Any good beginner's guides to electrical engineering?

[markeconrad]

I want to make/hack some stuff like USB controller ports, etc. But I know next to nothing about the innards of electronic devices. Schematics and the like confuse the hell outta me. So I'm looking for some good beginner's guides to that kind of stuff. Anyone know of anything good?

[fvgazi]

This one's a bit pricey, but it's a good introduction for the "know-nothings" and explains a lot of basic theory well.
http://www.makershed.com/product_p/9780596153748.htm

Searching amazon for similar books may help too, but their most likely won't be anything on just video game controllers. Many people in modding communities have posted pinouts and their homemade circuits (without using schematics!) all over the internet. Some sites which may help you along include our own forum member, Bacteria.
http://moddedbybacteria.wordpress.com/
http://www.jamma-nation-x.com/jammax/

Great site for theory, but can be too technical for absolute beginner.
http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/index.html

I got my start by just doing mods to the best of my ability that I found on the internet. I did not know anything besides following pictures and how to solder a little bit.

There is also A LOT of great videos on youTube regarding basic electronics.
Here's some of my favorite channels.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Afrotechmods
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDE23FAC8A681FA46
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL970BF3F6D77B12E8

Schematics will confuse you until you read up and learn what they do. Honestly, the best way to do this stuff is just get into it and starting breaking crap. You'd be surprised how often things work out if you are just patient and think things out once you've grasped basic knowledge.

[Drakon]

Truthfully there's loads of stuff out there and if you have a computer with internet access it's all right at your fingertips. A few years ago I was the same as you I couldn't really read a schematic and I knew nothing about console modding. I just used google and typed in the things I wanted to learn about and taught myself. There's a lot of great "gold" information out there but some of it you have to search really hard for especially obscure older japanese electronics that nobody really understands how a lot of it works. Anytime I found something I didn't understand I thought to myself "okay, let's learn how to understand this and just take my time figuring it out". I had to use a lot of google translate from japanese websites to find information I was looking for about the hardware. It is possible to learn about these things you just need to have the passion and the patience. There's no "one stop has it all" website that will give you all the answers all the information is spread around the internet so you have to go looking for it. Even on my forum I get a lot of people asking me for details and I tell them to go look on google.

In conclusion I think the best way to learn is by using google to lookup specific information and asking professional modders any questions that google probably will never have answers for.

[markeconrad]

Cool, thanks both of you.