Please help me 1

[Nam123]

Dear Sir/Madam,

I hope this message finds you well. I am currently a university student pursuing a degree in Control and Automation Engineering. I would like to seek advice from those who have at least had practical experience in this field, regarding a book titled "Electric Circuits," 10th edition, by James W. Nilsson and Susan Riedel. The contents of the book’s chapters are as follows:

1. Circuit Variables


2. Circuit Elements


3. Simple Resistive Circuits


4. Techniques of Circuit Analysis


5. The Operational Amplifier


6. Inductance, Capacitance, and Mutual Inductance


7. Response of First-Order RL and RC Circuits


8. Natural and Step Responses of RLC Circuits


9. Sinusoidal Steady-State Analysis


10. Sinusoidal Steady-State Power Calculations


11. Balanced Three-Phase Circuits


12. Introduction to the Laplace Transform


13. The Laplace Transform in Circuit Analysis


14. Introduction to Frequency Selective Circuits


15. Active Filter Circuits


16. Fourier Series


17. The Fourier Transform


18. Two-Point Circuits



My question is: Do I need to learn all the material from every chapter of this book in order to perform the tasks of a Control and Automation Engineer? Additionally, what steps should I take in my learning journey?

I sincerely appreciate any guidance or suggestions you can provide.

 

[Gr8blu]

As a minimum - yes, you should have a good grasp on all those topics.
You should also think about details on what electrical or mechanical processes or equipment the control and automation is supposed to handle - like electrical protection devices, compressors, fans, motion circuits (cranes, mills, drills, conveyors, propulsion, etc.), pumps, robotics, etc.

A short sample list from my own "library":
Stress Concentration Factors ~Peterson
Structure and Properties of Engineering Materials ~Brick, Pense, and Gordon
Modeling and High-Performance Control of Electric Machines ~Chiasson
Principles and Applications of Electrical Engineering ~Rizzoni
Machinery Analysis and Monitoring ~Mitchell
Mechanical Engineering Design ~Shigley
Electrical Transients in Power Systems ~Greenwood
Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain ~Roark
Mark's Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers ~Avallone, Baumeister, and Sadegh
Standard Handbook for Electrical Engineers ~Beatty and Fink


Converting energy to motion for more than half a century

 

[IRstuff]

Do I need to learn all the material from every chapter of this book in order to perform the tasks of a Control and Automation Engineer?

Uh, yeah, I think that's the point of going to college. Moreoever, for your chosen specialty, you'd also need solid classes in control theory, which could take a couple of classes.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[3DDave]

I like that YouTube has videos about most every industrial topic. While they may not have engineering explanations to go with them you can see from them the sorts of problems you will encounter and you will also not have someone giving you an engineering explanation for what is happening.

Two that I think would be helpful are Big Clive's channel and South Main Auto.

Both mainly center on diagnosis and reverse engineering to figure out how, mainly, electrical and electromechanical things work and the process they use to determine if what they are seeing matches the documentation they have as well as to trace which components are involved and what they do is valuable.

Big Clive's are 15-20 minutes and South Main Auto are 20-60 minutes. I watch both at 1.25X to save time.

Both take things apart, South Main Auto usually puts things back together.

In addition to seeing their approach to diagnosis, ask what you would do as a designer or manufacturer of the item that would have avoided the problem in the first place or made the diagnosis quicker or more direct. I'd recommend making a notebook and writing by hand and making diagrams to get used to working where there won't be a place to set a computer. I know, I am old. But having to think about the effort of writing engages memory in a way that snapping a shot with a smart phone does not. When going to job interviews, you can take that notebook to show your progress, something a smart phone won't do.

 

[IRstuff]

For Youtube, there's also

https://www.youtube.com/@pnachtwey

who tends to be a bit pedantic, yet extremely knowledgeable in the area of control theory and spends quite a bit of energy on PID, which is the default method for industrial feedback controls and servos.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm