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Electronics All-in-One For Dummies PDF

867 Pages·2012·77.25 MB·English
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Electronics ALL-IN-ONE FOR DUMmIES‰ Electronics ALL-IN-ONE FOR DUMmIES‰ by Doug Lowe Electronics All-in-One For Dummies® Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permit- ted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www. wiley.com/go/permissions. Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trade- marks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITH- OUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZA- TION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ. For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Not all content that is available in standard print versions of this book may appear or be packaged in all book formats. If you have purchased a version of this book that did not include media that is referenced by or accom- panies a standard print version, you may request this media by visiting http://booksupport.wiley. com. For more information about Wiley products, visit us www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Control Number: 2011945574 ISBN 978-0-470-14704-7 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-15883-8 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-15928-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-15929-3 (ebk) Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 About the Author When Doug Lowe was 10 years old, his father gave him an electronics experimenter’s kit that started a life-long love of all things electronic. As a child, he dreamed of becoming an electrical engineer. But he soon discovered that he loved writing as much as he loved electronics, and his first technical book was published in 1981. Since then, he has written more than 100. All of those books have been about one specific corner of the electronics world: computers. But now he has finally written a book about his first love, the joy of designing and building electronic circuits from scratch. Doug lives in sunny Fresno, California, where the motto is “Fres-YES!,” (unfortunately, I’m not making that up). The fruits of his electronic passions can often be seen around the Halloween season, in the form of animated computer-controlled Halloween decorations that rival Disney’s Haunted Mansion. Dedication My grandpa had a wonderful workshop behind his home. It was cramped and cold in the winter, and smelled of machine oil, stale coffee, aged rubber, and damp wood — like an ancient hardware store clinging to life down the road from a giant Big Box store. It was there that I began a lifelong love of electronics, as my grandpa tried to explain the mystery of electricity and taught me how to use a soldering iron, read a voltmeter, and test a questionable vacuum tube. In the spring of 1970, he showed up at my house with a trailer full of everything an 11-year-old boy could possibly need to create his own electronics lab. The trailer was stacked high with broken radios and box after box filled with tools and spare parts: vacuum tubes, soldering irons, condensers, volt meters, resistors, tube testers, and tuning capacitors. I can still remember the look on my dad’s face when he saw that trailer full of junk pull up in front of our house, hitched to the back of grandpa’s old Buick. I was in heaven. I think my dad may have been somewhere else. But he helped unload the trailer, and then he built me an amazing workbench with enough shelves and drawers to store everything and more. This book is dedicated to the memory of my grandpa, Kenneth D. Lowe Sr., and to my dad, Kenneth D. Lowe, Jr. To my grandfather, for giving me an amazing gift buried in a trailer full of junk. And to my dad, for letting me keep it. Author’s Acknowledgments First, I’d like to thank Katie Feltman for giving me the opportunity to write this book. We’ve talked about doing something like this for years, and I was so delighted when she called me to discuss this project. I am especially grateful for her patience as deadlines came and went. Next, I’d like to thank Christopher Morris, not only for doing such an incredible job as project editor on this long project, but also giving me the encouragement and support I needed along the way. Thanks also to Kirk Kleinschmidt, who gave the book a great technical review and offered many excellent suggestions not only on purely technical considerations but also on the presentation of complex material. And thanks to Heidi Unger, who as usual did a great job whipping my prose into shape, crossing all the i’s and dotting all the t’s, or something like that. And, of course, thanks to all the behind-the-scenes people who chipped in with help I’m not even aware of. I’d also like to thank my niece, Miranda Chapman, for allowing me to jumpstart her modeling career by using her beautiful image to illustrate the internal structure of the atom. Finally, I’d like to thank a few others who made important contributions: Jon Williams and John Barrowman of EFX-TEK for providing the prop controllers used in several of the chapters; Light-O-Rama for providing the lighting controller used in Chapter 3 of Book VIII; and my good friend Dave Youngs, who parted with a very fine 100mm macro lens for the duration of the project. Publisher’s Acknowledgments We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following: Acquisitions, Editorial, and Composition Services Vertical Websites Project Coordinator: Katherine Crocker Senior Project Editor: Christopher Morris Layout and Graphics: Carrie A. Cesavice, Senior Acquisitions Editor: Katie Feltman Cheryl Grubbs, Joyce Haughey, Mark Pinto, Corrie Socolovitch Copy Editors: Heidi Unger, Kathy Simpson Proofreaders: Lauren Mandelbaum, Technical Editor: Kirk Kleinschmidt Evelyn Wellborn Editorial Manager: Kevin Kirschner Indexer: BIM Indexing & Proofreading Services Vertical Websites Project Manager: Laura Moss-Hollister Vertical Websites Assistant Project Manager: Jenny Swisher Vertical Websites Associate Producers: Josh Frank, Marilyn Hummel, Douglas Kuhn, Shawn Patrick Editorial Assistant: Amanda Graham Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case Cover Photos: © istockphoto.com / Rudyanto Wijaya Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com) Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director Publishing for Consumer Dummies Kathleen Nebenhaus, Vice President and Executive Publisher Composition Services Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

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