Emulating electronic circuits
I have recently built a piece of electronic hardware from the design here http://www.scribd.com/doc/88327081/Scope-Art for my daughter. This means she now has possesion of my oscilloscope :(
It occurs to me that it might be possible to emulate this via a clever piece of software, the circuit that is, as I know software scopes are available. The circuit has four oscillators, capable of either square wave or sawtooth, and a couple of phase changers and adders.
What I have in mind is being able to 'draw' boxes emulating different components, hook them together to create oscillators etc, then add in the rest by the same process, and finally output the resulting signals to a software scope.
I've tried searching for suitable software, but all I've found is either very basic, aimed at educational reqirements,or too advanced, aimed at professional designers for manufacturing.
Any thoughts or suggestions ? I'm currently using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.
EDIT I suspect I should be using the word'simulation' rather than 'emulation' as I'll be looking for analog behaviour
John
Re: Emulating electronic circuits
Quote:
I've tried searching for suitable software, but all I've found is either very basic, aimed at educational requirements,or too advanced, aimed at professional designers for manufacturing.
That was my findings back in 09 when I played with some. You know its possible to turn a computer into a scope and maybe get yours back :)
Re: Emulating electronic circuits
I fear that getting my scope back is only the first step. I suspect more projects will be following, so being able to simulate them rather than spending my pension on components might be preferable.
Never mind the solder on the new carpet ;)
John
Re: Emulating electronic circuits
Perhaps you can list the applications that you have examined and rejected as unsuitable. That way we do not waste our time recommending stuff that you have already rejected.
Re: Emulating electronic circuits
You should look at Eagle. It is a good tool for circuits and PCBs.
Re: Emulating electronic circuits
Hi Herman - I think,maybe wrong, that Eagle is for layouts->pcb's ?
I'm at the stage where I have built the hardware and am now looking to produce a software version of it,.
This will then enable me to try alternative designs and see the results before commiting to hardware.
This last step may become unneccesary(sp?) if the software scope can produce the traces she's looking for.
(Please see the article in the op link for info.)
Hi Grahammechanical - I would be happy to do so if my old brain could remember where I've been !
Another point is that I tend to 'reject' stuff if the overview doesn't contain the sort of facility I'm looking for, so I'd be content to go back on someone else's recommendation. That's why I've posted both the original link and a very brief description of what is involved.
Regards
John
Re: Emulating electronic circuits
Haya,
I teach a physics class at uni and we use, what sounds like the exact same software you need. Draw a box give it a component type and values (resistor, op amp w/e) link them up with lines (wires) click go and you get your output.
Ill be in tomorrow so I'll grab the name of it.
M
Re: Emulating electronic circuits
Hi M, sounds good. Waiting with great hopes.
Regards
John
Re: Emulating electronic circuits
I used to have a program that would monitor the sound card for input, and make the sound card into a o-scope. but I don't recall what it was called. Its limitation was audible frq.
A lot of my friends use gEDA, the repos have a program named oscilloscope, and maybe ngspice will have wht you need.
Im a multisim user, which would do what you want, but isnt linux... as far as i know, they might have a version now, I have no idea.
Re: Emulating electronic circuits
Hi Conradin, and thanks for the heads up re multisim. I'll take a look.
Regards
John