Fundamentals of Electric Circuits 4th Edition

I reviewed this book and other books through less reputable sites. The other books quickly proved frustrating. This book proved to in general to an excellent job explaining concepts through detailed explanations instead quickly glossing over things assuming you should know certain things. I liked it so much I bought a physical copy, nothing beats actually having the book. I also liked that it was low on typos, so far I've only noticed one or two instead too often in other books. Those typos really get you in that you second guess yourself or try to learn things wrong to justify the answer if you aren't careful. So if you're in over your head in your class, check out this book, the 4th edition is one edition old, but still solid and because it isn't the current edition you can get it at a great price. I ended up buy a second one to keep from lugging it between where I go, the book is so nice I bought it twice.

Compared to Nilsson and Riedel, this linear circuits text makes it fun to learn! The schematics and diagrams are attractive and memorable. Circuit diagrams are colored coded which help the novice separate the circuit components into different types and functionality. Nilsson uses all black lines which to me are not definitive enough. The authors' descriptions of common analog components such as the resistor, capacitor, inductor, and voltage sources are interesting and help supplement the macroscopic perspective used in solving and understanding linear circuit problems. The problem sets become a little repetitive after awhile but certainly reinforce the concepts. The math involved with solving large sets of simultaneous linear equations by hand quickly becomes cumbersome. I highly recommend a programmable/graphing calculator or mathematics software like MatLab to help solve problems. Helpful appendices are included on trigonometry, complex numbers, and matrices/linear algebra. I highly recommend this text to engineering students.

I actually sold this version for the latest version of this textbook, but it's almost identical save for a few differences (a few changed chapter problems, etc.). It is excellent: each chapter discusses the concepts in great detail, and the examples it provides are interactive enough for any learning student to grasp the concepts.Example problems within the chapters have their answers included so that you can make sure you're doing things correctly. All in all, this is a good textbook.

I recently had to review electric circuits 20+ years after taking my circuits courses in college, and began working my way through this book (4th edition). I soon found that it was not enough, and had to buy a second textbook (Nilsson and Riedel, “Electric Circuits,” 8th edition) to understand concepts which were not well-explained in FEC. The Nilsson & Riedel text is less rigorous and 150 pages shorter with no support for Pspice or Matlab, but the explanations are sometimes better; also the chapter organization is nearly identical, so that you can easily switch between the two texts. I also used Shaum’s “Basic Circuit Analysis (2nd edition),” which has brief but very understandable explanations of circuit concepts along with well-explained worked examples.Although excellent in its integration of Pspice and Matlab techniques, including lengthy appendices which show how to apply Pspice and Matlab to AC circuits, FEC is not enough if you are studying electric circuits on your own, for two reasons. One reason is that explanations can often be minimal, with the result that you have to read the text very carefully (and maybe many times) to decipher what the authors are saying; in particular, the authors skip steps both in derivations and in solved problems, and it can be very difficult to figure out what has been done. The other reason is that many of the practice problems within the chapters are overly difficult and leave you with a feeling of frustration and discouragement, rather than confidence that you understand the preceding material. (Nilsson and Riedel’s “Assessment Problems” are almost as bad in this regard.) It would probably be fine as a classroom text where you have an instructor or TA to answer questions.FEC is organized so that each section of text is followed by a worked-out example problem and then a practice problem with the answer provided. About half of the practice problems are straightforward applications of the methods in the preceding text and the example problem. However, a third to a half of the practice problems require a technique different from the example problem, are more difficult than the practice problem, and sometimes provide an incorrect answer (which is really unforgivable).If you’re studying circuits with FEC on your own, I’d advise at least getting a copy of Shaum’s “Basic Circuit Analysis (2nd edition),” which is is indispensable for solving more complicated circuit analysis problems, although it does not cover Laplace and Fourier transforms. You should also consider getting a second textbook, such as Nilsson and Riedel. Neither of these textbooks is adequate by itself, but their strengths and weaknesses are often complementary, so what you don’t understand in one text may be better explained in the other. (One exception: the chapters on the Fourier series and the Fourier transform are very hard to follow in both books because of unexplained steps in explanations and worked examples, so if you need to study these topics, you’ll be better off using a Signal Processing textbook.)

Because the packaging was torn apart and water got inside of it, the book was slightly damaged. However, the book covers material needed for a mechancial engineering student who is studying electric circuits.

This book I needed for school and Amazon is always a great place to buy books for school at a bit cheaper price than you will find out the bookstore. Needless to say I passed the class and I still have this book since I am an engineer decided to keep all my engineering books.

I order this thing long time a go and i just got it !! I really forgot about it and when i got it i notice that it has a crack in the middle cause of the shopping i think ...

My college unfortunately uses the Nilsson/Riedel text book, and I was very frustrated from this. I searched online and found this book, and have been very satisfied with it. It explains the material in much more detail, and has plenty of examples. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone pursuing an electrical/computer engineering degree.