Getting started with simulation

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1

Hello,

I want to start using the simulator to check my designs and avoid errors.

The components I will use are very simple linear regulators like L78xx, LM338, Optocouplers like 4n25 and MosFets like IRF540.

There are tons of articles about this, may you please suggest me a starting point. I feel confortable with Aeschema and PCB building in Kicad,

Thanks so much,
Horacio

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Hi Horacio,

KiCad does the simulation in the background via ngspice. So it is in general good, to get a grasp of spice type simulations in general (there are various spice simulators which work very similar, for example pspice, ltspice and ngspice) and ngspice in particular.

The ngspice manual (for reference) can be found here: http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/docs/ngspice-manual.pdf, but this of course is not really an intro / tutorial.

I would recommend maybe looking at some videos on Youtube. For example Eric Bredder has some very nice (and basic) introduction videos, into how to do simulation with Kicad:

Note: These videos were made with KiCad 5, but the simulation is very similar in KiCad 6, so the videos should still give you a good start, even if you use KiCad 6.

They certainly helped me when I started with this.

Best,
Johannes

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Thanks very much, Johannes

For your time and guidance !

Have an excellent 2022 !
Horacio

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There is also this tutorial available: KiCad Eeschema as GUI for ngspice, tutorial for setting up the simulation

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