It seems that the NGspice outputs are kept only in memory and not written to a .raw file? How can I alter my setup so that a .raw file is generated please? KiCAD 5.0.0 and NGspice 28 (not 26). Linux Mint 19 (Ubuntu 18.04)
If you run ngspice manual from command or from the Spice netlist generation, you can make ngspice save .raw file. Example command that I use:
c:\ngspice\bin\ngspice.exe -r sim.raw sim.cir
Some spice directive like:
.control
save all
run
write
.end
I don’t have a stand-alone NGspice28 installation. It is installed only as a library to work with KiCAD5.0.0. Typing “ngspice” at the command line (Linux), shows that it’s not installed. Is it possible to have both the library and stand-alone version installed without a conflict? Placing “.control… .endc” or even “.save all” on either the schematic or in the GUI “Custom” window is ignored. What I’m really hoping to do is to run NGspice through the KiCAD GUI and have it save a .raw file. - Thanks.
By the way, on my first real simulation with KiCAD, with all settings equal, NGspice is running at 0.9s vs. LTspice at 1.17s. Just one data point, but still encouraging. 
Tested with KiCad 5.0 on MS Windows, using demo laser_driver:
Open the simulator settings GUI “Custom” window. The entry from the schematics ‘.tran 10p 150n’ is already there. Add:
.control
write D:/tmp/ki.raw all
.endc
So you finally have
.tran 10p 150n .control write D:/tmp/ki.raw all .endc
You need to specify an output directory where you have write access. After running the simulation and closing the simulator window, you have a raw file with about 8.2 MByte size. Instead of ‘all’ you may specify the output vectors you are interested in.
Thanks! That works even when entered on the schematic. GWAVE will read the output correctly, but the LTspice waveform reader gives a bad result. I’d love to use the LTspice viewer, at least until the KiCAD or other FOSS viewer gets similar features (subplots, waveform expressions, multiple y-axis with units, undo zoom, click and integrate, save setups… a very nice viewer), but that’s a separate topic. When using “all”, I can see all voltages and currents on the top level, but not in my subcircuit. I can call out a global net (no “/” in front) for the target of the write command instead of “all”, and this works. I’ve tried using “/” and “.” to try to write a subcircuit voltage to the .raw file, but to no avail. Also, I can’t figure out how to even view (from RAM) subcircuit nodes in the KiCAD built-in viewer (which show all top level V and I by default, independent of the “write” argument, as I would expect). Any hints on how to view/plot subcircuit nodes and currents? My subcircuit is text-only. Thanks again!
Full netlist:
.title KiCad schematic
.include “/home/steve/MyKiCAD/SPICE_TRIAL/LTspiceX.lib”
I101 Net-C101-Pad2 +5V 5
R102 +5V Net-C101-Pad2 1
C101 +5V Net-C101-Pad2 100n
I102 Net-C101-Pad2 /IN+ 25m
R103 /IN+ Net-C101-Pad2 1
C102 /IN+ Net-C101-Pad2 100n
I103 Net-C101-Pad2 /IN- dc 0 PWL(0 20m 100n 30m 250n 30m 350n 20m)
R104 /IN- Net-C101-Pad2 1
C103 /IN- Net-C101-Pad2 1n
XU101 /IN+ /IN- +5V Net-C101-Pad2 OUT tlv3201aidck
C104 OUT Net-C101-Pad2 15p
R101 Net-C101-Pad2 0 1m
.save @r102[i]
.save @c101[i]
.save @r103[i]
.save @c102[i]
.save @r104[i]
.save @c103[i]
.save @c104[i]
.save @r101[i]
.save V(+5V)
.save V(/IN+)
.save V(/IN-)
.save V(0)
.save V(GND)
.save V(Net-C101-Pad2)
.save V(OUT)
.tran 10p 450n
.options reltol=1E-4 abstol=1E-13 vntol=1E-7 chgtol=1E-15
.options plotwinsize=0
.options numdgt=7
.options trtol=1
.control
write /home/steve/MyKiCAD/TB_TLV3201.raw all
.endc
.end
.subckt tlv3201aidck +IN -IN +V -V OUT
R_delay post N001 R=(tp-tr/2)/Cpd/1
C_power_diss post 0 {Cpd}
R_out_hi OUT +V R=(1-V(out_bin))r_off+r_out_high
B3 +V -V I=abs(I(V1))V(+V,-V)
R1 +in_r +IN 10
R3 -in_r -IN 10
R4 +V -V R=Vdd/Idd
D1 -in_r +V BAV99HM
D2 -V -in_r BAV99HM
D3 +in_r +V BAV99HM
D4 -V +in_r BAV99HM
C1 -in_r -V {Cin}
B10 0 pre I=0.5+0.5tanh(Avol(V(+in_r,-in_r)/V(+V,-V)+hyst*(V(post)-0.5)))
R5 pre 0 1
B6 0 out_bin I=0.5+0.5tanh(Arf(V(post)-0.5-((0.632-0.5)2(V(pre)-0.5))))
R8 out_bin 0 1
R_out_lo OUT -V R=V(out_bin)*r_off+r_out_low
V1 N001 pre 0
C2 +in_r -V {Cin}
C3 out_bin 0 {Cn}
C4 pre 0 {Cn}
- hyst is hysterisis normalized to VDD
- Arf is gain to control rise and fall time (emperical)
- Subtract 2.6pF for diodes from input capacitance to get Cin
- Cn is C_Norton - delay from this should be enough to help convergence, but not enough to affect circuit significantly
.param hyst=240u r_out_low=56.3 r_out_high=42.5 r_off=10MEG Avol=100k Arf=150 tp=55n tr=5.2n Cpd=5p Vdd=5 Idd=65u Cin=1.4p Cn=200p
.MODEL BAV99HM D(Is=1.7962E-9 N=1.7555 Rs=.55113 Ikf=72.153E-3 Cjo=1.3304E-12 M=.11174 Vj=4.1020 Bv=100 tt=11.542E-9)
.ends tlv3201aidck
The KiCad-generated netlist contains several .save statements. These are the vectors saved and printed with the ‘write … all’ command. No other vectors are saved during the simulation.
You may try to add an additional ‘.save all’ statement to the ‘Custom’ window. This would add to the already given .save statements.
Works to produce subcircuit results for the .raw file, but I still can’t see any subcircuit signals in the KiCAD viewer from RAM. Adding “.save all” on the schematic also works for the .raw file, but it will not appear in the “Simulation settings/Custom” window along with the rest of the schematic dot commands. The “control… .endc” lines are also invisible in “Custom”, but show up in the netlist and are executed. This invisibility-in-Custom appears to be insensitive to the order of appearance on the schematic. The “.save all” does not cause the previous auto-generated “.save” lines to be deleted from the netlist (which is benign). Placing “.save all” in both the schematic and the Custom window causes it to appear in the netlist twice (and it still works for the .raw file).
.title KiCad schematic
.include “/home/steve/MyKiCAD/SPICE_TRIAL/LTspiceX.lib”
I101 Net-C101-Pad2 +5V 5
R102 +5V Net-C101-Pad2 1
C101 +5V Net-C101-Pad2 100n
I102 Net-C101-Pad2 /IN+ 25m
R103 /IN+ Net-C101-Pad2 1
C102 /IN+ Net-C101-Pad2 100n
I103 Net-C101-Pad2 /IN- dc 0 PWL(0 20m 100n 30m 250n 30m 350n 20m)
R104 /IN- Net-C101-Pad2 1
C103 /IN- Net-C101-Pad2 1n
XU101 /IN+ /IN- +5V Net-C101-Pad2 OUT tlv3201aidck
C104 OUT Net-C101-Pad2 15p
R101 Net-C101-Pad2 0 1m
.save @r102[i]
.save @c101[i]
.save @r103[i]
.save @c102[i]
.save @r104[i]
.save @c103[i]
.save @c104[i]
.save @r101[i]
.save V(+5V)
.save V(/IN+)
.save V(/IN-)
.save V(0)
.save V(GND)
.save V(Net-C101-Pad2)
.save V(OUT)
.save all
.tran 10p 450n
.options reltol=1E-4 abstol=1E-13 vntol=1E-7 chgtol=1E-15
.options plotwinsize=0
.options numdgt=7
.options trtol=1
.control
write /home/steve/MyKiCAD/TB_TLV3201.raw all
.endc
.end
I think this is what I found from KiCad 5.0 - which not allow you to run customized run. It seem to replace it own .control version, or run twice.
NGspice does indeed support subcircuit probing in the .raw file, as mentioned above. Access to the subcircuit results is a feature that seems to not yet be implemented in the KiCAD waveform viewer though. There is a work-around if you need to see a subcircuit voltage in KiCAD. You can reference the sub-circuit node in a top-level behavioral source to see it. Not very convenient, but it works.
No, I also consider /IN+ and /IN- to be on the top level. KiCAD just uses the “root” symbol for non-global labeled nets at the top level. I am also talking about the comparator subcircuit (tlv3201aidck) as “the subcircuit”. For example the net “/XU101/pre” is a net that can only be accessed (so far as I know) in the KiCAD waveform viewer by calling it out in a behavorial source at the top level. I suspect that this is a KiCAD bug or missing feature, not a bug with NGspice. The subcircuit is fully saved in the .raw file using the procedure Holger outlined above, and can be fully viewed with “load …” and “plot all” in standalone NGspice as well as in Gwave through its GUI.
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What issues are there ?
The .raw file is readable, and fairly simple.
FWIR, Entry count, Signal Name headers, and then repeated Time & node sets records
We’ve created .raw from logging SW, and loaded them into LTSpice as a viewer.
If you can check & edit it until it works, and submit a bug report, that would help fix this.
The .raw file is actually a binary file, and the format of the NGspice .raw file is not what is expected by the LTspiceviewer. I was thinking I might convert the NGspice .raw file to ASCII that can then be read by the LTspice Viewer. Of course it would be nice to have a more direct route. Here is a previous discussion of the issue:
https://sourceforge.net/p/ngspice/discussion/133842/thread/41eb3917/
The LTspice viewer won’t even import ASCII directly. I’ll need to create PWL sources in an LTspice netlist, one for each net I want to plot. Each PWL source is just pointing to a result from NGspice in the proper ASCII format. It will then be necessary to actually run a (trivial) simulation in LTspice so that I can plot the output of each PWL source. I’ll see if I can script this flow. I think it will be worth the effort, as the LTspice viewer is very full featured, and I’ve used it for years. I can’t find another free .raw viewer that comes close to it, but I’m open to suggestions.
Ah, ok, the LTSpice files we saw generated/read, were all always ASCII.
Google did find this, that sounds applicable ?
Should be easy to then export that as LTSpice-Ascii-raw ?
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Yep - I’ll check it out, thanks. I’ll try to make a script.
Add
set filetype=ascii
to .spiceinit or spice.rc
The ascii raw file will be read directly by LTSPICE. On Windows you do:
Right-click on xxx.raw -> Open with -> Spice Simulator (aka LTSPICE) -> Plot settings -> visible traces -> yourvector
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Thanks Holger! There’s one tiny extra step required if you have non-global labelled nets on the top level of the KiCAD schematic. You must open the text .raw file and delete or replace the “/” that KiCAD uses to denote the “root” schematic in the net names. Otherwise the LTspice viewer will complain and won’t plot those nets.
Also: The LTspice viewer won’t accept “+” , “-”, or “~” in any net name. It will load the .raw file, and you can look at all the nets except the illegally named ones.
I’ve noticed that I have to run a simulation twice to get the ASCII .raw file to update correctly. The .raw file is re-written with every simulation run, but it rewrites a duplicate of the previous version after a netlist change until the second time it runs. I’ve been varying the simulation duration by a factor of 10 to check this out. If I delete the raw file and run the sim, then the resultant .raw file is correct the first time.