×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

(OP)
I am looking into some circuit design/simulation software.
I am looking at Multisim and Spice.  Are there others out there that are popular?
Any recommendations?

Thanks,

Steve

RE: Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

What price range are you looking for?  Quality and performance classes boil down to the price aspect.

RE: Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

I use the Electronics Workbench quite a lot. It is very easy to use and has a reasonable price tag. It is based on Spice, but is a lot easier to use.

RE: Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

(OP)
I am not sure as to the price range I am looking for.  I guess it depends on what is the most popular.  Kinda like autocad, you wouldn't want to learn some off the wall drawing program when 99% of the population use autocad.  Or at the very least your program must be compatable with autocad (import/export).

I currently have the book version of multisim.  It is extremely limited in it's functionality.  So I am thinking about purchasing it.  But I want something that is also popular in the industry.  Like it was noted with price also comes quality and performance.  I maybe able to justify it here at work and get them to foot the bill!

RE: Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

Hi, what do you want to simulate? and why?

RE: Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

I use SIMetrix (a SPICE like simulator). The free version has great functionality, is easy to use and quick to learn.

http://www.catena.uk.com/

It is not worth buying a SPICE simulator since you can get the demo version free and it is better than some you could buy.

RE: Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

Go for SIMetrix it's dead easy to use and very powerful. We even bought the whole thing! Great help from them too when you get stuck.

RE: Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

AutoCAD isn't made for electronics design.  For other works, if you like AutoCAD but not its price, take a look at IntelliCAD.  It is very close to it (language and user interface as well) for a fraction of the price.

RE: Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

Electronics workbench is a dog.
Many silly simulated instruments and poor
simulation stability
Check out Intusoft for a good simulator.


RE: Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

I have used the lite version of B2 spice a lot for small circuit simulations. Frequency and time domaine.

http://www.beigebag.com/adv4_lite.htm

The lite version limits the number of components in your circuit (25 I believe), but otherwise it is fairly easy to use. And it is free!

RE: Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

Hi,

As mentioned by other posters, I would say go for Simetrix. We started about three years ago with the free demo and then quickly bought the whole package. We can't do without it now! (Probably time we got a later version though)

It's really easy to use, and for any components that don't come with the standard demo library you can usually download the SPICE models from the web.

One final note: Simetrix is now marketed by Catena software and the link if you want to download a free version is

www.catena.uk.com

RE: Circuit Design/Simulation Software Recomendations

(OP)
Sorry for the slow reply.

I am going download the demo of Simetrix and go from there.

Thanks to all.

Steve

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources