Integrated simulator

Software
1

I’m looking at changing from LTSpice and Altium simulation packages to one that works in KiCad.

My colleague has a version of KiCAD with a simulator, available by selecting ‘Simulator’ from the Tools menu. The version on my system (4.0.7) does NOT offer this simulator choice. His version is dated 2016, but does not have a listed version number. Maybe he installed some 3rd party software, and simply does not remember??

How does one enable and launch the integrated simulator function in 4.0.7?

Thank you!

2

It is only in the development (aka ‘nightly’) version afaik. I think it was added sometime last summer.

1 Like
3

Thank you, John. I just installed the most recent nightly, and the simulator feature ‘magically’ appeared.

I’m obviously on the very early learning curve for KiCad wisdom :slight_smile:

4

I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to drop LT Spice though. It is an excellent and free package and, more significantly has a huge number of validated models - esp Linear, obviously. Generally you are only simulating part of a circuit so the overhead of transcribing is low but there are some scripts around that will translate netlists between Kicad and LT Spice (just Google Kicad LTSpice)

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5

Simetrix is another excellent simulator, with a large library of parts. There is a free version, limited in circuit size, that is still very useful