The kicad documentation gives a quick overview of what can be done with spice. It describes how to put spice directives in the schematic. Works with both GNUCAP or ngspice. I have not tried GNUCAP because this is primarily targeted for Linux. Ngspice (Binary for Windows and is free) and can be found at: http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/ Within Kicad you can export your netlists to spice format. I recommend labeling all of your nodes with names as this allows for traceability when using an external simulation tool. And exporting as NodeNames option. To add additional spice control directives to the netlist just add TEXT strings such as this to the schematic:{+SPICE,-SPICE,+GNUCAP,-GNUCAP} these flags will not show up in the netlist. -PSPICE .MODEL QNPN NPN (IS=1E-13 XTI=3 EG=1.11) +PSPICE .AC DEC 1 1Hz 100Hz Also, I experimented with using the spice file include directive and included some of LTspice's model definition files seems to work without modifing the LTspice library files. General form: +PSPICE .INCLUDE filename
I used a free GUI front end called KJWaves. This is a java appication accepts a spice netlist and allow you to optionally add the simulation directives to you netlist, call ngspice, graph analyze your results. http://sourceforge.net/projects/kjwaves/ I also tried Qucs, which seems to work. Qucs has its own netlist format, but will accept a spice netlist. Just insert Netlist block component. The netlist block allows you to expose your nodes once you give it a netlist filename. Then add your sources, probes and simulation cards to these exposed nodes. ________________________________ From: Dan Andersson <d...@andersson.co.uk> To: kicad-users@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wed, May 26, 2010 4:18:06 AM Subject: Re: [kicad-users] Export to which Spice? Jonathan, Most Spice dialects "should" have the same or close to, syntax. However... If you need top spend time on making it fit, target QUCS! Qucs is an Agilent ADS copy and I have to say, a very good one! I have so far not ran into lack of functionality with Qucs so I had to use ADS instead. Agilent ADS costs many 10K's of $. Another way is to generate netlist's for "SPLICE". Splice is a mixed mode simulator and as such, handles both digital and analog simulation slightly better than Spice. //Dan, M0DFI On Tuesday 25 May 2010 18:47:46 you wrote: > Hello folks; > > I have an interest in using KiCad with some flavor of Spice and plan on > trying a few of them. I see that the KiCad schematic capture tool can > export a Spice deck, also called a Spice file, and in the help file > documentation I found a reference to GnuCap. Is this the Spice that the > developers had in mind when the export-to-Spice feature was added? > > Does anyone have a preference for using a different Spice? I also found > references to Qucs which has its own schematic capture tool. > > I was not able to find much documentation on the how/what/where of using > the Spice export feature in KiCad. Any and all references are > appreciated. > > Thanks; > Jonathan ------------------------------------ Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links
