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A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

withdiode.com

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Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#81

Post by CoffeePython »

nabilhat wrote: post #75
Kwpolska wrote: post #8

The competition might look ancient, but IMO, a 2D interface would be much more productive and easier to work with. This site is completely unusable for me in Firefox (it does work in Edge though).

One reason is a noncritical third-party dependency; the circuit canvas will patiently wait in line to load forever until fonts.gstatic successfully loads. Normally I wouldn't post that kind of feedback here, but there's no readily apparent way to submit feedback or bug reports at the site so here we are.

thanks for the feedback!

ironically maybe it's also feedback that our share feedback button is too hidden

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#83

Post by bitwize »

malerba118 wrote: post #9
IshKebab wrote: post #3

Pretty cool, though I would say that a breadboard is probably a worse UI for capturing circuits than whatever we had in 2003. But it is fair that e.g. LTspice has a terrible GUI. I always thought QUCS had the best UI of all the free options: https://qucs.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html Unfortunately it's not the most popular project.

3d does present some additional challenges, but we decided to go this route to reduce friction for beginners who might not understand how schematics or other abstract representations map to the real world circuits they're playing with

That is literally one of the first things you learn as a beginner.

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#85

Post by Fordec »

Kwpolska wrote: post #8

The competition might look ancient, but IMO, a 2D interface would be much more productive and easier to work with. This site is completely unusable for me in Firefox (it does work in Edge though).

And on the good software the 2D interfaces take customizable color parameters, any level detail you like 3D files, customizable fonts.

Just take 20 minutes to customize a settings file and reuse for every new project after, iterating as you go and you'll get yourself pretty realistic outputs long term.

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#86

Post by AceJohnny2 »

guerrilla wrote: post #43
SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #30

Schematics are for understanding what a circuit does. Breadboards are for prototyping small low-speed circuits. Veroboard is for prototyping larger medium-speed circuits. Gerbers & a PCB are for production and for prototyping large or high-speed circuits. If the tool could automatically make a 3D breadboard view from a schematic, it'd be pretty neat for beginners. If the tool warned you when the normal parasitic capa…

Fritzing can kind of make breadboards from schematics, but doesn't have a 3D view... which I'm fine with because why do we need 3D?

> because why do we need 3D?

Teaching is much easier when the students can connect the abstract representation to something they can experience.

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#87

Post by analog31 »

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #30

Schematics are for understanding what a circuit does. Breadboards are for prototyping small low-speed circuits. Veroboard is for prototyping larger medium-speed circuits. Gerbers & a PCB are for production and for prototyping large or high-speed circuits. If the tool could automatically make a 3D breadboard view from a schematic, it'd be pretty neat for beginners. If the tool warned you when the normal parasitic capa…

This is a tangent, but having worked with digital circuits for 40 years, the improvements in chips have made circuit construction -- even breadboarding -- vastly more forgiving than ever before. I've run 10 MHz clocks on breadboards and 100 MHz SPI bus on 2 layer boards that were not designed with extreme care. And, it's a fast precision ADC that's meeting its datasheet specs on that board.

No doubt the parasitics and other nasties still come into play, but it's still amazing how much faster we can go before they start to bite.

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#89

Post by malerba118 »

sramsay wrote: post #76
malerba118 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, so we started diode 3 months ago and in the beginning here we're focused mostly on making electronics more accessible to youth/beginners. One major advantage of web based tools is shareability and we hope to see content creators writing articles with embedded diode projects so that tutorials can include inline interactive examples. This is already common in the software world with tools like codesandbox and sta…

I would just like to say that this work is amazing . I get what people are saying, but for people trying to dip their toes into electronics (and who maybe can’t afford the equipment just yet), this might be just the thing! I don’t mean to restrict the use cases, I just think a both/and world is just fine. And this is some excellent hacking. I tip my mouse to you.

Thanks, appreciate the kind words!

It's been challenging to say the least, but that's half the fun.

Re: A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003

#90

Post by chongli »

ilyt wrote: post #63
Kwpolska wrote: post #8

The competition might look ancient, but IMO, a 2D interface would be much more productive and easier to work with. This site is completely unusable for me in Firefox (it does work in Edge though).

If you have ever used LTSpice you'd know, the "old" looking layout is not really a problem but the arcane way anything is done, different from every app I ever used.

I just started using LTSpice a few days ago. It's pretty arcane for sure but at least it's consistent. The tool is really not that complicated at all. Its value seems to be in its simulation capabilities as well as its selection of standard components. It does crash here and there, though, but I haven't lost any work yet.
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