Free electronics simulation software

C

Carl

Guest
There is a free electronics circuit simulator available called
CircuitLogix. Check it out. It is quite amazing. The website for
the free electronics simulation software is www.CircuitLogix.com.

Carl
 
"Carl" <cds142@hotmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1176943082.272627.245800@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
There is a free electronics circuit simulator available called
CircuitLogix. Check it out. It is quite amazing. The website for
the free electronics simulation software is www.CircuitLogix.com.

Carl
Click to expand...

Hello Carl,

You forgot to mention that it is only licensed for students
or have I wrongly understood their license agreement?

Best regards,
Helmut
 
On Apr 19, 12:12 am, "Helmut Sennewald" <helmutsennew...@t-online.de>
wrote:
"Carl" <cds...@hotmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitragnews:1176943082.272627.245800@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...

There is a free electronics circuit simulator available called
CircuitLogix. Check it out. It is quite amazing. The website for
the free electronics simulation software iswww.CircuitLogix.com.

Carl

Hello Carl,

You forgot to mention that it is only licensed for students
or have I wrongly understood their license agreement?

Best regards,
Helmut
Click to expand...
Hi Helmut,

As I understand it, they are taking a very liberal approach to the
term "student". If you are using it at home or in the office for your
own purposes (ie self-study) it is no problem to download it.

Carl
 
"Carl" <cds142@hotmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1176998369.385957.91000@b75g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
On Apr 19, 12:12 am, "Helmut Sennewald" <helmutsennew...@t-online.de
wrote:
"Carl" <cds...@hotmail.com> schrieb im
Newsbeitragnews:1176943082.272627.245800@n76g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...

There is a free electronics circuit simulator available called
CircuitLogix. Check it out. It is quite amazing. The website for
the free electronics simulation software iswww.CircuitLogix.com.

Carl

Hello Carl,

You forgot to mention that it is only licensed for students
or have I wrongly understood their license agreement?

Best regards,
Helmut

Hi Helmut,

As I understand it, they are taking a very liberal approach to the
term "student". If you are using it at home or in the office for your
own purposes (ie self-study) it is no problem to download it.

Carl
Click to expand...

Hello Carl,
the text below is the original text from their webpage.
It's very restrictive. They not only insist on on beeing a student,
they also want the name of your teacher.
I wonder what you have read there.
Maybe my English is too bad to understand that. :)

Best regards,
Helmut

---
The student version of CircuitLogix electronics lab simulation is available
free of charge to any student studying electronics through an educational
institution. This edition of CircuitLogix was created especially to provide
students with free access to one of the best resources available for
learning electronics.
---
 
"Helmut Sennewald" <helmutsennewald@t-online.de> wrote in message
news:f085vt$4vr$02$1@news.t-online.com...
the text below is the original text from their webpage.
It's very restrictive. They not only insist on on beeing a student,
they also want the name of your teacher.
Click to expand...
They also specifically disallow schools to deploy it, e.g., network wide!

With their current restrictions, I can't see anyone who *knows* about, e.g.,
LTSpice, actually using their product.
 
On Apr 19, 1:15 pm, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesS...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
"Helmut Sennewald" <helmutsennew...@t-online.de> wrote in message

news:f085vt$4vr$02$1@news.t-online.com...

the text below is the original text from their webpage.
It's very restrictive. They not only insist on on beeing a student,
they also want the name of your teacher.

They also specifically disallow schools to deploy it, e.g., network wide!

With their current restrictions, I can't see anyone who *knows* about, e.g.,
LTSpice, actually using their product.
Click to expand...

Hi Joel,

LTSpice is pretty good for analog simulation, but CircuitLogix
provides both analog and digital simulation.

Carl
 
Carl <cds142@hotmail.com> wrote:
: LTSpice is pretty good for analog simulation, but CircuitLogix
: provides both analog and digital simulation.

Boy! It looks like a "pile on Carl" thread! Somewhat deserved, too,
since he's obviously a shill for CircuitL*gix.

LTSpice does some digital simulation also, much more than normal
SPICE. I'll let the champions of LTSpice elaborate on this point.

My question about CircuitL*gix is: what type of digitial simulation?
Can it read Verilog or VHDL netlists and do so-simulation with SPICE
netlists? Or does it just have a few "digial" circuit elements
("and", "or", "not", a DFF, and a counter or two)? If it's the
latter, then it does about the same thing as LTSpice (or less).
Nothing to get excited about.

If it's the former (i.e. Verilog/VHDL), then is that available in the
freebie student edition?

And what about handling Verilog-AMS? There are so many free SPICE
simulators out there nowadays (both open and closed source) that
CircuitL*gix seems like a "me too" product about 5 years late to the
party unless it can handle Verilog-AMS, or do something similarly
novel.

Stuart
 
On Apr 23, 11:02 am, Stuart Brorson <s...@cloud9.net> wrote:
Carl <cds...@hotmail.com> wrote:

: LTSpice is pretty good for analog simulation, but CircuitLogix
: provides both analog and digital simulation.

Boy! It looks like a "pile on Carl" thread! Somewhat deserved, too,
since he's obviously a shill for CircuitL*gix.

LTSpice does some digital simulation also, much more than normal
SPICE. I'll let the champions of LTSpice elaborate on this point.

My question about CircuitL*gix is: what type of digitial simulation?
Can it read Verilog or VHDL netlists and do so-simulation with SPICE
netlists? Or does it just have a few "digial" circuit elements
("and", "or", "not", a DFF, and a counter or two)? If it's the
latter, then it does about the same thing as LTSpice (or less).
Nothing to get excited about.

If it's the former (i.e. Verilog/VHDL), then is that available in the
freebie student edition?

And what about handling Verilog-AMS? There are so many free SPICE
simulators out there nowadays (both open and closed source) that
CircuitL*gix seems like a "me too" product about 5 years late to the
party unless it can handle Verilog-AMS, or do something similarly
novel.

Stuart
Click to expand...
Hi guys,

Well, I give up. Accusing me of being a shill for CircuitLogix is too
much. To answer your question, Stuart, yes it does do co-simulation
with SPICE and it can read VHDL.

Carl

p.s. I am a design engineer with Motorola and I also work as an
adjunct professor at Texas A&M. I could care less about whether you
download a free version of CircuitLogix, I was more interested in
sharing some good news about free simulation. Obviously, I shouldn't
have bothered.
 
: Well, I give up. Accusing me of being a shill for CircuitLogix is too
: much.

Well, no offense intended. Sorry!

: p.s. I am a design engineer with Motorola and I also work as an
: adjunct professor at Texas A&M.

Bully for you!

: I could care less about whether you
: download a free version of CircuitLogix, I was more interested in
: sharing some good news about free simulation. Obviously, I shouldn't
: have bothered.

We are leery of folks posting "look at this great new free
tool" messages here since free tools from commerical vendors usually
have strings attached [1]. The classic examples are ExpressPCB, which
offers free design/layout software, but locks you into a proprietary
output file format usable only at ExpressPCB; and Eagle, whose free
version is wildly popular with students, but is essentially crippled
since it limits you to two layers and a fairly small board area. Once
you bump up against the limits of the freebie Eagle, you've got to pay
for the full-up version [2].

FWIW, there are lots of freebie and open-source simulators of various
flavors out there, including:

LTSpice -- closed source SPICE with integrated schematic capture.
Totally rocks!
http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/

ngspice -- open source SPICE 3f5. Still uses a CLI, and not as
optimized as LTSpice, but it works.
http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/

GnuCap -- Analog simulator with internal engine a generation or two
ahead of regular SPICE. Open source.
Can do event-driven simulation as
well as continuous time. Still uses CLI, and can read
SPICE netlists (with some caveats).
http://www.gnucap.org/

QUCS -- A spiffy new GUI-based simulation environment which claims
to do all kinds of simulation. Open source.
Incorporates schematic
capture front end. I believe they have some work to do
until it's complete.
http://qucs.sourceforge.net/

Icarus Verilog --
Excellent Verilog open-source simulator run from the
command line. Used with GTKWave for waveform viewing, it's
a powerful tool for Verilog design.
http://icarus.com/eda/verilog/
http://home.nc.rr.com/gtkwave/

Alliance VHDL --
French university project providing a chip design tool
suite. Includes VHDL simulator. I've never used it so
I know very little about it.
http://www-asim.lip6.fr/recherche/alliance//

TkGate -- GUI based logic simulator. More of an eductional tool than
a professional design tool, but it's cool nonetheless.
Open-source.
http://www.tkgate.org/

PSpice -- Years ago PSpice 6.x from MicroSim was downloadable off the
web for free. Is it still around?

Tina -- TI's simulation program. Version 7 is a free download. Is
it some kind of "me too" response to LTSpice? I haven't
used it.
http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/tina-ti.html

Besides these, there's also MyHDL, PyHDL, FreeHDL, regular Spice3f5,
and plenty of other free simulators out there available on the
web. And don't get me started on schematic capture, layout tools,
or chip design editors!

You can follow the open-source EDA tool space here:

http://www.opencollector.org/

As you can see, CircuitL*gix is just another entrant into a very
crowded market space. Maybe it's got some better features than some
other tool? But from your initial postings it didn't make it seem
so. Also, commercial giveaways are always to be regarded with
suspicion. And we're a very cynical group in any event.

Cheers,

Stuart


[1] LTSpice being a notable exception, probably because they make
their money from chips, not from software.

[2] Nothing wrong with that, since the freebie tool is a loss leader.
But anybody using it should think twice about the long-term dangers of
vendor lock-in before they have too many designs done in such a tool.
Same for CircuitL*gix, I would imagine.
 
Carl <cds142@ hotmail.com> wrote:
I could care less

One assumes Carl meant **could NOT care less**.
Click to expand...

about whether you download a free version of CircuitLogix,
I was more interested in
sharing some good news about free simulation.
Obviously, I shouldn't have bothered.

Stuart Brorson wrote:
We are leery of folks posting
"look at this great new free tool" messages here

Yup. Astroturfing abounds.
Click to expand...
http://www.google.com/search?q=define:Astroturfing

since free tools from commerical vendors
usually have strings attached.
The classic examples are ExpressPCB[...];

Yup: Lock-in-ware
Click to expand...

, whose free version is wildly popular with students,
but is essentially crippled since it limits you to
two layers and a fairly small board area.

True--but, in the year 2007, you have glossed over the biggie:
Click to expand...
Cadsoft's DRM (Lock-OUT-ware)
--and their recently-implemented treat-'em-all-like-thieves attitude
(even for fully-paid customers): 8-(

**The Downside of EAGLE** by Markus Zingg
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.arch.embedded/browse_frm/thread/f794e82d26b59e18/d7cf4149edb93ac7?q=*-*-website+reuse+paying.*+*-I-will-switch+cracked-*+*.would.not.help.*+zzz+after-*-*-version-*+copied+*.*.unlock.*.designs+*-*-*-*-exchange-*-*-*-*-third-party+reused+qq+*-*-single-bit-*-*-*-*+useless+*-*-*-projects-could-no-longer-be-opened
news:1jisj25b43ucaddcu7sm9n82i8sk98v2ut@4ax.com
 
"Carl" <cds142@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1177344704.841823.52700@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
p.s. I am a design engineer with Motorola and I also work as an
adjunct professor at Texas A&M.
Click to expand...
Unless they have very specific needs, I'd suggest it's not really in the best
interest of your students to steer them towards CircuitLogix rather than
LTSpice. A reasonably sophisticated sernior project could readily exceed the
circuit size limits of the free version of CircuitLogix. Additionally,
LTSpice is *very* well supported -- for free! -- on the Yahoo! groups; the
program's author still posts regularly. Just looking at the web site itself,
it's clear that they want to *sell students* the "full educational version."
Of course, there's nothing wrong with trying to make a buck, it's just again
that CircuitLogix doesn't appear to offer $249 worth of "added value" over all
the freeware solutions out there.
 
"Stuart Brorson" <sdb@cloud9.net> wrote in message
news:132pq20idhvgc0a@corp.supernews.com...
Tina -- TI's simulation program. Version 7 is a free download. Is
it some kind of "me too" response to LTSpice?
Click to expand...
TINA is commerical SPICE package (out of Budapest!) that TI licensed from
DesignSoft. TI's response to LTSpice has primarily been to provide a
fuller-featured version of TINA (for free) than they previously had.
 
On Apr 18, 8:38 pm, Carl <cds...@hotmail.com> wrote:
There is a free electronics circuit simulator available called
CircuitLogix. Check it out. It is quite amazing. The website for
the free electronics simulation software iswww.CircuitLogix.com.

Carl
Click to expand...
Hey Carl,

Thanks for forwarding the link regarding CircuitLogix. I did the
download and it looks very cool. I couldn't find any info about PCB
exporting. Do you know if it has that capability?

Kevin
 
On Apr 18, 8:38 pm, Carl <cds...@hotmail.com> wrote:
There is a free electronics circuit simulator available called
CircuitLogix. Check it out. It is quite amazing. The website for
the free electronics simulation software iswww.CircuitLogix.com.

Carl
Click to expand...
Hey Carl,

Thanks for the link regarding Circuitlogix. I did the download for
the free simulator but couldn't find any information about PCB
export. Do you know if it has this feature?

Kevin
 
Kevin,

I downloaded CircuitLogix last night and there is a VHDL function as well as
PCB export. Look in the Help file and select "PCB export". I have Multisim
8 (which I paid $600 for and it is garbage). Someone was mentioning LTSpice
was better than CircuitLogix, which is quite hilarious. LTSpice looks like
it was designed by high school kids. I guess LTSpice is ok if you are
designing really simple circuits or if you don't know much about electronics.
CIrcuitLogix is the real deal. How they are making money from it is a
mystery, since they give it away for free. But I don't care. Free is good.

Jerry

Kevin wrote:
There is a free electronics circuit simulator available called
CircuitLogix. Check it out. It is quite amazing. The website for
the free electronics simulation software iswww.CircuitLogix.com.

Carl

Hey Carl,

Thanks for the link regarding Circuitlogix. I did the download for
the free simulator but couldn't find any information about PCB
export. Do you know if it has this feature?

Kevin
Click to expand...
 
Eagle, LTSpice, and TINA? What is this......Losers anonymous? Those are the
three worst simulators that have ever been built. At least LTSpice has the
excuse that they are not really a simulation product since they sell hardware.
But LTSpice and TINA? Give me a break. Why even post messages when you have
no clue about simulation software. Stay in school for a few more years and
then get a job and then post messages. Until then you are just taking up
valuable space.

Jerry

Stuart Brorson wrote:
: Well, I give up. Accusing me of being a shill for CircuitLogix is too
: much.

Well, no offense intended. Sorry!

: p.s. I am a design engineer with Motorola and I also work as an
: adjunct professor at Texas A&M.

Bully for you!

: I could care less about whether you
: download a free version of CircuitLogix, I was more interested in
: sharing some good news about free simulation. Obviously, I shouldn't
: have bothered.

We are leery of folks posting "look at this great new free
tool" messages here since free tools from commerical vendors usually
have strings attached [1]. The classic examples are ExpressPCB, which
offers free design/layout software, but locks you into a proprietary
output file format usable only at ExpressPCB; and Eagle, whose free
version is wildly popular with students, but is essentially crippled
since it limits you to two layers and a fairly small board area. Once
you bump up against the limits of the freebie Eagle, you've got to pay
for the full-up version [2].

FWIW, there are lots of freebie and open-source simulators of various
flavors out there, including:

LTSpice -- closed source SPICE with integrated schematic capture.
Totally rocks!
http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/

ngspice -- open source SPICE 3f5. Still uses a CLI, and not as
optimized as LTSpice, but it works.
http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/

GnuCap -- Analog simulator with internal engine a generation or two
ahead of regular SPICE. Open source.
Can do event-driven simulation as
well as continuous time. Still uses CLI, and can read
SPICE netlists (with some caveats).
http://www.gnucap.org/

QUCS -- A spiffy new GUI-based simulation environment which claims
to do all kinds of simulation. Open source.
Incorporates schematic
capture front end. I believe they have some work to do
until it's complete.
http://qucs.sourceforge.net/

Icarus Verilog --
Excellent Verilog open-source simulator run from the
command line. Used with GTKWave for waveform viewing, it's
a powerful tool for Verilog design.
http://icarus.com/eda/verilog/
http://home.nc.rr.com/gtkwave/

Alliance VHDL --
French university project providing a chip design tool
suite. Includes VHDL simulator. I've never used it so
I know very little about it.
http://www-asim.lip6.fr/recherche/alliance//

TkGate -- GUI based logic simulator. More of an eductional tool than
a professional design tool, but it's cool nonetheless.
Open-source.
http://www.tkgate.org/

PSpice -- Years ago PSpice 6.x from MicroSim was downloadable off the
web for free. Is it still around?

Tina -- TI's simulation program. Version 7 is a free download. Is
it some kind of "me too" response to LTSpice? I haven't
used it.
http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/tina-ti.html

Besides these, there's also MyHDL, PyHDL, FreeHDL, regular Spice3f5,
and plenty of other free simulators out there available on the
web. And don't get me started on schematic capture, layout tools,
or chip design editors!

You can follow the open-source EDA tool space here:

http://www.opencollector.org/

As you can see, CircuitL*gix is just another entrant into a very
crowded market space. Maybe it's got some better features than some
other tool? But from your initial postings it didn't make it seem
so. Also, commercial giveaways are always to be regarded with
suspicion. And we're a very cynical group in any event.

Cheers,

Stuart

[1] LTSpice being a notable exception, probably because they make
their money from chips, not from software.

[2] Nothing wrong with that, since the freebie tool is a loss leader.
But anybody using it should think twice about the long-term dangers of
vendor lock-in before they have too many designs done in such a tool.
Same for CircuitL*gix, I would imagine.
Click to expand...
 
JerryG wrote:

snip

CIrcuitLogix is the real deal. How they are making money from it is a
mystery,.
Click to expand...
Because they sell it for $249 Jerry.

Ian
 
JerryG wrote:
Kevin,

I downloaded CircuitLogix last night and there is a VHDL function as well as
PCB export. Look in the Help file and select "PCB export". I have Multisim
8 (which I paid $600 for and it is garbage). Someone was mentioning LTSpice
was better than CircuitLogix, which is quite hilarious. LTSpice looks like
it was designed by high school kids. I guess LTSpice is ok if you are
designing really simple circuits or if you don't know much about electronics.
Click to expand...
In one simple sentence, you have successfully proven that you know nothing
about simulators.

-Chuck

LTSpice is a slight variation on the spice used by the chip designers at
Linear Technology... one of the most highly regarded linear IC manufacturers
in the world.
 
I downloaded the software and my wallet still has the same amount of money as
before I did the download, so I don't see how it cost me $249.

I understand that there is a full version for $249 with even more bells and
whistles, but what I downloaded for free from the CircuitLogix site is better
than what I paid Multisim hundreds of dollars for last year. The free
download is great. Don't be a party-pooper, Ian. The best things in life
are free.

Jerry

Ian Bell wrote:
snip

CIrcuitLogix is the real deal. How they are making money from it is a
mystery,.

Because they sell it for $249 Jerry.

Ian
Click to expand...
 
That's nice. How's your job at Linear Technologies going. Did they give you
a raise for your posting?



Chuck Harris wrote:
Kevin,

[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
it was designed by high school kids. I guess LTSpice is ok if you are
designing really simple circuits or if you don't know much about electronics.

In one simple sentence, you have successfully proven that you know nothing
about simulators.

-Chuck

LTSpice is a slight variation on the spice used by the chip designers at
Linear Technology... one of the most highly regarded linear IC manufacturers
in the world.
Click to expand...
 
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