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Diode – Build, program, and simulate hardware

withdiode.com

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Re: Diode – Build, program, and simulate hardware

#81

Post by buescher »

estimator7292 wrote: post #80
jhedwards wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah this reminds me of my first big mistake with PCBs. I have recently started down the hardware track, and my first PCB has a number of BC547 and BC558 transistors on it. Once I had a functioning prototype, the next step was to convert it into a schematic. After that, you have to convert the schematic into a PCB. Now we are at two layers of translation, and at this step I made a mistake: I wanted to use SMD component…

I've been an EE for a decade and I made this exact mistake last week. It's inevitable lol

You can catch it with a footprint review. List all your new footprints or old footprints assigned to new parts, and have someone else check them against the datasheets. Or if you ever have the good fortune to work with a very good layout designer, they will check things like that for you just to catch you out.

Re: Diode – Build, program, and simulate hardware

#82

Post by quinnjh »

estimator7292 wrote: post #80
jhedwards wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah this reminds me of my first big mistake with PCBs. I have recently started down the hardware track, and my first PCB has a number of BC547 and BC558 transistors on it. Once I had a functioning prototype, the next step was to convert it into a schematic. After that, you have to convert the schematic into a PCB. Now we are at two layers of translation, and at this step I made a mistake: I wanted to use SMD component…

I've been an EE for a decade and I made this exact mistake last week. It's inevitable lol

I haven't managed to design a pcb without finding an issue in the first run.

Shoutout to OSHpark's prototype service. Something like 5 bucks an inch and you only have to toss out 3 if you find a fault.

Re: Diode – Build, program, and simulate hardware

#85

Post by JKCalhoun »

asynchronous13 wrote: post #66
JKCalhoun wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a good free circuit simulator (that use a schematic as interface, I assume)? I somewhat agree with you in general though—if the web UX is a breadboard… maybe just get a breadboard? At the same time, while physical parts are generally cheap enough, power supplies, multimeters, an oscilloscope… that part of the hobby can add up. Sometimes too I am waiting a week or two for a part to arrive from Mouser, it is n…

There are tons of free sim tools. 'Spice' (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis) was a very early commercial sim. So many of the free ones use some variant of spice in their name. LTSpice, Qspice, etc. Kicad is an excellent free schematic capture and simulation software.

Thanks. (And KiCad I am very familiar with already. I love that app.)

Re: Diode – Build, program, and simulate hardware

#86

Post by JKCalhoun »

buescher wrote: post #71
JKCalhoun wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a good free circuit simulator (that use a schematic as interface, I assume)? I somewhat agree with you in general though—if the web UX is a breadboard… maybe just get a breadboard? At the same time, while physical parts are generally cheap enough, power supplies, multimeters, an oscilloscope… that part of the hobby can add up. Sometimes too I am waiting a week or two for a part to arrive from Mouser, it is n…

There are many. What's your (computing) platform and what are you trying to simulate? The more professional tools (beginning with freebies like LTspice) are oriented around letting you probe waveforms from simulated inputs and are not as oriented towards interactive probing "does this LED light when I press that button?" as a hobbyist might want.

Thanks. I prefer Mac (maybe preferring online these days though). I do a lot of analog stuff with op-amps lately (analog computing).

I'm breadboarding with physical breadboards but they get messy/cluttered fast, ha ha.

Re: Diode – Build, program, and simulate hardware

#88

Post by buescher »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #86
buescher wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many. What's your (computing) platform and what are you trying to simulate? The more professional tools (beginning with freebies like LTspice) are oriented around letting you probe waveforms from simulated inputs and are not as oriented towards interactive probing "does this LED light when I press that button?" as a hobbyist might want.

Thanks. I prefer Mac (maybe preferring online these days though). I do a lot of analog stuff with op-amps lately (analog computing). I'm breadboarding with physical breadboards but they get messy/cluttered fast, ha ha.

I thought so. I'm a fan of Glider.

I personally reach for LTspice from Analog Devices first even if I have better available - it is quick, easy enough to use, and someone has ported the model you need to it already. There is a Mac version on their web site but I have never used it.

Micro-Cap is free-as-in-free-beer but windows-native and will do stability analysis (gain margin/phase margin).

Qucs-S + the backend simulator of your choice is probably your best bet for free software on Mac. Original Qucs is still developed (checkins last month on their github, if you want to try building from source) but hasn't had a release in almost ten years. QucsStudio is now uSimmics and is closed-source and Windows-native. They all have their peculiar uses. I haven't used any of them much.

Online you can use PartsQuest Explore for free for public designs and short simulation runs. I have not used the online version much but it is basically the very powerful Siemens (Mentor) VHDL-AMS simulator that has gone by a number of names (Mentor never commits to names) on the backend. I have used that: it came with PADS Standard Plus. It surprisingly does just about everything at least usably well. It can use spice models or VHDL-A(MS) models. It can use RF s-parameter models. It can use control-theory laplace-transform block models. It will do stability analysis and monte carlo analysis. It can run VHDL models. You can model just about anything you can write the ODEs for in VHDL-AMS: try viewing source on their motor model for example. You won't get the filter synthesis or analysis tools you'll find in a dedicated RF simulator like Keysight Pathwave. You won't get the controls design and analysis tools in the Matlab/Simulink toolkits. But it does a whole heck of a lot.

Re: Diode – Build, program, and simulate hardware

#89

Post by ge96 »

MeteorMarc wrote: post #70
ge96 wrote: post #69

Damn the 3D graphics look great This would be useful for opensource hardware projects (aimed at beginners) to literally see how things are wired together. I'm still not at the schematic phase myself. But I use MS Paint wiring diagrams. OMG the wires flex, damn

Give KiCad a try for drawing schematics. It is FOSS.

Yeah that is still on my list to learn eg. designing my own circuit board. My stuff is still basic eg. wiring together an Arduino/RPi to break out sensor boards.
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