Simulation not working for me

I know as it says on the tin, that KiCAD is principally an electronics CAD design package. Non-the-less KiCAD does sport a simulation section. Whilst I am perfectly fine with the CAD aspect of KiCAD, simulation has always eluded me.

I started, as a mature student, studying electronics almost a year ago, and at the time I thought KiCAD would be the divine product to help me develop the tutorial projects set to me. I then extolled the virtues of KiCAD to my fellow students. Oops.

As it has turned out in all except the most basic circumstances I have never managed to get KiCAD to simulate my calculations so that I can confidently return my work to my tutor with confidence that I had calculated, simulated and confidently completed my assignments.

I, like my fellow students, (to my eternal embarrassment) have had to resort to plan ‘B’ which is; calculate, simulate (with LTSpice) then draw up with KiCAD.

Even many of the included pspice and simulation symbols don’t work for me. And even if I do include external spice models, many of them don’t work either.

I am thus enormously jealous of those that claim to have simulated various circuits successfully, whilst I cannot get anywhere near without resorting to doing the same job thrice over; i.e. draw on paper, simulate in LTSpice, then design in KiCAD. I’m too old for this in 2020.

M

From your post I understand you have basic simulation working with Eeschema and ngSpice. Correct?

At least a part of the problem is with encrypted spice models. Some manufacturers are only interested in distributing models that work with their own software. Maybe there is some spice cartel of some manufacturers being able to use encrypted spice models within the cartel.

KiCad is Open Source, and not in such groups, nor is it able to use encrypted spice models.

Can you view and examine the spice models you want to use as text, or is it some binary blob?