Buy Electrical

Review by Joseph A. Purcell:

This is a great resource for those handymen who are comfortable working with electricity. This book is very easy to read and not only covers the enforced National Electrical Code (NEC) but also provides detailed installation procedures of home electrical material/devices such as wiring, receptacles, lighting fixtures & etc. With prolific pictures, it shows devices and material available and required for specific tasks. In addition it explains & shows correct installation procedures.

As a retired electrical engineer for 18 years, I purchased this book to re-familiarize myself with the latest NEC codes. I can attest to this books value to those having a small or large electrical project and wish to install a safe installation.

Review by Office Fan:

This book (or its previous editions) has been invaluable to this do-it-yourself owner of four different homes over the years. With the book in one hand and tools in the other I have been able to rewire much of two older homes, newly wire finished basements in two others and completely rewire a remodelled kitchen (all up to the current code of the time). The material is well organized and presented in language understandable to the non-professional.

Review by Jonathan Huckabay:

This is a great basic kit for those who need all the basics. Tape, current detector, cutter, stripper, fuses, phillips and flat head screwdrivers, all sort of connectors and even some extra wire. This is something everyone needs at home just to fix basic stuff!

The only complaint that I have is that the wire cutting/stripping tool was kind of cheaply built but I have three really nice ones besides that so I do not care.

Review by Marc B. Willis:

This was a great little set. The box it came it was fine and the tools and pieces that came in the kit did the job. There is room to add items if you want and you can let someone borrow it with having to give them your good stuff. You should buy a few of these and place one in your car and one in your boat or RV.

Review by M. Gozum:

If Horowitz and Hill have got your perplexed [ISBN: 0521370957], you need to read Ashby first. Without a firm grasp of the fundamentals delved by Ashby, a reader could be very lost. This is a book you can read BEFORE an electronics course, to guide you through what could be a confusing maze. This book is not focused on design, but on a faster way to understand fundamentals in electronics by developing intuition and removing as much math jumble as possible. Included are chapters for dealing with EE management and other EE related companies.

This book is also exceedingly helpful for those in a non-Engineering track electronics courses, who maybe overwhelmed by the depth and audacity of a non-Engineering text like Horowitz and Hill.

Here are its key points:

Pros

Very easy to read, user friendly;

Easy to comprehend;

Key concepts summed as rules of thumb on a side bar [ I use all regularly since I graduated in 1980 to this very day];

Superb editing, I noticed but one typo p. 166 “Let’ss”;

Helps EE students focus on the essentials of key fundamental component function;

Broad audience, applicable to the technician level versus EE;

Touchy feely chapter works in many fields beyond EE;

Helpful tidbits in the EMI chapter were superb!

Cons

Not enough material to get a design together, some assumption one has tried design and knows some in-outs;

Need examples of a “putting it all together” using rules in sample design problems;

No surface mount tips for a book written for the 21st Century EE?

No catalog of manufacturers for construction?

No tips on free samples?

No tips on free evaluation boards?

In my view, the hallmark of a good electronics student is the capacity to design a working electronic device. True design skills gives students the insight to fix, alter, salvage or improve most anything made in electronics even if a student never ever builds a device from scratch ever, after graduation. However, the reverse is not true, a student raised on “fix-it” can not necessarily design.

Comments:

While praise is heaped on the LM324 as an historical op amp, I believe it was the LM741 that clearly made op amps the workhorse of analog design. Much has improved since in op amps, but understanding the 741 is to understand them all. The 324 was a popular chip due to single rail supply but the 741 set the specs to beat. No mention is made about the 555 timer, although one can always build a RC oscillator with just an op amp.

The CD:

The enclosed software is extremely useful, to me. However, its enclosed PCB123, a routing PC board designer, is more likely for EE 202 than 101. I think students need to learn to do layout by hand at least once, just as they need to know how to do math +/-*

functions by hand even if they use a calculator throughout life.

Filter Pro is also in the same vein, EE 202. Very useful software but not discussed much in the text. At least one type of each has to be designed by hand: hi, lo, bandpass, band reject from all passive, then to active, before contemplating automation.

Conclusion:

Although passive components and isolated op amp designs are less practical these days, it absolutely necessary to grasp the fundamentals of RLC to make any electronics as easy as 1-2-3, from Course 101 to 999. One must not be lost in details.

Ergo: Crawl before walk, even if running is all we really do in the real world we walk a lot too, and we can always crawl if we need to.

Review by Steven J. Marrano:

This is a great book because the author is taking basic theory and providing the reader with some good intuitive tools to gain a foothold on how components work.

Many textbook authors in the circuit analysis arena (or electrical engineering as a broader area) tend to do one of 3 things;

a) Over explain a concept until the reader loses track of what he is doing

b) Skip too many steps in showing the derivation of a formula or the solving of a problem.

c) Place more emphasis on the mathematics associated with specific problem rather than the problems significance.

The author clearly avoids these traps. His text is reminiscent of a bygone era where engineering books actually sought to explain concepts and their significance.

Review by A. L. MCNEAL:

Only go with 3M electrical tape if you are doing any electrical work. This product says itself it is only good to -10 degrees Celcius. They state it in Celcius because most people in America don’t use Celcius or understand Celcius. -10 in Celcius is +14 in Fahrenheit. So if you live where it gets 14 degrees you could have a problem.

Review by Ari Rosenbaum:

I found the tape to stick quite well and served the purpose I needed it for.

Review by :

We bought this hoping to get ideas for wiring our new house. With only this book we were able to wire our entire new house – from setting the power at the street – to wiring our well . Not only were we able to wire our entire house – it passed inspection on the first try with no corrections . A very valuable book for home owners and builders.

Review by :

This new (18th) edition of Practical Electrical Wiring is an excellent guide to basic (and also not-so-basic)residential, farm and commercial electrical wiring. It has been completely updated from the 17th edition, and reflects the latest changes in the 2002 National Electrical Code.The text covers an astonishing range of subjects, from the basics of volts and amperes to some very solid material on grounding, wiring methods, residential service, and conductor sizing.This book is quite different from the typical Sunset do-it-yourself guides that one picks up at Home Depot. It will not tell you how to rewire Aunt Sophie’s favorite lamp. It will tell you about residential branch circuits, overcurrent devices (fuses and circuit breakers), outlet and switch boxes, residential and nonresidential lighting, special appliance circuits, safety, wiring methods, electric motors, and a great deal more.It has an excellent section on how to modernize old work, including how to run wiring through ceilings, walls, and from floor-to-floor. And in case you’ve forgotten how, it also has a clear illustration of how to tie an Underwriter’s Knot (see page 355)!This really is an excellent book, obviously written by a person who has many years of practical experience and knows what he is talking about. It would serve well as a vocational school text and as a fine general reference book for the homeowner and for journeyman electrician.To round it out, it is well illustrated, has useful NEC ampacity and load tables in the appendices, and has a very comprehensive index.Recommended.