export from Altium to LTSpice - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: nazardo
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2014, 12:04:08 pm
content: I am using Altium everyday for capture and pcb design. Now, I need to simulate some circuits that I have already drawn in Altium, but their simulator does strange things.Do you know how I can export to LTSpice without having to redraw everything? I tried to export netlist in Tango format and LTspice can import it, but then I get an empty window when simulating. Is there a way to get the graphical circuit imported in LTspice as opposed to text spice commands (that I am not able to interpret)?Thanks

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2014, 06:05:41 pm
content: And LTSpice isn't strange..?AFAIK, LTSpice is based on the same thing (XSPICE), just extended differently. You won't get the exact same nonsense, but you'll encounter much the same problems, true of any simulator.I haven't looked, but I'm guessing a graphical export will be impossible, or nearly so... you'd have to export the libraries too, so the pin locations (graphically), their numbers, and what model pins they map to, can be figured out. And then import those as whatever format LTSpice uses. I mean, all that info is saved with the .SchDoc, actual libraries wouldn't need to be involved, but the symbols still have to get translated and reconstructed somehow. I guess it's not necessarily intractable, but...My peanut gallery is thinking, "if you really prefer LTSpice, then you won't care that its graphics are ugly anyway...if you aren't using graphics at all! Use the bare netlist like a Real Man"Tim

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2014, 02:14:45 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on April 11, 2014, 06:05:41 pmNot nearly as strange as Altiums's implementation. In the past I have simply dragged and dropped an Altium .nsx netlist onto LTSpice to run an operating point analysis then splattered the Altium schematic with initial conditions taken from LTSpice because it was the only way to get Altium to start a transient analysis.I also used to play a video while simulating with Altium because it must frequently sleep and using a multimedia application which speeds up the system tick caused Altium simulations to run twice as fast. I don't know if that is still the case I don't bother trying any more. I just use LTSpice in the first place.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2014, 04:26:40 pm
content: My experience has been, it's pretty average for SPICE, below average for the overall quality of the product. I've never had a circuit simulated in Altium that didn't break in similar ways in other packages.LTSpice wins on speed these days, as it actually uses multiple cores (imagine that).Tim

author: nazardo
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2014, 01:06:14 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on April 11, 2014, 06:05:41 pmThen, what alternative software do you suggest that I can use on circuits exported from Altium? Not only free packages; my company has a budget so I can consider also non-free solutions.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2014, 01:36:57 am
content: Hmm, as SPICE goes, I guess OrCAD/PSpice is pretty popular, but I haven't used it, so I can't speak to the differences.Tim

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2014, 05:56:47 am
content: Quote from: nazardo on April 14, 2014, 01:06:14 pmAltium integrates withhttp://www.simetrix.co.uk/site/index.htmlI don't know what Simetrix or the integration is like.