Rosco Bodine
Banned
Posts: 6370
Registered: 29-9-2004
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Mood: analytical
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LTspice/SwCAD III (freeware schematic capture / circuit analyzer)
I've looked at a few of these CAD / circuit analyzers
over time ....
as much as my patience with limited freewares,
crippled demos, and nagware would allow, being
too cheap / broke to pay the cost of Intusoft or similar ....
but hey , this program looks pretty damn good , and isn't
crippled , has fully working legs to walk ....
a solidly good freeware , currently supported ,
and recently updated just last week 
Get it here :
http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/switchercad.jsp
Anybody else familiar with this program ?
I like it .
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tumadre
Hazard to Others
Posts: 171
Registered: 10-5-2005
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I just downloaded it, I wasn't too impressed,
If you know how to use it, then of course you will get accurate results.
i have obtained Multisim, aka Electronics Workbench 9.0.41
I haven't even advanced from its interactive simulation... so complicated.
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Rosco Bodine
Banned
Posts: 6370
Registered: 29-9-2004
Member Is Offline
Mood: analytical
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| Quote: | Originally posted by tumadre
I just downloaded it, I wasn't too impressed,
If you know how to use it, then of course you will get accurate results. |
Ummm , yeah ....a free car isn't much good to you until you know how to drive it , or drive anything at all , figure out where all the controls are and what they do . It maybe should be a "no brainer" , but rarely turns out
to be that way .
| Quote: |
i have obtained Multisim, aka Electronics Workbench 9.0.41
I haven't even advanced from its interactive simulation... so complicated. |
Regarding LTspice ,
It's mainly a SMPS power supply and analog circuit oriented design tool , but it sure does a whole lot more . It is basically an unrestricted
customized and featurized GUI for Spice III kernel ......so whatever Spice III can do , so can LT spice ....
if I understand correctly . The trick to getting any modeled circuit to run a simulation is that aside from the usual supply and signal imputs , a
third "AC signal injector" source must be placed somewhere in the feedback loop as a "tickler" to modulate the circuits DC parameters . They call that
source "Vbode" , and absent its presence ...the simulator won't run the AC analysis . I've just been looking at it for a couple of days , and it
seems pretty intuitive ....have sucessfully gotten it to read and include third party spice models which are added to its library . It's not all
drag and drop , there are
some "dot commands" which have to be entered on the keyboard , like you would expect in something DOS based ...
and any old DOS or Linux head would catch on quickly ....but it isn't your fully buttoned GUI like a pure "Windows" application . It can't read your
mind absent any typed instruction for including third party models , but it does prcoceed 99% on mouse clicks alone Actually , because of the way Spice works ...this would necessarily be true for
any of the Spice based simulators , cheap or high end .
The "dot command line" function is involved for syntax needed for including imported third party spice models , basically not much more than a manual
file renaming and putting it in the programs library folder via copy and paste . But it does work and it isn't limited or crippled proprietary
stuff And best of all ..at free, the price is right for me 
About Electronics Workbench ,
Sharing is caring .....unless the proggie was custom compiled on a per license
basis with an embedded client
identifier which will come back to haunt you if you make an
"unauthorized redistribution" .....as some of the high end softwares are known to do Gotta watch those engineering types when it comes to software distribution licensing security on expensive programs It's like a
VIN identifier embedded in some of the high end programs .
Unless there is a clear threat of unleashing the hounds of copyright infringement hell perhaps there is some empty space on the ftp
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franklyn
International Hazard
Posts: 3026
Registered: 30-5-2006
Location: Da Big Apple
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useful freebees
http://web-ee.com/downloads/design_tools
http://web-ee.com/downloads/signal_processing
http://web-ee.com/downloads/calculators
http://web-ee.com/downloads/graph_paper
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