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Neet Studio

Fri Jun 01 2012, 03:31AM

Registered Member #4037 Joined: Fri Jul 29 2011, 03:13PM
Location:
Posts: 86

TI's "free" spice program is a licensed commercial program, so it is crippled.

As far as bad, you haven't tried typing out text based netlist for the old FORTRAN Spice 2G6 + Nutmeg etc.. As far as schematic caption GUI, the big 3 FPGA vendors tools are a lot worse. At least the GUI doesn't stop the program from performing useful simulations which is what we are after flashy GUI or not.

What LTSpice could really use is to take advantage of multicores CPU. While parts of the GUI does require a bit of polishing up (like trying to add something at the window extreme or symbol editing). I only find out recently how to copy & paste from another schematic. It would be nice to do parameterized search in their database of parts The help could use a bit of "help" too.

Hopefully at some point, they would polish up the program. :(

Nicko

Fri Jun 01 2012, 04:19AM

Registered Member #1334 Joined: Tue Feb 19 2008, 04:37PM
Location: Nr. London, UK
Posts: 615

Neet Studio wrote ...
What LTSpice could really use is to take advantage of multicores CPU.

LTspice has had multithreading for some years - here's the announcement from Mike Engelhardt in 2008

Mattski

Fri Jun 01 2012, 05:23AM

Registered Member #1792 Joined: Fri Oct 31 2008, 08:12PM
Location: University of California
Posts: 527

The LTspice UI works well but the "select action and then click" scheme isn't terribly common and takes some getting used to, but it's quite fast once you learn the hotkeys.

A friend of mine recommended NGspice to me but I haven't tried it yet:

It's part of the broader gplEDA open source electronic design toolchain, which I assume means it works well but might take a while to learn it all and to get it all working ;)

There's also QUCS specializing in RF simulation:

I haven't used it much but it looks pretty useful, especially when you look at how much the commercial program it's imitating costs.

PythonXY is a nice scientific python distribution for Windows with a Matlab-esque UI (Spyder), you just have one download and installer and get a full suite of Python tools and IDE's:

Steve Conner

Fri Jun 01 2012, 06:46AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

The LTSpice UI isn't "awful", it just doesn't follow the Windows conventions. Ctrl-C to copy and so on.

Eagle is another program with a weird copy and paste function.

Nicko

Fri Jun 01 2012, 03:17PM

Registered Member #1334 Joined: Tue Feb 19 2008, 04:37PM
Location: Nr. London, UK
Posts: 615

Steve Conner wrote ...

The LTSpice UI isn't "awful", it just doesn't follow the Windows conventions. Ctrl-C to copy and so on.

Eagle is another program with a weird copy and paste function.

...and both have 100s of 1000s of users...

(not just because they're free either!)

Tetris

Fri Jun 01 2012, 03:36PM

Registered Member #4016 Joined: Thu Jul 21 2011, 01:52AM
Location: Gainesville, FL
Posts: 660

I downloaded LTspice onto my computer before, but it didn't work. It downloaded, but I couldn't build any circuits. :/ I wonder if all those links are legitimate.

Mattski

Fri Jun 01 2012, 06:01PM

Registered Member #1792 Joined: Fri Oct 31 2008, 08:12PM
Location: University of California
Posts: 527

HighVoltageChick wrote ...

I downloaded LTspice onto my computer before, but it didn't work. It downloaded, but I couldn't build any circuits. :/ I wonder if all those links are legitimate.

is legitimate. But as mentioned the LTspice UI is nonstandard so you probably want to read a tutorial to get started with it.

2Spoons

Mon Jun 04 2012, 11:05PM

Registered Member #2939 Joined: Fri Jun 25 2010, 04:25AM
Location:
Posts: 615

A UI is 'awful' if you have to spend hours trawling the help file to figure it out.
My definition of a good UI is one that follows conventions (which is really the point of using Windows in the first place) and operates in a logical and intuitive fashion.
I agree that LTSpice has good power supply simulation abilities, I just wish it was more user friendly. I have used it to do some sims for work - Zeta converter based on an LT chip. It felt slow (not really fair as I couldn't do a direct comparison), and cumbersome to get graphs out of. The biggest problem LTSpice faces is that it is NOT a commercial app - AFAIK there is only one guy working on it. The engine is good, and full credit for that, but a bit of spit and polish from some application programmers would help a lot.
I much prefer Simetrix for analog discrete. Pity its so expensive.

Dr. Who

Tue Jun 05 2012, 08:42PM

Registered Member #326 Joined: Sat Mar 18 2006, 01:12PM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 66

+1 for LTSpice. It has its quirks but it's effective and free.

Myke

Tue Jun 05 2012, 10:47PM

Registered Member #540 Joined: Mon Feb 19 2007, 07:49PM
Location: MIT
Posts: 969

Another +1 for both Eagle and LTspice. Even though they have weird UIs, it all is a matter of getting used
to. I'll be using both for some electronics research in VHF DC-DC converters at MIT (they were
recommended by the professor I'll be working for) so I think they're both not something to dismiss quickly.

I use both for personal projects and have no complaints with them so far.

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