Basic Electrical Repair Reference Books

scotth

New Member
Looking to teach myself how to repair old stereo equipment. Can anyone suggest some good reference manuals or books for beginners? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
You mean electronics repair.
Electrical repair is a different sort of thing.

I took me about 5 years to get half ass good at it by reading and practicing. I am about 3/4 ass good now. I will never learn it all.
 
FWIW, electronics books teach what things are and how they work and circuit math.

They do not teach you how things break, how things act when things are broken, how to find what’s broken, how to use meters and scopes, how to desolder and solder, etc..,

Electronics tech is a career but the techs now are doing board level replacement on crap and the stuff we like is old school. The parts are obsolete and the “real” world mostly thinks we’re wasting our time on “that old thing”.

It’s not like mechanical DIY at all.
There is no “Stereo Depot” like Home Depot.

It is now a rare hobby/skill/art to own and maintain and repair this stuff.

Because so many people think it should all be dirt cheap at a yard sale or thrift store and work well, there is little demand for vintage repair techs so no reason to get into the business.

The old techs are getting old and fading away.
Many of the hobby techs even around here are not interested in custom repair.

I learned because I wanted to and had stuff I want to keep and enjoy and I hate to see nice stuff go to scrap because no one can fix.

Since I didn’t intend to become a tech, I tended not to invest in tools and parts but over the years it built up. It would take $1000-$2000 to rebuild most of my bench and inventory.

Fixing is a lost skill these days.

I work with techs and EE at SpaceX.
They have no clue how to work on vintage.
So far, I have not met an EE that can fix period.
That’s not what they do.
 
There are very few good references on vintage repair. I find a general knowledge of electronics goes a long ways. You can't go far wrong reading every application note Jim Williams wrote, maybe starting with this one- https://www.edn.com/design/diy/4353935/Be-it-ever-so-high-tech-there-s-no-place-like-home He's thinking about design, but most of the same creature comfort factors apply to repair.

His books, plus the Bob Pease book, Troubleshooting Analog Circuits are good references. They're a bit advanced if you don't have electronics background, but IMO there's no substitute for just jumping in and understanding the analog design mindset. I'm not a huge fan of The Art of Electronics, but if you don't have some electronics background it can be a good reference that covers almost everything.

Once you've got some background, you can concentrate on how and why things go wrong, what happens as parts and connections age and how to confirm that a part is good or bad.

I've written some stuff here- http://www.conradhoffman.com/troubleshoottut.htm but it's far from complete.
 
These are never far -

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I've never read this one but it's been recommended to me many times over the years. One of those doing so was an EE design head at Analog Devices -

https://makezine.com/2011/01/22/there-are-no-electrons-book-review/
 
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