Inventors in the field of electronics are individuals who possess the knowledge, intuition, creativity, and technical know-how to turn their ideas into real-life electrical gadgets. It is my hope that this book will provide you with an intuitive understanding of the theoretical and practical aspects of electronics in a way that fuels your creativity.

Anumber of electronics books seem to throw a lot of technical formulas and theory at the reader from the start before ever giving the reader an idea of what a particular electrical device does, what the device actually looks like, how it compares with other devices similar to it, and how it is used in applications. If practical information is present, it is often toward the end of the chapter, and by this time, the reader may have totally lost interest in the subject or may have missed the “big picture,” confused by details and formulas. Practical Electronics for Inventors does not have this effect on the reader. Each chapter is broken up into sections with the essential practical information listed first. A typical chapterone on junction field-effect transistors (JFETs)is outlined below.

• Basic Introduction and Typical Applications (three-lead device; voltage applied to one lead controls current flow through the other two leads. Control lead draws

practically no current. Used in switching and amplifier applications.)

• Favors (n-channel and p-channel; n-channel JFET’s resistance between its conducting lead increases with a negative voltage applied to control lead; p-channel uses a positive voltage instead.)

• How the JFETs Work (describes the semiconductor physics with simple drawings and captions)

• JFET Water Analogies (uses pipe/plunger/according contraption that responds to water pressure)