Make: Electronics, 3rd Edition - Print

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Completely re-re-written with most photos and schematics replaced and updated, this latest iteration of Charles Platt's seminal beginner's guide to electronics continues the "learning through discovery" model for which it has been praised since the text was first published in 2009.

Make: Electronics, 3rd Edition explores the properties and applications of discrete components that are the fundamental building blocks of circuit design. Understanding resistors, capacitors, transistors, inductors, diodes, and integrated circuit chips is essential even when using microcontrollers. Make: Electronics teaches the fundamentals and also provides advice on the tools and supplies that are necessary.

Single-bus breadboards are now used throughout, diagrams rather than photographs show circuit placement, internal circuit illustrations have been redrawn for clarity, and an expanded focus on Arduino as the most popular microcontroller distinguish this third edition. Unchanged are the dry humor and clear explanations that have made this a best-selling book for over 10 years and counting. Get ready to burn things out and mess things up—because that's how you learn!

New Edition! Updated and Released Fall 2021

• Dice simulation has a unique new circuit and can run two die instead of one
• Burglar alarm is a new circuit with additional features
• Reaction timer is now easier to build and can be calibrated precisely
• Sound synthesizer now demonstrates the effects of coils and capacitors
• Audio amplifier is now much simpler and easier to build
• Additional timer circuits
• A new oscillator circuit
• New electromagnetism demonstrations
• Three completely new Arduino projects
• All schematics have been redrawn

Meet the Author

Charles Platt is a Contributing Editor and regular columnist for Make: Magazine, where he writes about electronics. He is the author of the highly successful introductory hands-on book, Make: Electronics, as well as Make: More Electronics, and the Encyclopedia of Electronic Components, volumes 1-3. 

Platt was a Senior Writer for Wired magazine, and has written various computer books. As a prototype designer, he created semi-automated rapid cooling devices with medical applications, and air-deployable equipment for first responders.

He was the sole author of four mathematical-graphics software packages, and has been fascinated by electronics since he put together a telephone answering machine from a tape recorder and military-surplus relays at age 15. He lives in a Northern Arizona wilderness area, where he has his own workshop for prototype fabrication and projects that he writes about for Make: