General Electronics Design Reference Book?
General Electronics Design Reference Book?
(OP)
Hey folks. I was wondering if you guys might have some suggestions for a electronics design reference book. I'm thinking of something along the lines of Shigley's "Mechanical Engineering Design," but for electronics.
A couple of my friends and I are looking at designing a better robotic lawnmower (thinking that there's money to be made in that area). Being mechanical, I have some basic circuit design training and a bit of programming and controls background, but no experience general electronic component design... a bit of theory, but not much practical application. I'm confident that we can put our heads together and figure out what we need, but a good reference or two or three would be indispensable.
That said, I was wondering if there might be any suggestions... other than "hire an electrical engineer"
. Thanks a ton!
A couple of my friends and I are looking at designing a better robotic lawnmower (thinking that there's money to be made in that area). Being mechanical, I have some basic circuit design training and a bit of programming and controls background, but no experience general electronic component design... a bit of theory, but not much practical application. I'm confident that we can put our heads together and figure out what we need, but a good reference or two or three would be indispensable.
That said, I was wondering if there might be any suggestions... other than "hire an electrical engineer"





RE: General Electronics Design Reference Book?
Even with the, "hire an electrical engineer," you'd need to be quite specific, as someone who is expert at traction motors and fans will most likely be not an expert at robotic controls and algorithms. Just the navigation and route planning system alone would be someone quite specialized. Obstacle avoidance might be a third person, etc.
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RE: General Electronics Design Reference Book?
If you have a really revolutionary idea - like a lawnmowing sphere with no wheels or something like that - you still had better sell the idea to a manufacturing and marketing company. Small scale production has no future. At least not when it comes to "luxury" items like automatic lawnmowers.
Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org
--------------------------------------
Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.
RE: General Electronics Design Reference Book?
TTFN
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RE: General Electronics Design Reference Book?
And unless you're willing to throw a lot of money (as in millions of $s) at it to eventually manufacture the entire thing, the real money would be in resale of the algorithms, the improved batteries, etc.
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: General Electronics Design Reference Book?
Trouble is... while a lawnmower is a mechanical device, the guidance systems are a sensing and programming challenge. A large company would employ a team of engineers from different disciplines to work on the different aspects of the design. But heck, I figure that if we put our heads together, we can figure it out well enough to build a prototype. A group of technical people can change the world, ya know?
That said, I find good references indispensable and wading through mediocre references isn't really what I want to spend my time doing. The "Standard Handbook for Electrical Engineers" and Horowitz' "Art of Electronics" look like great references... pretty much what I was hoping for. If anyone has any suggestions for good robotics texts, that would be extremely helpful as well. :)
I really think that robotics are the bleeding edge of technology right now. Machines can do things that couldn't be done even 20 years ago because of advanced control logic and faster, smaller, cheaper microprocessors. If there's anyplace where engineering advancements can be made that change the way people live, it's there. There's a real market opportunity for this sort of thing; if can do it better and cheaper than the competition, we win. If we can't... well, heck at least we were in the game.
RE: General Electronics Design Reference Book?
Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org
--------------------------------------
Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.
RE: General Electronics Design Reference Book?
If you're still looking at developing lawnmowers, then you might want to see if you can rent a few and see what their shortcomings and advantages are. Scoping the competition is de rigueur for any such endeavor.
TTFN
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize
RE: General Electronics Design Reference Book?
Here's one on-line: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Robotics
You can follow the endless links and spends weeks learning.
As already mentioned, the "electronics" aspect is a relatively minor (but critical) aspect to such a project. You need to know enough - for example - to provide clean power to the controller in a probably electrically noisy environment, or to provide reliable high power switching circuits. The rest is "just" computer-weenie interfacing.
I'll bet that most Robotics competitors (even the winners) know just enough electronics theory to get by.
RE: General Electronics Design Reference Book?
RE: General Electronics Design Reference Book?