Tina TI ?

LTSpice is good, use it all the time

free spice program that is well suited for a beginner and user friendly.

everything).

LT Spice.

John

I'll second that. It's sort of the de-fecto standard these days. If you get stuck you can post the LTSpice file at the end of a post right here and ask others to take a look. Usually within hours you'll have answers like "Increase R17 to 12.1k and all is well".

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

I second that. It only comes with LT parts in its library, and it declares that "regular old" SPICE models won't run as fast.

But I've used it extensively, and it works fine. The last time that I had another SPICE simulator on my computer (which was ages and ages ago) LTSpice was much better (faster, and maybe even more accurate) at simulating RF oscillator start-up. LT advertises that LTSpice uses different algorithms for simulation that are optimized for switching supply use -- I could easily see such algorithms handling RF oscillator nonlinearities better, too.

--
My liberal friends think I'm a conservative kook.
My conservative friends think I'm a liberal kook.
Why am I not happy that they have found common ground?

Tim Wescott, Communications, Control, Circuits & Software
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Just installed LT spice -- very cool -- you can see from the interface that it will be fun to work with.

Thanks.

will be fun to work with.

It's pretty easy to drive, for basic circuits. It gets a little tricky when you want to do stuff that needs math expressions or parameters or models, but there's tons of help on the web.

Highlight this, copy, paste into notepad, save somewhere as BasicOpamp.asc, then double-click on that file.

Hit the 'running man' icon, then probe. The opamp inverting input is fun.

Version 4 SHEET 1 880 680 WIRE 144 16 96 16 WIRE 256 16 224 16 WIRE 320 48 160 48 WIRE 320 64 320 48 WIRE 160 96 160 48 WIRE 0 112 -16 112 WIRE 96 112 96 16 WIRE 96 112 80 112 WIRE 128 112 96 112 WIRE 256 128 256 16 WIRE 256 128 192 128 WIRE -16 144 -16 112 WIRE 128 144 96 144 WIRE 320 176 320 144 WIRE 96 192 96 144 WIRE 160 192 160 160 WIRE -16 256 -16 224 WIRE 160 288 160 272 FLAG -16 256 0 FLAG 96 192 0 FLAG 160 288 0 FLAG 320 176 0 SYMBOL Opamps\\UniversalOpamp 160 128 R0 SYMATTR InstName U1 SYMBOL voltage -16 128 R0 WINDOW 0 -76 17 Left 2 WINDOW 3 -93 168 Left 2 WINDOW 123 0 0 Left 2 WINDOW 39 0 0 Left 2 SYMATTR InstName V1 SYMATTR Value SINE(0 1 100) SYMBOL res 96 96 R90 WINDOW 0 -52 58 VBottom 2 WINDOW 3 -43 60 VTop 2 SYMATTR InstName R1 SYMATTR Value 1k SYMBOL res 240 0 R90 WINDOW 0 -13 94 VBottom 2 WINDOW 3 -41 44 VTop 2 SYMATTR InstName R2 SYMATTR Value 15k SYMBOL voltage 160 176 R0 WINDOW 0 64 39 Left 2 WINDOW 3 62 74 Left 2 WINDOW 123 0 0 Left 2 WINDOW 39 0 0 Left 2 SYMATTR InstName V2 SYMATTR Value -12 SYMBOL voltage 320 48 R0 WINDOW 0 56 36 Left 2 WINDOW 3 58 73 Left 2 WINDOW 123 0 0 Left 2 WINDOW 39 0 0 Left 2 SYMATTR InstName V3 SYMATTR Value 12 TEXT -40 -24 Left 2 !.tran 0.1

free spice program that is well suited for a beginner and user friendly.

everything).

I used Tina TI for a while, then got a registered copy of Tina so I could add models. It's OK to learn with but you'll soon run out of gas with it. It also has some really aggravating quirks. After wasting time with it there is no way I'd go through it again. LTSpice is far superior in every way (except perhaps schematic entry). Ditch Tina and use LTSpice.

I don't feel that's true. I'm still stinging after I posted an LTspice file of a fairly simple tuned circuit with a high impedance driver and capacitive load . I ask for a critic, all I got was that I need to know a lot more about electronics and that I should use a paper and pencil to do the math. Nothing was said if there was anything good, bad, right or wrong with my file. Thanks for all the help, Mikek

Huh? I don't think it was you that I told to, "Run the math rather than your mouth"... was it ?:-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

So why did you take offense? I always recommend thinking _before_ simulation. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

try

near

I don't remember your LTspice file, and couldn't find it in Trash. Can you post a Message-ID? Thanks! ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Aha! Now I remember it. Your error is presuming impedance is always _real_. You can evaluate "impedance" in LTspice by doing a .AC analysis. If you're up to it I'd recommend learning complex numbers, particularly Laplace (actually devised by Heaviside) notation which makes such analyses much easier. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

"Couldn't find symbol(s): UniversalOpAmp"

--

Reply in group, but if emailing add one more
zero, and remove the last word.

Actually it looks like my install might be broken, because it gives me the same thing for other asc files.

--

Reply in group, but if emailing add one more
zero, and remove the last word.

out a free spice program that is well suited for a beginner and user frien= dly.

everything).

I recommend LTspice after the following:

After starting with PSpice which was entered using a netlist with each component on an individual IBM card! then using Multisim's PSpice Student version for years, then actually buying their manual for $100 [those that know me know that is an extraordinary event] was EXTREMELY happy using text file netlist entry only. Then came schematic capture for PSpice, which I could never get into [too much time to enter a schematic, I could type in a netlist for a schematic carrying all in my head faster than I could enter using all those clicks and drags and naming and connections!!!] Then came 'workbench', or such, couldn't even start that, so deleted from system.

Then came a model from Linear for the LT1028 low noise OpAmp, which ACTUALLY represented the OpAmp *and* its noise!, so when LTspice started advocating their SPICE platform, I tried it. Very intuitive, had a lot of control of what was going on so I could trust the answers, and the users group would answer any question within hours

24/7! BUT! TI's models often didn't work on LTspice, so I tried TINA and found it was also intuitive, but couldn't get 'inside' TINA. After getting some poor answers on several transient responses, I sat with the local TI rep and had them do the simulation on their laptop system. Using the latest greatest OS and latest greatest TINA version their simulation failed also, Rep had no explanation and never came back with one, so...TINA is rarely used now, instead I spend my time modifying the TI models to operate on LTspice!

Now, Linear has sped up the simulation time to incredible speeds yet they kept all the old PSpice formats so all my old tricks still would work. [couldn't do those on TINA, or at least didn't know how to]

After all this history, LTspice is the PRIMARY circuit simulation tool. Highly recommend, join the LTspice users group.

Are there other libraries I can add to LTspice? I just now sat down to do a circuit and looked for an NE556 timer and it sin't there (555 is though).

Does this just come with linear technology part libraries?

a circuit and looked for an NE556 timer and it sin't there (555 is though)= .

Why not just model it as two 555s? =3D)

yep, could do that -- no big deal. are there more parts I can download from user groups etc?

teach me about spice -- when I go to other chip sites like natl, ti etc, do all these parts have models that I can download and use in LTspice?

I pulled that right out of the "opamps" parts bin.

John