old issues of Popular Electronics.

Youtube.



Seriously.

A Complete Semester of Basic Electronics from MIT for Free video lectures.

Thanks Brass.