Beginner's Guide to Reading Schematics, Fourth Edition: Plantation Politics and the Making of the Democratic Party

A Good approach to learn how to begin with schematics.

I have purchased this book because of very good review rating. But, I have been strongly disappointed by its structure and level of detail in explanation of reading schematics. I would not recommend this book to any beginner in the field of electronics. It can be strongly discouraging.I consider myself an intermediate in reading and building of electrical circuits. That means, I am able to understand functionality and meaning of simple circuits and build some of the too. In practice, I am using book ,,Practical electronic for inventors,, without large difficulties. Despite of this, I am struggling with reading and understanding of more complex circuits. Therefore, I have seen this book as an opportunity to overcome this drawback.First two chapters are devoted to philosophy of reading schematics and block diagrams. I have to admit, that these chapters have been the most beneficial for me. The third chapter familiars the reader with symbols of the most common electrical components. So far so good. The chapters four and five are devoted to reading the schematics of the circuits. From simple ones to more complex ones. The approach of the author is based on the ,,follow the flow of current,, rule. This chapters should have taught the reader how to read the schematics and should have made him confident about explaining of their functionality. After reading of these two chapters I did not learn anything. On the other hand, I was feeling that If I were a beginner I would not understood anything about functionality of the more complex circuits. The reason is, that the author uses the ,,follow the flow of current,, rule. But that approach lacks the main point : The current flows only through places, where is a voltage. Therefore, in my opinion the voltage analysis should be considered first and the current is only consequence of its presence. In order to make this analysis seriously, it requires knowledge of basic properties of all used components. This means for example voltage drops on all leads of the transistor. Nothing like this is mentioned as far as I remember. These are the details, that are missing and disable the reader to understand thef functionality of the circuits properly.In chapter five, the author shows quite complex schematics and uses a bit advanced components like bipolar transistors and bridge rectifiers. In order to keep reader confident about using these components, there should be at least a few examples of their usage alone. But there are none. There should be as well much larger emphasis on analysis, at which circumstances a transistor opens and when it closes. Especially in the example with the oscillator on p. 99.A last nail to the cough is chapter six. The author familiars the reader with Kirchhoff`s laws. I consider this a major fault of the author. If he considers their introduction to the reader important, he should have done this somewhere between chapter three and four. Since the author uses them for analysis of the circuits in chapters four and five.The over-simplicity at the cost of level of detail and disorder of the chapters are reasons why I cannot recommend the third edition of this book. Hopefully, the fourth edition addresses these issues. But this could be done only at the cost of addition of 100 or 200 pages.

I will give this book two stars as a lot of effort went into the design and production. It is written with care but the reader is treated as a beginner that is afraid to advance. And the book doesn't help towards that.

Great book for the beginer, really easy read and interesting. Mr Gibilisco has definitely written this book with the novice in mind. I'll most likely get more of his books as I delevope my learning. Catch him on YouTube.

Not overly impressed could have been clearer.

Good book for understanding the circuits.