Circuitmaker and Traxmaker started off life as schematic capture and pcb layout hobbyist level programs and simulation was added to it strictly to be able to market it as a "do all, be all" to hobbyists that didn't know squat from shinola about circuit design and wanted to diddle their circuits into doing what they wanted them to do.
If you want PCB layout, CMTM2K is pretty damned good. If you want simulation, it isn't all that great.
Jim Microcode Engrg. Beta Tester CMTM2K
-- "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." --Aristotle
I am using Eagle right now and it works very nicely. Yeah, I know, it's made by da Dschermann enginnears you've written about some time ago :-)
My only real gripe with Eagle is that it doesn't offer any hierarchical sheet structure and they don't seem to understand how important that is. Maybe they never will so I am looking around again ...
Thing is, whenever you change CAD horses all the previous files become incompatible so I hope my next decision will stick until I retire. Or maybe I go back to OrCad SDT because that was by far the best CAD I ever had in over 20 years. If I can make sure it prints alright.
Ah, the man with the inside track. Did you do any (public) write-up about it yet that one could take a look at?
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Regards, Joerg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/
"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
Circuitmaker/Traxmaker 2000. I was authorized to get "user data" from anybody I wished, so if you want a copy to play with, give me a week and I'll pm you where to download it. Protel bought it and killed it a year later because of the pricing ... CMTM2K was a tenth the price for the PRO version as Protel's lowest hobby level offering.
Neither does CMTM2K, but as I recall, you can write your own personal macros to do a lot of this sort of stuff. I will also upload a pdf of the final manual for your download pleasure. One caveat ... if you write something useful, share and share alike. I can share a whole BUNCH of tricks I found that make life a lot easier.
Parts and Vendors did an external routine to import the parts list from CM and convert it to P&V data so that you have a true bill of materials with mfg and inhouse part numbers for each component on the board.
Well, lemme see now, CM will output as a .ckt file and as I recall, its netlist is in Protel format. If you've got a junk copy of Protel, you should be able to export from there in damned near any popular format. TM will input CM or Protel and output Protel, DXF, Gerber, and NC drill formats.
No, my reports were to Microcode directly and I have looked and looked for those files. This was ten years ago. By the way, most of the operational bugs I found were fixed, but the grammar and spelling bugs I reported are still there ... not my fault, bucko. jw
Let me read the manual first. If if doesn't have a native hierarchical sheet structure I might as well stay with Eagle because other than that it works. Isn't Circuitmaker now an Altium product? Somehow that causes me to think the stuff may be or become high-$$$. OrCad's price is now over 3x of what it was before they were bought up.
No junk copies out here. A schematic editor needs to be able to output in all the popular netlist formats. My layouter uses OrCad+PADS.
Spelling don't matter. I've got a couple programs here were some error messages come up in Teuton, another program speaks Viking.
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Regards, Joerg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/
"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
I think you are misinterpreting the term "voltage source" - perhaps taking it too literally.
In a simulator, a voltage source provides a fixed (or possibly adjustable/programmable) voltage and will deliver whatever current the circuit requires.
--
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI
peterbb4 (at) interchange.ubc.ca
GPS and NMEA info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter
Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vancouver.powersquadron.ca
"RST Engineering \\(jw\\)" wrote in news:HMudnR7LnvVpYDvVnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@supernews.com:
Well, I'm just learning, not even to hobbyist elvel, and I don't want to "diddle" (?force?) circuits- my misn book recommended 2 spice programs, so I searched online and downloaded a few, becasue I want to follow the examples specified in my books, as a learning tool...
Which is also why I looked at freeware. I just want to learn some stuff.
Thanks, but I Googled " CMTM2K " but unfortunately, saw no download site, only a reference to "torrent" (whcih I don't have and don't particualrly want to bother with). My impression was that it's not freeware. Since I'm just a "...For Dummies"-type Rube trying to learn a few basics, I don't want to invest money - I already have too many other expenses...
I saw Kirchhoff mentioned (though his name was truncated) but I'm shocked that the names these things are called in an Electricity class have yet to be mentioned:
1 year to be a technician,
2 gets you to technologist,
3+ to engineer.
4+ to design, if you last that long.
5 minutes to basic hobbyist level finding a light switch in the dark.
Kris, you need to get hands on with OHM's law and Joules law, maybe some good fella could recommend one of those electronic kits for beginners that Radio Shack used to sell, (don't know if they still do).
I know guys who can fill out the paper work for a BS degree, but can't find the light switch unless it's on. Being "book smart" is fine if you can teach electrical circuits how to read :-). Regards Ken
JeffM wrote in news:dbcbb33c-3b4d-4330-8b61- snipped-for-privacy@y38g2000hsy.googlegroups.com:
Well, teh book did go through them, but I didn't understand those much better - which I assume is why a couple reviews said it's more of a refresher, rather than a beginner's/learner's book - so I just have to check some additional sources for the parts I don't understand.
"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@b2g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
You do tend to have unique perspectives ;) Good points all, tho'.
I'm mostly trying to get some basic understanding before I start buying materials, or more accurately, before I start fooling with things that can cause shock - like, knowing that even a smallish capacitor can store a surprising amout of charge - DZZZZZZTT!!! =8-o Well, that, and I want to understand some relatively simple curcuits I was looking with respect to the old solar-light idea.
It's also just curiosity. I didn't get this when we covered it in Physics 101-102 (back in the Early Cretacious ) and am just curious now. No EE will ever be thretened by me, that's a certainty ;) But I'm curious as to *why* certain things work as they do. I knwo I could prob. buy a solar sporlight and cannibalize ti 9prob for less than I could build one), butit's gone beynd that at this point - I don;t want to just turn on that light switch so to speak, I want to know why the light comes on when I do so :)
But I'll have to check into Radio Shack and kits, good idea!, thanks -
At your current rate of progress, we estimate you will glow an LED by 2011, assuming you're using a crash program. Anyway, back in the olden days I went out and bought a couple of dozen transistors, and had two boxes, 1st the box of good transistors and 2nd box of burned crap. In 2 weeks the 1st box had 2 left and the 2nd box was overflowing. My point is, learning electronics design, at the front end involves learning from mistakes, no books for that. Even simple circuits are a mathematical matrix of inter-acting elements using a lot of physics, unless you use "monkey see, monkey do" which most do. Best Ken
I noticed in another post (can't find it at the moment) that you said that you were having difficulty with Kirchoff's Laws.
I consider Kirchoff's Laws as simply scientific wording of common-sense observations. His Voltage Law says that the sum of voltage sources and voltage drops around a circuit must equal zero - If this was not true, where would the excess or missing voltage be?
Similarly, the Current Law says that all the current arriving at a point in the circuit must leave that point somehow - If this was not so, you would have electrons (or mythical positive charges) accumulating at some point in the circuit, and things would eventually stop working.
If you take away the scientific jargon normally used to state these laws, you'll see that they are really quite simple and common-sense.
--
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI
peterbb4 (at) interchange.ubc.ca
GPS and NMEA info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter
Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vancouver.powersquadron.ca
Peter Bennett wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.supernews.com:
With this book's presentations of them, yes...
What is confusing me is how the author explained how to solve the values of the resistors in a network. I don't understnad how he came up with the value of the first resistor (which is nto in the netowrk), so I do need to check some other references. I also don't know how to solve matrices. Although the otehr problem is that I don't at all understand how he got the value for the first resistor, which is not in the loop/network. It's set up in this very basic form:
voltage source-------resistor1--------resistor-network-----ground (10V, 1Amp)
But nothing in either the diagrms, or the way he supposedly solves the circuit, makes any sense to me at all; so, I need to look in my other resources, and also do some more on-line research, to find other explanations taht make more sense to me ;)
This is only an issue becasue I'm looking at the last circuit in this document
formatting link
and trying to figure out how to change it so that I can run it properly with a 5V, 0.5A input. ((It's st up for a 9V, 1.07A input.))
ANyhoo, you went on to note taht:
That makes sense. But the math shown by this author, at least, eludes me.
YEah, that's why I basically just need to do some more work _ I got sidetracked by skipping forward to cpacitors, so I just need to go back to my other resources and do more online searches as well (sicne there reall is a lot fo good info online).
I do appreciate your synopsis, tho' - it's what I thought might be the case, but it's always good ot know rathe than assume :)
Hi Kris, Ok, think of it like this - A perfect voltage source will provide the set voltage with any amount of current needed, i.e. if you put it across a .0000001 ohm resistor, it will provide 10,000,000 amps of current. The same for perfect current sources, they will provide that set amount of current at any voltage needed. They provide both, just only one can be set.
To get a 'real' battery, you get into some pretty hairy modeling, with voltage and current limiting, etc.
Charlie E. wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Another illuminating answer, thanks! I appreciate all positive input.
I think what was confusing me is that soem NiMH batteries I bought are described on the package as "1.2V 1500mA". So, when I started fooling with teh program, I was confused by the voltage source.
Other folks had mentioned things like Internal Resistence (of batteries); then too, all the voltage (stored in a battery) can only travel through a spot with a limited surface area - so what I'm thinking is that an non- perfect volatage source is different from a perfect (modeled) voltage source both becasue of the inherent resistence of the materials used to make the battery, and becase teh voltage has to travel through a "spot"/area of limited size.
Also, I've been asking some "dummy" questions in the Basics group about, and have received some really great answers and explanations about, current, and what "current" actually *is*, in an electronics sense (as opposed to the way it's often just mentioned and not explained, or explained poorly). So think I understand it better now, than I did when I posed the above question - I had origianlly thought that current was some inherent quality/aspect of voltage, but it seems to me now that current is actually a quality/aspect of *materials* and how those materials transmit voltage. And a battery consists of materials.
Hopefully I'm getting this right. I'm trying to grasp the fundamental concepts first, with making the light an eventual goal.
I think that if you look at the NiMH battery more closely, you will see that it is marked "1500 mAh". An mAh (milliAmpere-Hour) is a measure of battery capacity (how much energy it can store), not of the current that it can deliver.
I'm not sure of the rating method for NiMH batteries, but for the "deep cycle" lead-acid batteries that I use on my boat, the ampere-hour rating is based on a 20 hour discharge. If my batteries were rated at 200 AH, that implies that I can draw 10 amperes for 20 hours before they are discharged.
--
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI
peterbb4 (at) interchange.ubc.ca
GPS and NMEA info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter
Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vancouver.powersquadron.ca
Ideal Voltage Source: Has zero internal (series) resistance (impedance) Ideal Current Source: Has infinite internal (parallel) resistance (impedance)
If these sources are constant in value, then:
The voltage at the 2 terminals of a voltage source will not change, no matter what. (It would deliver infinite current into zero ohms.)
The current through a current source will not change, no matter what. (For example, it would "build" voltage and arc across air, if no other closed path existed.)
Obviously these ideals are used only for analytical ease and "limit" arguments. They cannot physically exist.
You next exercise is to do thevenin-norton transformations to show how the representation of a _real_ power supply can be represented as either a current or voltage source, with their respective internal resistances.
with
Like Peter sez, that is the amp-hour rating. It is nominally rated to deliver 1.5 A for 1 hour before it is considered "dead/discharged." Or, it can deliver 0.15 A for 10 hours. These are nominal "back-of- the-hand" estimates only.
Peter Bennett wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.supernews.com:
Ah-ha!, OK - so I was confusing "how long will this load run" with "what is the current within the circuit".
OK, so if then you wanted to design a different widget that woudl run off that battery, you'd use a combination of components that's allow you to run said widget for a given amount of time - so if you designed your widget to use only 0.5mA/hour, you could run it for 40 hours, ro conversely, if you wanted to design, say, a really bright super-LED light setup, you could comine the components so that you could produce a very bright light, for maybe 10 hours. So that means, the battery will provide whatever current is needed by the circuit(s) inside of teh widget, until the difference in voltage between the negative node and the positive node is Zero, i.e. until the battery is discharged? So that would be why the Spice programs only use a Perfect Voltage Source...
Yup, I was indeed mixing up "mAh" and "mA", duh....
You shouldn't discharge a battery right down to zero.
For a 12 volt lead-acid battery, "fully discharged" is defined as a voltage of 10.5 volts when calculating the ampere-hour capacity. Also, the faster you discharge a battery, the fewer total amp-hours you will get from it, so the discharge period is included in the ampere-hour definition - for lead-acid batteries, the AH rating is based on the current required to discharge a fully charged 12 V battery to 10.5 V (1.75 volts per cell) in 20 hours.
I don't know the spec for a NiMH A-H rating, but I'd guess "fully discharged" would be 0.9 or 1.0 volt/cell.
--
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI
peterbb4 (at) interchange.ubc.ca
GPS and NMEA info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter
Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vancouver.powersquadron.ca
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