electronics-industry

Most of info on electronics is out of date in this book, don't waste your money.

10 years is a long time in high technology, and alarms sytems are based on high technology. So this book is now of mainly historical interest and for background reading.

Compounding this issue for non-UK residents, is the fact that the book was written in the UK, by a UK engineer about UK alarm sytems. These differ quite significantly from those used in the USA. There are different regulatory standards and quite different customs and practices.

When published, the book was an exceptionally useful volume and it highlighted for me the mystery of why there was no equivalent in the USA, nor is there today. Mr. Cumming should update his book and someone in the US should take it as a model for a book about US alarm systems.

My recommendation on this book is this is very old book. It describes the very basic features and technology which you could learn on web without spending any money at all. Even this book does not describe the Frames and fields, and nor discussing at all about the digital video servers.

Not recommending at all to buy it.

The CE Marking Handbook offers a loving philosophical defense of the European Community's (EC's) ideas on product safety, but little in the way of practical resources needed by people who have to sell products in the EC which comply with the appropriate safety standards. After several hours of reading, I had gleaned virtually no useful information, and was ready to send the book to the circular file. The book's organization is obscure and confusing, and the prose more like a novel than a handbook; a difficult and confusing read. The book has a glaring lack of the SPECIFIC, DETAILED, product requirements for the EC (not a single safety standard, nor even a summary of a standard, is printed in the book, as far as I can tell) and a mountain of non-sense about the differences between US and EC safety values. WHO CARES?! Readers who would consider buying this book need help, not moralizing lectures on safety philosophy. Don't waste your time and money, buy something else. I am going to have to.

This book does not clearly state the subject matter in the title. If you are only interested in identifying the manufacturer, this is the book. For those like me who were looking for a true "Component Identifier" this book fails. Determining, for example, the type of capacitor you are holding in your hand and reading the value as stamped on it, would more clearly describe a "Component Identifier".

First of all, this book is overpriced. 45 dollars for 155 pages of actual book text (minus the index, etc) is ridiculous. Yes, I saw that it was a small book in the description, but I hoped that the content would be dense and useful...it was not.

This book was copyrighted in 2001, yet there isn't even a mention of HIPAA or ASCA. This book is best described as an advertisment for the use of EDI. It rambles on & on about how great EDI is (yes, we know that) but never gets into any meat about standards, communications, formats, etc.

Save your 45 bucks...it would be better spent on beer...

Only if there was a preview/some kind of introduction of the book, I could have bought it and then maybe written a review. With only the title, you gave me no choice but to put it back in the bookshelf.

The conclusion drawn from the research run by Davis/Brewer, that electronic communication has both attributes of oral and written language is irrelevant, I guess, for most of today's electronic communication. The experiment performed by Davis/Brewer was in my opinion artificial (has anyone heard about mainframe software conferencing VAXNotes??) and has hardly anything to do with the way we use email / chatrooms / blogs, which were not yet there at that time (around 1990).
Therefore, I find this book's title overhyped and misleading, the content being far from issues of computer mediated communication and virtuality. On the positive side, authors have sound knowledge of today's linguistic theories. It is only hardcore linguists, who may somehow profit from this book. Anyone else should get an excellent Sherry Turkle's "Life on the Screen" instead.

How is it possible to write a review of this expencive book. An enose-student could not afford it. :-) Such book should be written for students who wants to bring the enose research one step ahead!

Bernie Matisoff has probably forgotten more about electronics manufacturing than I'll know, but in his 1997 3rd edition of "Handbook Of Electronics Manufacturing Engineering" by Chapman & Hall (ISBN 0-412-08611-5) the things I don't like far out-weigh the things I like. And the good things don't justify spending from $50 to over $100 for the text, depending on the seller.

My main complaints about "Handbook Of Electronics Manufacturing Engineering" are:

•Material is:

- Irrelevant. -Dated / out-of-date. -Incomplete. -Arguably incorrect. -Missing.

•Author offers guidelines, but provides no back-up on the use or development of the guideline. Two examples on page 410 are:

-"All component bodies should be a minimum of 0.200 in. (inch?) from the edge of the printed circuit board." This distance varies according to the process equipment used and is not necessarily constant on all edges of the board. -"During the design stage care should be taken to avoid ..." but never gives remedies for avoiding these problems.

•It's loaded with those old fuzzy drawings that look like someone "cut and pasted" them from an old military spec.

IRRELEVANT MATERIAL

•It's unclear how "proofreader" job descriptions (pages 25 - 35) relate to the areas of involvement of an electronics manufacturing engineer. •TQM is included, but ISO-9000 isn't mentioned. TQM is a "fad," ISO-9000 is fact of life in electronics manufacture.

DATED / OUT-OF-DATE MATERIAL

•The chart on page 36 is dated "6 Jan 65." • Obsolete US military and US Federal QQ documents are referenced. • Three of four soldering irons pictured on page 189 are ancient and rarely, if ever, used in electronic manufacturing today. •The "new Military Standard MIL-STD-2000" (page 225) was obsolete prior to the publishing date of the book. •The chapter on designing a "Static Safe Work Environment" is woefully out of date. There has been a tremendous amount of work done since the most recent reference that is dated 1978.

INCOMPLETE MATERIAL

•The chart on page 36 doesn't have "operation/transport/inspection/delay/storage" activity symbols classified. •Pliers shown on page 164 are the most fundamental tools used for forming component leads, but nowhere is mention of using: templates or forms, or higher volume manual, semi-automated, and automated methods for forming component leads. •Wave soldering on page 170 doesn't discuss different fluxing methods or inerted soldering. It doesn't discuss hot bar, reflow, or laser soldering. •Wire stripping methods on page 189 fail to mention chemical stripping. •The chapter on "Soldering" states a requirement for saponifed cleaning, but never describes the process or its requirements. •The chapter on "Total Quality Management" is superficial compared to the detail in earlier chapters, such as the discussion on time studies. "Should this chapter even be in this text??" Is probably the pertinent point. •The chapter on "Chemical Bonding" doesn't not discuss either thermally or electrically conductive adhesives. •The chapter on designing a "Static Safe Work Environment" is missing material on monitoring requirement, including checking wrist strap operation; static dissipative flooring; and training. •The chapter on safety has check-lists that seem to Xeroxed from OSHA publications with no effort to tailor them for electronic manufacturing.

ARGUABLY INCORRECT MATERIAL

• Very few companies would allow the 0.062 (inch??) lead protrusion indicated on page 171. •IPC-A-610 allows the condition the bottom image on page 182. •Files should not be used to dress soldering iron tips as indicated on page 264. •Page 276 suggests removing gold plating with a typewriter eraser. •Few people solder at "250°C for 10 seconds or longer" (page 419). 220°C for 10 seconds is by far the most common peak reflow zone. •Page 410 states "For assemblies designed for wave soldering applications, the long axes of the components should be perpendicular to the direction of travel." This is true for chip SMT components, but untrue for SO packages.

MISSING MATERIAL

•There is no discussion of the processes for manual, semi-automated, or automated assembly of:

-Through hole components. -Surface mount components.

•Missing chapters are:

-Design for manufacture. - Statistical process control. -Design of experiments. -Equipment evaluation, justification, purchase, and qualification. -Environmental management.

•And Chapter 14 is so superficial that the topic of surface mount should be considered missing. Examples are:

- Component pitch and its process implications. -No array packages are presented. -Direct die attach is not discussed. -Intrusive reflow is not touched-upon. -Solder paste and stencil design is not mentioned. -Oven profiling and control are left-out.

•Missing from the "safety chapter" are:

-Blood borne pathogen hazards. -Unbelievably, hazards of lead and lead-oxides. -Lockout / tagout requirements for machinery. -Hazardous material labeling requirements.

•Reference tables have obsolete through hole package outline drawings, but not a single surface mount component package outline drawing.

This book is more oriented toward small business startups in general, and doesn't provide enough specifics on details facing high tech startups. I didn't learn anything new from it.