Fusor Forums

There is a bunch of open source circuit design and simulation software out there. Do the folks here have a particular favorite? Or perhaps tee squares and HP calculators are the order of the day. Chugging away in LibreOffice is slow and not a simulation.

Regards,
Jason

Mac or PC?

I use iCircuit for Mac, it's available from the app store and only a few bucks.

Steven

I use LTSpice under wine/linux. Also runs on windows.

I posted a "list of useful software" in the past:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=9526

Questions about software pop up all the time, maybe it's good idea to add a "software and computer interface" topic to the faq section?

LTSpice is pretty much the go-to freeware circuit simulator. DesignSpark is a good freeware solution for laying out PCB's.

NI multisim is handy for basic things too if you have access to it since it can also layout the circuit into a PCB within the same program. Not worth the stupidly high price tag though if you don't have free access through a university etc.

LtSpice IS the de-facto best freeware design simulation software.

For actual design - i.e. schematic entry and PCB layout I really like Diptrace.

This software is available in a full featured free version with I believe about a ~200 part limitation. If breaking your design up into multiple boards this should be more than sufficient.

As a practicing electronic hardware designer I can say that the Diptrace software is very good - it compares well with versions of Orcad and PADS I have used in the past - and with the full "PRO" version only coming in at $895 is certainly the best "bang for the buck" in layout software with 3D mechanical modeling capability.