software simulations

[Specmaster]

Has anyone any experience of electronics simulation software that will allow a circuit to be built on screen and then simulate it running to test the theory and fine tune it before committing to purchasing parts and breadboarding it etc? The link here describes the type of software I'm talking about http://www.new-wave-concepts.com/products.html

If so what is your opinion of such software and what would your recommendation or an alternative software package.

At this stage I'm not particularly fussed about PCB construction, more of a possible replicate a circuit that is malfunctioning and then animate it and use the virtual to analyse the circuit at various points and assist in pinpointing the faults location etc?

[rstofer]

One of the most popular simulation packages is LTspice - it's free and pretty much the standard around town.
There is a very good group on Yahoo Groups with some folks who really know how it works.

Not every possible device is modeled so there could be cases where it is useless.  Or you have to build a model by scrounging information from a number of sources - including the Yahoo group.

It doesn't do anything with respect to PCB layout.

[ataradov]

LTSpice, but it is not a plug and play kind of thing. You need to understand that it is a numerical solver for a system of differential equations, so it comes with limitations.

I guess all of the simulators will be based on the same principles, but commercial ones typically make a lot of effort to hide things, while LTSpice embraces them.

[Neilm]

I have used Tina-TI for simulation that was somewhat more user friendly. However, I found it was so user friendly I couldn't do some of the advanced things I wanted to - so I also use LTSpice.

Just remember, any simulation is only as good as the data you put in. If you make your model very relaistic, you will get a better result.

[rstofer]

For everything else, there is Matlab.