Meters in LTspice and Tina-TI (DC analysis)? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: Antlab
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2012, 11:06:58 pm
content: Hi all.I am quite new to the circuit simulator programs, so I am experimenting with the different possibilities. At present I am comparing LTSpice and Tina-TI. One thing I like of Tina-TI is that you can insert different type of meters (voltmeters, ammeters and so on), directly in the circuit, and when performing a DC analysis they show the values of voltage, current, and other parameters.In LTSpice I did not find a similar feature. I know that in DC analysis you obtain a text window with the reference points, and if you use the probe you have the various values on the bottom info line, but in my opinion this is much less immediate than directly visualize the values on the circuit as in Tina-TI.I am missing something? What do you think about the subject? I am open to any suggestion.Thanks.A.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2012, 11:30:44 am
content: LTSpice is limited in that sense. You have a strange, largely undocumented feature for placing voltage labels on nets.Remove all .STEP directives from the circuit. The feature works with fixed element values only.Select DC operating point (.OP) analysis.Click right on the background, then selectView->Show .op Data FlagsTurn the checkbox on for that item.Run the simulation. Only after you ran the simulation once you can perform the next step.Right click on the background, then selectView->Place .op Data LabelMove the label to a net. Once dropped at a net, it should display the DC operating point value of that net.You can right-click on such a label and select another value to be displayed, or construct an expression, e.g. rounding the value to two significant digits. As long as the label is attached to a node the $ symbol in an expression refers to that node.Once dropped at a net, you can move the label away from the net with the move tool (the hand). The display should then turn to ???. You can then right-click on the label and select a value to be displayed.It is all rather convoluted, not to say brain dead. It maybe only makes sense when preparing a schematic for some educational presentation.

author: Antlab
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2012, 03:11:38 pm
content: Hi BoredAtWork,thank you very much, your method works well.Actually, before posting here, I made several searches about the question, but did not find anything. And surely without your indications I wouldn't have guessed the mechanism in a century of attemptsConsidering that LTSpice is usually much praised, and the complete version of Tina is quite expensive, I would prefer stay with the former, but sincerely some functions, as those of my subject, seem more polished in Tina. Do you mainly use LTSpice for simulations?Thank you again.A.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2012, 03:32:42 pm
content: i use tina-ti because it has function generator, oscilloscope and signal analyzer (educate me some level of how "expensive i cant afford" items work). and it draws pretty neat too (except nonintuitive pan and zoom, to my paradigm standard) even for educational presentation imho. i just wish sim like it is embedded in pcb making software like diptrace so i dont have to draw twice, one for sim, one for pcb.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2012, 03:46:05 pm
content: Quote from: Antlab on March 10, 2012, 03:11:38 pmI am not a big fan of simulations. If I simulate analog circuits I tend to use LTSpice. However, a lot of LTSpice is poorly documented, and some things aren't documented at all. To add insult to injury Linear actively disencourages discussion of undocumented features, considering it some kind of bad reverse engineering. Yeah, sure. Even just looking into a .asc file might be considered reverse engineering by them, although it is all ASCII (ups, I probably shouldn't have written that ...). But if you wondered why there are so few format converters for LTSpice, look no further.

author: Antlab
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2012, 08:04:49 pm
content: Quote from: Mechatrommer on March 10, 2012, 03:32:42 pmI just started with Tina-TI, but I agree with you. It seems to have nice features, but the navigation, in particular the zoom, is horrid (I tried all the possible combination of Shift-Ctrl-Alt and so on with my beloved mouse wheel to perform zoom, but no luck).

author: Antlab
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2012, 08:07:50 pm
content: Quote from: BoredAtWork on March 10, 2012, 03:46:05 pmThe problem with LTSpice for me is also another one. I know that the user group has a lot of material available, but I find Yahoo Groups quite cumbersome to use, I would prefer a normal clean forum as this one.A.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2012, 01:15:25 am
content: Quote from: Antlab on March 10, 2012, 08:04:49 pmnot horrid at all, just not intuitive enough. to zoom, you have to go to toolbar on top and click the magnifier lens icon or select magnification % from dropdown menu next to it. to pan, well use mousewheel, but only pan up and down. maybe they learnt from internet explorer how to pan (scroll up and down), then how do we pan left to right? (scrollbar at the bottom? classic!) i should give them some inhouse training on how to do things rightor at least learn from more professional programmers like adobe's for the right application.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2012, 10:04:59 am
content: Quote from: Antlab on March 10, 2012, 08:07:50 pmAnd they are very protective of the Yahoo group and its contents. The moderator wants to be good friends with Linear and proactively prohibits discussions of things Linear might not like, like the discussion of undocumented features. They have a large collection of files, and specially adapted models, but some things are rather unsorted, of unknown copyright, and you have to become a group member to get access to the files.

author: icdesigner
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: January 16, 2015, 07:20:16 pm
content: I found this one to help users get some features like zooming in with the scrollwheel, with TINA-TI :http://tersamgt.blogspot.com/2015/01/tina-ti-zoom-with-ctrl-scrollwheel.html

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2015, 10:59:30 pm
content: QuoteIt is even better in LTSpice: you don't need to insert those "meters" or "probes", simply click on a wire to show its voltage and a node to show its current.And you can plot as many as you wish and do math easily between them.

author: liquibyte
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2015, 12:30:54 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on January 16, 2015, 10:59:30 pmTo get a current measurement on a component or net in ltspice you can alt+left click (ctrl+alt+left click in wine on linux). When doing this with nets it's dependent on where your cursor is between nodes as well. You can also right click in the plot pane and "add trace" (ctrl+a) and pick out the various traces to do math with. I hated this program at first but once you get past the way it works it really is very powerful and once you seek out the undocumented stuff it becomes even more so.

author: macboy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 12:04:33 am
content: Quote from: Bored@Work on March 10, 2012, 11:30:44 amIt isSOmuch easier than this.Draw schematic.Run transient analysis.CLOSE the graph window.Click on any node (wire) and it will label it with a voltage. Repeat as desired.Run transient analysis again whenever you change the circuit.The key is to close the graph window, since with that open, clicking on a node (wire) adds it to the graph rather than labeling it with the voltage.With the graph window open (either run transient analysis or menu item "visible traces" to open it):To add voltages to the graph window, click the wire/node. To add currents, ALT-click a wire, or (generally) click a component or leg of a component (such as transistors). You can also ALT-click a component to get the power dissipation of the component... this is useful to check safe operating area of power transistors for example. All these are graphed as instantaneous values in a transient analysis. You can also get the RMS, average, and/or integrated values (as appropriate) of those by CTL-clicking the label of each waveform in the graph window.(p.s.the above is all applicable only to LTSpice).