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Schematics and Circuit Simulation In the Browser
compumike writes "CircuitLab today released a browser-based schematic editor and circuit simulator for the online electronics community. SPICE-like device models and mixed-mode simulation support allows engineers and hobbyists to tackle a wide range of board-level design problems. While most EDA software is Windows-only, CircuitLab is 100% web-based, Windows/Mac/Linux cross-platform, and requires no installation or plug-ins. Instead of today's typical forum posts with static screenshots from different desktop tools, the online electronics community can now use CircuitLab to share useful URLs (as well as PNGs and PDFs) which link directly to interactive, editable, runnable schematics. In just a few clicks, another designer can open that circuit, make a change, simulate it, and post the new version back to the community."
... good memories, back in '94 when I used that software... now everything seems (is?) easier.
I used the command-based spice. When Workbench arrived, with GUI, was something really impressive.
I hope somebody does a model of the mainboard of the Raspberry PI. I really would like to be able to build / modify my own version.
This sounds pretty useful. I went to the web page using Safari: "Incompatible web browser detected! CircuitLab may not work as expected in your web browser. Please see our System Requirements."
"While we strive to support all modern standards-compliant web browsers, CircuitLab officially supports Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox."
Isn't Chrome based on the same code as Safari? You know, that browser that is the most standards-compatible out there? That said, on a brief test of some of the example circuits, it seems to work.
I had to check the page source to see how they had managed to launch a Flash application without being caught by my FlashBlock plugin. Applications like this are another nail in Adobe's coffin.
There are tons of kludgy circuit diagram programs out there for aspiring students to play with, but this looks like it ought to make life easier for everyone involved as well as enabling classroom-level collaboration.
Great idea, but if i cant have it local, then no thanks. I don't want to rely on something that is being hosted by another party.
They lose interest, poof there goes my work.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I think it is important to mention Paul Falstad's Java circuit simulator that has been around for years and has probably influenced this project. http://www.falstad.com/circuit/
I have been waiting for this for some time. I want to be able to use any machine I am at to teach basic electronics and this makes the circuit simulator portable.
http://www.busyweather.com/
I do not see a way to make the voltage source AC. This looks pretty good for quickie proof of concept stuff. Still a way to go before it is ready for a serious project.
For now, I use LTSpice. Fabulous, free spice package from Linear.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
Its pretty cool, although limited.
I checked it out and there's a pretty limited selection of BJTs, etc. Well I poked around and it turns out you can do something pretty cool with just a couple parts, with any luck here's a differential amp, assuming this link works:
https://www.circuitlab.com/circuit/fby849/bjt-cascoded-active-load-differential-amplifier-with-cmfb/
My guess is they'll soon be releasing a "paid" version where I can use thousands of (official?) transistor models not just 10 or so. That would be pretty awesome.
Also if they know what they're doing they'll partner with a short run PCB house. Some PCB houses give away PCB CAD software, these guys have a jump ahead of them... Maybe they already have, I have not explored the entire site. Imagine doing the schematic, the spice run, the pcb layout, and order some boards (and parts?) from the same browser window... that would be cool. Heck partner with those "virtual front panel" guys too.
If you double click on a component you can change the parameters, I think I could design a nifty little MMIC active constant current biasing circuit by hacking a rectifier model into a psuedo-mmic model (basically crank the forward V drop to 3 volts or so, depending on device, and a couple other things especially device capacitance). I wonder if I can push it into oscillation? (Note, you try to design ckts that don't do that... at least if they're theoretically amplifiers) Or get it to ring into a negative voltage at the amp input by doing stupid inductor tricks (this is why you don't use MMICs at HF freqs, aside from oscillation and usually intentional device gain rolloff)
I'd like to see the ability to handle temperature swings. My parts are milspec individually, but does my overall design work over a whole milspec temp range?
I suppose if I'm asking for the moon, could I have something like Ansoft for waveguide foolishness in my browser window?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
This capability has been around for a while with Upverter. Good to see some competition, though.
http://upverter.com/
From FAQ:
"Can I export my CircuitLab schematics out to another tool?
Not at this time."
This could be an awesome tool if it were easy to create (and share!) new parts, and get a netlist out, so we could import it into layout in Eagle, Kicad, gEDA PCB, Altium, whatever floats your boat. But since all the circuits I create go into layout and get turned into boards, this doesn't provide me much that existing tools don't already provide.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
This doesn't have to be a serious design tool. The real benefit is going to be to the DIY and hobby community, because tools like this are going to reduce the amount of shitty hand-drawn schematics uploaded to web forums, typically done in Paint or scrawled on notebook paper and then imaged with a cell phone. I've been looking for a quick way to bang out a schematic for a while now.
My thoughts:
The drawing is great and the interface does a good job of being easy enough to start without having to read directions.
They only have a selection of 8 NPN transistors, and you HAVE to choose one...there is no way to place a generic transistor and label it yourself. Even if you modify the parameters, you still have to have it labeled with one of the parts choices they provide. WTF? There is also no darlington transistor symbol.
Also, if you choose coil, you have to have it labeled with the inductance value in H, and you can't have it show a resistance value. This is stupid for motor coils, where you care about resistance at least as much as inductance.
So, force less shit down my throat, assume less about what I want to tell my audience, and it will be perfect.
It's nearly useless except for simple simulations since you cannot create custom library components. I use these sorts of tools for a living, and basic components will not get you far. Can it do XSPICE? That's mixed-mode digital and analog. Can you do monte carlo simulations, or adjust simulation parameters. Those are all very important features.
The browser is the new GUI. This is a good thing.
Instead of the dozen-or-so windows/widgets/mechanism systems we have now, we have one canvas with one interface managed by a standards community and improved over time.
To take a simple example, pick any of the windows systems (Tk, Gnome, Microsoft API) and consider how difficult it is to display text on the screen, including placement, size, font, color, and so on.
Now consider that same operation using the DOM model in Javascript: it's a simple English-like interface where you describe in a couple of words what you want to happen. Easy.
Add to this the fact that browsers work the same across all systems, the markup works largely the same across all browsers, and the interface documentation is available to anyone for free, and you've got a winning combination.
Wikipedia lists 14 free/OSS schematic capture programs. Almost universally, they are good in some aspects and fall short in others. For example: "Good graphics but lousy component library interface, but the library support will have to wait 'cause there's a ton of things we need which are more important". (Makes it 'kind of hard to use.)
With a universal canvas, people can get on board with ONE system so that everyone can pull the rope in the same direction. The fractured landscape of programs can be replaced by a single interface where people use their expertise to improve the system in the area in which they have expertise.
This should happen more often. There's a ton of competing GUI applications out there which could be consolidated into a single browser-implemented version, taking the best parts of each.
I hope to see many more of these in the future.
Does CircuitLab run simulations on my computer, or on CircuitLab's servers?
All circuit simulations run in your web browser, on your computer. Your simulations will run faster if you have a faster computer, or if you use a web browser with a faster JavaScript engine.
Does CircuitLab require an internet connection to function?
Yes. At this time, an internet connection is required to use the CircuitLab editor.
Perhaps in the light of the first answer, the second answer should - in the age of HTML5 - be "No" rather than "Yes".
Ezekiel 23:20
The guys who create audio sims (preamps, effects, etc) are always looking for more tools.
I used to have an electronics kit as a kid. Simple stuff, but fascinating. Though I didn't go into an electrical engineering field (comp sci instead), I am still interested in tinkering around.
On a side note, does anyone know how a switch placed into a circuit can be tested and used in CircuitLab?
That's a great idea, but I'd rather be able to store my schematics locally. I'd prefer not to rely on a third party to store my important documents.
I mean, if they chose to discontinue this service, my work would simply disappear.
I've tried it for some simple circuits; even the built-in examples. It does not even run DC Simulation - it says: "ERROR CREATING OPERATING POINT SOLVER - ABORTING NON-FINITE VALUE"
This is why I gave up on Spice and bought a 'scope and some parts from DigiKey. These things never work.
there's also falstad.com/circuit, which provides the downloadable Java source to their web app.
"That's either incredibly asinine or the most brilliant troll I've ever read. Not sure which." -Anonymous Coward
does it run Linux?
As a sidenote, the captcha was "puberty". I find your AI's attempt at sarcasm despicable.
all done in 20k lines of coffeescript to boot. Coffeescript will soon dominate the web!
Why is it so hard to get the SI prefixes correct?
What happened was that Sun* has been turning "Java Quick Starter" on by default in recent versions of Java. It's a process that runs in the background, rereading all the core JARs of the Java virtual machine every minute or two to keep them in the operating system's disk cache. That way, when you start something that uses Java, the hard disk doesn't have to churn to load the most common classes.
* JQS was introduced before Oracle's acquisition of Sun.
Chromium Browser (basis for Google Chrome) and Safari use the same WebKit HTML renderer but very different JavaScript virtual machines (V8 and Nitro respectively). All they're telling you is that the simulator has been extensively tested with Gecko+JaegerMonkey and WebKit+V8, not WebKit+Nitro.
Perhaps in the light of the first answer, the second answer should - in the age of HTML5 - be "No" rather than "Yes".
For one thing, some well-known implementations of HTML5 limit web applications to a maximum of 5 MB application cache and 5 MB local storage. For another, some well-known completely native single-user applications still require an Internet connection to verify the user's license. Perhaps the publisher plans to use this business model.
No ? then GTFO
Is CircuitLab free to use?
At this time, CircuitLab is entirely free-of-charge.
In the future, as the tool continues to grow and evolve, we may decide to charge for certain premium features so we may fund further development. However, it has always been our intention to keep the core functionality free, for the benefit of the greater online electronics community.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Most EDA software is windows only? This will come as a surprise to major EDA companies like Cadence and Synopsys. Take a look around major silicon valley chip design companies. They were heavy users of Solaris and have now transitioned to Linux.Most of the serious chips that power your iphones, android devices, servers and desktops were designed on Linux.
They are crowd sourcing for good circuits. See their terms when you try to make an account. It has all kinds of stuff related to not putting your company's patented circuits in there, because if you do, you just gave the patent to them.
To me, this makes their site somewhat evil. It is a trap for folk who don't read the user agreement.