Hello Sir I don’t know about simulation but i have a doubt that only analog components can simulate this tools or ic’s can also simulate because while iam doing simulation it is coming like error ? may i know the reason sir.
Spice is analog circuit simulator, but digital circuits internally are also analog so can be simulated as analog. As I know there are some models allowing to simplify for Spice the digital circuits to allow for faster their simulation.
But:
- I have never used Spice to simulate digital circuits - so don’t know details,
- I have used Spice integrated into KiCad only for few days, can’t say a lot about it.
You should be able to find some information in FAQs (top of forum page) or in KiCad schematic documentation, I think.
Errors in simulation can have many reasons. For example lack of spice model attached to symbol you used at schematic. Without more information from you hard to say what is the error source.
But for me it is asking like this Error during simulation for ?
So as I expected:
KiCad is mainly PCB design software and symbols in libraries were probably defined long before adding Spice was even considered.
But if you have schematic editor than why not to allow to use it also for designing schematic to be simulated. Following this thought possibility to add models to symbols was added. But models offered by manufacturers even allowed you to use them for your purposes are probably not allowed to be inserted into Free Open Source Software so they are not in KiCad libraries.
I don’t know details. I use spice to only simulate some small parts of circuits so I have collected some symbols with spice models in separate libraries to be used when simulating.
I use Spice with two separate configurations (changed by renaming directories). In one I use it to design PCB and I see only my libraries containing no spice models and second only to simulate and I see only libraries containing spice models but not containing footprints.
Setting up a simulation for the first time is a bit of an involved process in KiCad. Starting with something simple, and with some working examples can help to ease the learning curve. Your circuit, which has some 20+ active parts is not a good starting point.
Experiment a bit with the examples you can find in:
Also, read the documentation and tutorials on the ngSpice website:
Do you realise the parts in a simulation schematic have to come from the simulation library? ie place parts by clicking Place → Add Symbol then scroll down to “Simulation_SPICE”. I would start there with a simple schematic.
I’ve had a lot of trouble getting the simulator to work as well - you get all these obscure error messages that dont help at all. However I recently seem to have figured it out and have used it a bit. I didn’t find it matched real world particularly well but it was good enough for me to figure out changes were worthwhile.
David
No, not true. Symbols from any library can be used for simulation. However, symbols from other libraries do not have spice models attached by default, and you have to do that manually.
Yes I realise that. However for a noob who is struggling to get anything to work my statement is essentially correct. I agree however I could have been clearer.
No. It simply is a completely false and misleading statement. This is a public forum, and there are many people here searching the forum on their own and finding answers, then there are people posting questions. In the long term such answers are more confusing then they are helpful.
Besides, I just did a little check, and the simple resistors and capacitors have been removed from the Simulation_Spice library in KiCad V8. (Cheers for that). Even beginners won’t create much of a simulation without those. Learning to find spice models, attaching them to symbols and fixing the pin mapping is also close to the beginning of a “getting started with ngSpice in KiCad” coarse.
I agree with paulvdh, nothing to clarify. Your statement is simply wrong.
All basic passive parts in the Device library have the built-in SPICE model associated.
I’m on V7, paul’s on V8 and neither of those versions have the library parts you’re referring to.
Which ancient version are you running?