Has anyone on this list had much luck with the Protel circuit simulator? Having mentioned it in passing a week or so ago, I've decided that since I've got it I may as well be using it, but I'm having an annoying problem.
(P99se6, win2k, access ddb, single sheet schematic, stock sim components) I've made up a simple LC power supply filter (with damping resistor) to see how the simulator works, and the simulation basically works as expected - providing the results I want. However I have a problem with running a "parameter sweep" on the transient analysis. I want to look at how adjusting a damping resistor in the circuit changes the overall filter response, and while I can do this, here is what's annoying me: I can run the simulation with parameter sweep fine, and I can view the different traces made by parameter sweep in SimData. However when I go back to the schematic, (no difference if there was a component change or not) and re-run the simulation, protel stops. I get "Error: Float invalid operation exception in simulation" Going back into SimView, hiding all the traces related to parameter sweep, and then re-running the simulation makes it work. Playing with "SimView setup" doesn't make any difference. (except the "show active signals" option trashes my graph views when I do get the sim to work by hiding the traces) Changing the parameter sweep (start, end values, step size) makes no difference either. I'm using default parameters for the transient analysis and changing them makes no difference. Here's the rub - For a couple of hours today this was *NOT* a problem. I could re-simulate a parameter sweep simulation as many times as I wanted, without hiding traces each time and it worked fine. I made a change (adding a resistor in series with an inductor to model lead resistance) and all of a sudden my simulator stopped working!!. removing the component again did not help, and I've basically spent about 2 hours of my time stuffing about in Protel99se trying to characterise the actual problem it just developed. Grrrr. Of course there is no such problem noted in Protel's knowlege base on the website, so any information that anyone can give me on how I can get by without having to hide and re-show traces between each simulation would be very much appreciated. Has anyone else had any problems like this with the circuit simulator in p99se? are there any more issues lurking about? Am I better off just downloading a basic copy of spice? Thanks, Julian Higginson * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:proteledaforum@;techservinc.com * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:ForumAdministrator@;TechServInc.com * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/proteledaforum@;techservinc.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
