Howdy macman_84-ga,
Much thanks for your clarifications and accepting this as the answer to your
question.
What you are looking for is SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuits
Emphasis) software.
First, some software that is free for non-commercial use, called 5Spice, and
described as follows on their website.
http://www.5spice.com/
"5Spice is a new graphical user interface that wraps around a traditional Spice
simulation engine, presenting a single application to the user. It offers easy
to use analog circuit simulation for the typical circuit designer."
You can download 5Spice from this page.
http://www.5spice.com/download.htm
As noted, 5Spice is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for SPICE, and the
download comes with a version of SPICE called WinSpice. More information on it
can be found on the WinSpice website.
http://www.winspice.com/
"WinSpice is a port of Spice3F4 to Win32 systems."
The neat thing about SPICE programs is that they use SPICE models, that is,
models of various components that are entered into the program to simulate
the final circuit for testing.
Here is the SPICE model page of the makers of the LM series, on the National
Semiconducter web site.
http://www.national.com/appinfo/amps/amplifiers_spice_models.html
"National Semiconductor SPICE Macromodels are valuable design tools which mimic
the response of our actual devices."
Penzar Development provides links to other companies that have SPICE models.
http://www.penzar.com/links.htm
The Spread Spectrum Scene website is another great SPICE resource.
http://www.sss-mag.com/spice.html
To answer your further questions.
- Do all of these spice apps work nearly the same and support the same
components?
Yes, that is what appears to be the case, except some SPICE simulators are
command line based, yet others are GUI based, and there are GUI interfaces
for some of the command line simulators as well.
Some SPICE simulators have more bells and whistles, and other appear to have
more advanced capabilities, but SPICE is supposed to be standardized. Some of
the commercial products, going for hundreds of dollars, are probably more
robust and configurable.
- How do i go about adding other components into a spice app?
It appears that with at least a command line SPICE simulator that one "just"
enters each component line by line. The following is from the "Quickstart
Tutorial for Spice 3" from the University of Exeter website.
http://newton.ex.ac.uk/teaching/CDHW/Electronics2/Spice3Quickstart.html
"Each element in the circuit is specified in the source file by a line that
gives the element name, the circuit nodes to which the element is connected,
and the values of the parameters that determine the electrical characteristics
of the element."
- Is there any good spice apps for Mac OS X?
"MacSpice 3f5" appears to be the "leader" of the very limited pack, and the
University of Exeter website has support for the simulator.
http://newton.ex.ac.uk/teaching/CDHW/MacSpice/
"As its name suggests, MacSpice is an implementation for the Apple Macintosh
computer of the Berkeley Spice 3f5 electronic circuit simulator. However,
MacSpice is not simply a 'port' of the Berkeley code, it incorporates many
improvements ranging from simple bug-fixes to entirely new algorithms and
solution strategies."
There is also "Spice 3f4v02b - Carbonised and Optimised" by Kiva Design.
http://www.kivadesigngroupe.com/Kiva%20Professional/professionalpage.htm
"Spice 3f4v02b is a straightforward, mechanical port of the Spice
electronic circuit simulation program to the Macintosh (MacOS Classic
and MacOS X - the port is carbonised)."
There is a GUI for "Spice 3f4v02b" called iSpice. Version 0.5 can be found on
the Softpedia website.
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Math-Scientific/iSpice.shtml
- And last is there any kind of website that rates these spice apps so
i know which is the bes to use for my situation.
There does not appear to be any rating site. The AboutSpice website might be
a resource for comparison.
http://www.aboutspice.com/
"Welcome to AboutSpice.com, the vendor independent information source for the
Spice electronic simulation users ..."
Wikipedia has a good entry with an overview and links on SPICE simulators that
might also prove helpful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPICE
I would suggest you start with MacSpice, or if you have access to a Windows
based machine, 5Spice interfaced with WinSpice, and build on that experience.
If you need any clarification, please feel free to ask.
Search strategy:
Google search on: electronic circuit design software OR simulator
://www.google.com/search?q=electronic+circuit+design+software+OR+simulator
Google search on: SPICE software
://www.google.com/search?q=SPICE+software
Google search on: SPICE "OS X"
://www.google.com/search?q=SPICE+%22OS+X%22
Looking Forward, denco-ga - Google Answers Researcher |
