Cheap, Cross-Platform Electronic Circuit Simulation Software? 211
dv82 writes "I teach circuits and electronics at the undergraduate level, and have been using the free student demo version of OrCad for schematic capture and simulation because (a) it comes with the textbook and (b) it's powerful enough for the job. Unfortunately OrCad runs only under Windows, and students increasingly are switching to Mac (and some Linux netbooks). Wine and its variants will not run OrCad, and I don't wish to require students to purchase Windows and run with a VM. The only production-quality cross-platform CAD tool I have found so far is McCad, but its demo version is so limited in total allowed nets that it can't even run a basic opamp circuit with a realistic 741 opamp model. gEDA is friendly to everything BUT Windows, and is nowhere near as refined as OrCad. I would like students to be able to run the software on their laptops without a network connection, which eliminates more options. Any suggestions?"
Is a live DVD OK? (Score:4, Interesting)
If booting off a live DVD is OK then you may want to look at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ElectronicLab_Spin [fedoraproject.org] .
Partner with IT dept and get it hosted via RDP (Score:4, Interesting)
We had finance apps that students had to use in their coursework. Trying to get them to work on a Win/Linux/Mac system would have been painful and time consuming.
So we created a terminal server environment that let anybody RDP in to use the course apps. That way nobody had to pay for a real version, we paid for the terminal license.
That might work well for you rather than finding an app to support in 3 environments.
Good luck!
I don't know... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:School Computer Labs (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the changing college demographic. First, more non-traditional students that want to be able to work at home, at "work", on their own time, etc.
Second, more demanding traditional students that expect colleges to come with more amenities like better dorm rooms than what used to be the norm, private bathrooms, etc. The ability to work in the dorm room or "plug in" wirelessly anywhere on campus and do their homework is becoming an expectation.
We have computer-aided teaching studios now with no computers in them. Doesn't make sense when every student has a laptop. Soon we will not need any computer labs.
Re:Not a fan of (P/NG/LT/Berkeley)SPICE (Score:2, Interesting)
I shrunk my designs down to the criitical paths (~12k transistors), and even providing the proper nodesets/initial conditions HSPICE was unable to converge or segfaulted quikcly. Fortunately, my university has a deal with Cadence through their University Alliance program -- Spectre may not be quite as accurate at HSPICE for analog circuits, but both it and Ultrasim (a FASTSPICE simulator for large designs) can handle much larger digital designs without complaint.
To the original submitter: Is there a good reason behind the no network connection requirement? If the university has a proper setup, students should be fine either on or off campus -- then it may be worth checking if your university has any deals with either Cadence, Synopsys, or Magma -- their tools are primarily Unix-based (Solaris, AIX, and Linux support), so it's just a matter of having the students SSH in with X forwarding or use VNC. This would even allows users with underpowered machines to simulate large designs quickly since everything is done remotely. I primarily run Windows on my local box, but either VMs with Linux or using Putty with Xming work properly for all these tools.
Qucs ! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Linux? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Use LTSpice (Score:4, Interesting)
LTSpice is quite good if you want to design power supplies with Linear Technology components. The component library has just about everything Linear makes, and not much else. So you need some additional libraries for other purposes. You'll probably have to put together a model library for your students, from various downloaded models.
I've had fun with LTSpice. As an exercise, I've been designing hardware to run a Model 15 Teletype (1930s technology) from a USB port. The usual power supply for the 60mA current loop required is a 120VDC supply through a 2K 10W resistor, to get enough punch to energize the 4H 55 ohm selector magnet of the Teletype fast enough. Most of the energy is wasted heating up the big resistor. But I've designed something that up-converts 4.5VDC to 120VDC using an IC intended for photoflash applications, charges up a capacitor when the input is low, and when the input transitions to high (MARK), dumps the energy into the magnet. The 120VDC is only needed for the first 1ms or so of each bit time, to push current through the big inductance. A 3.3V linear regulator then provides the sustain current to keep the magnet pulled in after the cap dumps. The whole thing needs 250mA at 4.5V, which can be taken from a USB port. Separately, a small CPU is needed to do the serial port stuff for the signal.
Re:Linux? (Score:2, Interesting)
It is quite easy and intuitive to use, works much better than gEDA, but needs some getting used to working around it's glitches, specially to discover a few tricks about how to work easily with any external spice subcircuit.
Simulation can be done through berkeley-SPICE, ngspice or GnuCAP.
It's a shame this is the only post so far mentioning it.
Atanua? (Score:2, Interesting)
http://sol.gfxile.net/atanua/ [gfxile.net]
Not sure if it is what you are looking for. Hope it helps.