Free/Open Source Electricity/Circuit software

[Al6200]

I'm curious if there are any softwares out there which allow the user to draw up electrical schematics and run simulations on them (ideally open source).

I'm getting into electricity some (as it relates to computer logic) and I think it would be neat to design some mini-computers.

[MTsoul]

For analog circuits - CircuitMaker. Not open source, but I think free now that it has been discontinued.

For digital circuits - Altera Quartus II. They have a 6-month trial I think.

Both of these have simulation.

[Al6200]

Thank you, I will check them out.

[Jeff Wheeler]

If you want more options, there are a ton of things in the Debian repository that I found:

chipmunk-log
cl-rlc
eagle (can't do simulations, but does more fancy schematics and such)
electric (calls itself electrical CAD system)
geda
gnucap (focus on simulation)
gpsim (not sure how applicable this one is)
kicad (don't think there's a simulator)
klogic (digital circuits)
ksimus
ktechlab
oregano (uses gnucap for simulation; looks like it'll be a nice gui gnome app)
qucs (Quite Universal Circuit Simulator)
tkgate (looks good, but gui is tcl/tk, whatever that means...)
vbs
xcircuit


When you get into scientific stuff, there tends to be a ton of Linux applications for what you need. :)

Of the ones listed above, I would check out oregano, qucs, and xcircuit first.

[Al6200]

But I don't have Linux.

Linux can't play Halo, or run the newest Flash player, or run Visual Studio. But I really wish it did...

[skOOb]

Not that this will help, but I made a flash app that simulates basic electricity. You can design your own circuits (with power supply, resistors, fans, light bulbs) and see all the animations. Also has a multimeter to measure current, etc...My company won't like it if I just give out this stuff. But for research I used Einstein software.

You can check out http://www.linear.com/company/software.jsp. I've read good things about the LTSPICE download.

hth

[Jeff Wheeler]

But I don't have Linux.

Linux can't play Halo, or run the newest Flash player, or run Visual Studio. But I really wish it did...

I don't mean to be trying to start an OS war, but my point is that there is a ton of free software available, and that dual-booting is a pretty good option. There isn't nearly the amount of stuff for Windows as on Linux... of the things listed above, the Oregano application can easily do all of that, with an easy interface.

And, it can run the latest Flash Player, 9.

[Al6200]

Really? I thought Flash was built for DirectX? Oh well.

How hard is it to dual-boot? Will it hurt performance (other than the lost space on hard-drive)? I've never tried it, but I guess it should be easy with a bios change. Like, using a key input to determine which location in HD to boot from.

Could you link to that Flash app you made? I looked through those two you recommended Nokrev. None of them are exactly right for me. The one is actually closed source, and the other one won't run on my computer (maybe I need a Java upgrade).

Could you recommend any thing with HDL and simulation capabilities for a relative beginner. I mean, I'm just starting the stuff, but I think its fun.

[Jeff Wheeler]

With Ubuntu, dual-booting is easy, and doesn't affect performance at all. Just look around, there's tons of information that can be found through Google to do it. (No point in dicussing it in this thread.)

What Flash app did I say I made? Oregano? That's the circuit simulator software I mentioned: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregano_%28software%29

Neither qucs or xcircuit use Java.

I'm an utter beginner, and was just playing with Oregano, and understood it fairly well. It's really easy to use.

[bigmtnskier]

You might want to checkout EagleCad or ExpressPCB. They are pretty nice for freeware, but they aren't open-source.
http://www.cadsoftusa.com/
http://www.expresspcb.com/


For analog circuits - CircuitMaker. Not open source, but I think free now that it has been discontinued.
You can design digital circuits in that, unless it is strictly limited to passive components like resistors, capacitors, etc. :)



For digital circuits - Altera Quartus II. They have a 6-month trial I think.
Altera Quartus II is an IDE for Verilog and VHDL. These are two hardware description languages (hence VHDL meaning: very high speed integrated circuits hardware description language) that are normally used for generating a circuit design from your logic (specified by code) to be fitted on a FPGA. I suppose you could call it a circuit design program, considering it generates a netlist, but is probably not quite the program he is looking for. :P

I'm not bashing or trying to be an arrogant moron; I'm just trying to clarify for his sake :)

[hl]

Eagle's pretty well known.