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 - Electronics parts are plentiful on the webMusic girl stated that the book contains hard to find parts...not sure if she means older outdated parts or simply because radio shack and other electronics stores are no longer serving electronics hobbyists. There are many web resources for electronics parts. Some with small minimum order requirements. Mouser, electronics express, digi-key are three of the ones I use. Please search the net for electronic components. If you are serious about the hobby these larger electronics companies will serve you well. The companies above also have print catalogs they will mail you which is handy for seeing their product lines and they also have very good online ordering sites. Rating: - great, EXCEPT...This book suffers from the same problem all 80's Mims books suffer from: difficult-to-obtain parts. Gone are the days when you could pop down to your local Radio Shack and choose from a wall of components. Nevertheless, this book has some interesting projects. Rating:  - Interesting little circuits that can easily be expandedThis is a pretty interesting entry in Forrest Mims' Engineering Notebook series. In this short book Mims introduces the reader to circuits that convert physical phenomena such as light, temperature, and sound into electrical signals that can be processed by circuits comprised of commonly found electronic parts such as the 741 op-amp. Mims includes brief explanations of the operation of a variety of sensors and then uses these sensors to build small useful circuits. He includes construction notes and a theory of operation for each circuit. Mims includes such interesting circuits as those that detect the cursor on your computer screen and the position of a compass needle. As far as their usefulness, that is really up to the imagination of the reader once he or she gets these smaller circuits working as to what larger task they would like to employ them in. As with most of Mims' books, his circuits do seem to work the first time and you can't beat the price. A very interesting addition to your electronics library assuming you already have a basic understanding of electronics and circuit construction methods. Rating: - Neat little projects to help you learn.The projects are interesting and fun. You can learn things from this book, but will certainly need to know some foundations and basics first. Other books serve that purpose, however. This isn't meant to be complex or a book to learn those things, of course.
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