AutoDesk Releases An Electronics Simulator Called 123D Circuits

[enobrev]

Reminds me of an old idea I had a couple years back. I assume it's a silly idea driven primarily by my own ignorance of these tools and EE in general, but it seemed fun.

The idea was to start out with some software similar to this. Something visually impressive to keep it interesting for beginners, but technically sound to make it useful to those who know what they're doing. It would be open source, internet connected, easily accessible and most importantly simple to create and share ideas.

From there, let people make some interesting things for school, work, play, whatever, ideally sharing said creations and try to raise a community around the tools and creations.

The next stage would be to add a 3D rendering component which would allow people to create "machines" that could be run by their virtual electronics. Something like virtual fabrication. The ideal being to grow those interfaces and try to lead the community towards building virtual robots (that are technically feasible).

The eventual goal would be to build a virtual world on top of all of the above tools. Something like MechWarrior, but with engineers and industrial designers building virtual mechs from the smallest components to the large mechanical fabrication and then getting into all out war against one-another, adding to the mix less technical players to partake in the human elements of combat (generals, soldiers, medics, scavengers for destroyed mechs, etc).

Probably ridiculous, and if all went well I assume it would take years of work and planning, but it seemed like a fun idea to ponder.

[Brashman]

The kid in me loves it but simulation speed would be an issue. I don't know exactly what the simulation slowdown for circuits is, but just to give an idea, in a classroom setting, you're probably waiting a couple seconds for a simulation of a couple microseconds. Of course, this depends on factors such as simulation accuracy and circuit complexity, but it's unlikely you'd be able to scale up to robots. Intel processors take hours (days?) to simulate a couple seconds of operation at the circuit level.

[VLM]

One issue is complexity management. The kind of finite element software that can model fields in microwave-range hardware is, frankly, a PITA at one extreme, and at the other extreme you have minecraft redstone and an ancient computer game from the 80s called Rockys Boots and some .edu softare.

It strikes me as pretty hard to satisfy both extremes. Don't even have to go to extremes. Forget exotic microwave work an just try to have the same software and user interface model both a stereotypical ham radio dude 20M dipole and simultaneously be usable for a kids arduino LED blinker and make a simple flashlight.

I would claim that minecraft redstone is a local maxima and you'd do best to try and extend/mod it. Someone out there probably already has (or should have) a mod to add basic logic gates in redstone, rather than simple plungers which already exist, how about simple robot arm joints in minecraft?

[contingencies]

I like it. Sort of like Mechwarrior meets Minecraft meets My University Education in Mollecular/Astrophysics. I suspect the major issues would be with time scaling between user perspectives (a huge issue in MMO games), the learning curve, interface and simulation accuracy.

[bobowzki]

http://www.circuits.io/

[mbell]

I wonder if it models the terrible parasitics of a real breadboard.

I imagine it would be really annoying for beginners to build an IR receiver (or whatever) with the software, have it working perfectly, then try to build it on a real breadboard only to spend hours frustratingly trying to figure out why the circuit is oscillating.

[Brashman]

Welcome to EE lab. In one lab as an undergrad, my partner and I found that we could get our circuit to work by attaching a capacitor with one end to our circuit and one end to a random place on the breadboard. It made for a bit of a funny circuit diagram in the write-up where one end of this capacitor was connected to nowhere.

[toomuchtodo]

Is there any software out there that includes these real-world models into the design side?

[fein]

You can always measure the capacitance between each row. Hell of a lot better than building a full circuit first, just to find out your BB sucks.

[moron4hire]

I think there is a lot of value to blowing up your Arduino for reals. When you blow up a couple of Arduinos, you'll tend to force yourself to learn very quickly why it is happening and how to avoid it.

What is so bad about "blowing up a capacitor" or "burning yourself with a soldering iron"? Capacitors are a few cents, each. Buy them in bulk and never worry about needing one again. Soldering iron burns are easy to avoid if you have spent any time in a kitchen.

I feel like this is missing a big point. Arduino is the safe, easy entry point to learn electronics. The danger is miniscule, and whatever danger that is there, is part of the learning process. You need this as much as you need a rice-cooker simulator.

[pserwylo]

As somebody who is learning electronics using Arduino right now, I almost agree with you.

WARNING: The first time I accidentally forgot to put a resistor in front of an LED and sent 50mA to one which was rated at 20mA, I expected it to fizzle and cut out like a regular incandescent light bulb does in my house.

When it literally exploded and the plastic covering went flying through the room, I was very very glad it didn't hit me in the eye, or I'd probably have done some fairly serious damage.

[matthudson]

> "I feel like this is missing a big point. Arduino is the safe, easy entry point to learn electronics."

An Arduino Uno costs about 25USD. Blowing up a few of those, or other components gets pricy. This service lowers the price of entry to almost zero, which is a pretty big deal for people with low disposable income or limited access to the hardware.

[fnordfnordfnord]

There are so many people that underestimated the potential success for Arduino, and the rPi. Also, experienced hardware folks tend to forget how unforgiving hardware can be to non-hardware folks, and beginners; a good example of which was posted here the other day. http://www.jwz.org/curtain/

[gammarator]

Agreed, although the integration with a schematics editor and PCB board design tools seems nice.

[gcb0]

> it allows you to learn electronics using a virtual Arduino board and breadboard without blowing up capacitors or burning yourself with solder on your work table.

With autodesk prices, i can probably buy enough caps and pay someone to solder for me.

[nkurz]

All of their current 123D software is free for all: http://www.123dapp.com/create

And I recently was impressed to learn that they offer free licenses for most of their professional software (including Autocad) to school teachers, university faculty, and degree seeking students.

Qualifications: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=12311...

Software: http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=download_center

[coldtea]

Perhaps you're thinking of Autocad. They also sell dead cheap end user software, even on the iTunes store.

[mrcharles]

I'd kill for an app like this that would help teach you electronics at the same time. I've wanted to start doing some robotics stuff, but haven't found much in terms of useful learning resources outside of just buying a full university textbook and hoping for the best.

[Bjorkbat]

Funny you should mention that, I've been slowly working on this idea for a circuit-sim that basically teaches you electronics, to be eventually complemented with video-lectures which I keep putting off due to school and a hunger for other projects.

So yeah, the Autodesk news was kinda depressing, but really, that just means I'm going to focus more on the teaching end and in adding my own personal style to it through quirky graphical elements that harken back to the 8-bit era of yore. Autodesk can't sell a product with soul.

You can check it out if you want. Just to warn you though, my html abilities are a work-in-progress, so don't be surprised if you see some awful mistakes in there, or if it renders kinda funny if you have a small screen.

www.bighugebreadboard.com

I actually created it to teach myself electronics, so the biggest hurdle has been learning how various components work, and then adding them to the sim. Also, prior to this, my javascript knowledge was basically acquired through Codecademy.

I'm also putting some of the code on a Github repo, as in I plan to make it open-source. Alas, before I did that I cleaned up some prior amateur's mistakes without thinking of the bugs I would be opening up. I should have them fixed by tomorrow morning.

https://github.com/Bjorkbat/electricjs

[stephengillie]

Buy an Arduino/Launchpad/MSP430/other prototyping kit and start plugging things (motors/LEDs/other devices) into it. As long as all of your devices will work at the same voltage -- as long as everything is 5v or 3.3v or whatever -- they plug into breadboards like legos.

It took me 3 months from buying my first Arduino to using an ultrasonic distance sensor to control an RC car motor. http://gilgamech.blogspot.com

[generj]

I guess I'm not seeing the advantage over existing software.

Unless there are some tie-ins with their other 123D software to, say, automatically create a hardware enclosure from a schematic.

[kbruneel]

We have that! Just push the "generate enclosure" button in the circuit details page.

[Scene_Cast2]

How do I add a voltage other than a 9V battery?

What are the current alternatives to this? I'm looking to build an LED driver (possible IC candidates are Linear LT3477, TI TPS63020 and some other TI / Linear chips). I'd kill for a software that would simulate any chips (or even just a crude approximation of them).

[compumike]

This is an issue we've been tackling at CircuitLab (https://www.circuitlab.com/), and the fundamental issue is that the chip makers (Linear, TI, Analog Devices, etc) don't want to let their device models out of the building. They often do have simplified models for simpler parts (op-amps), but for more complex mixed-mode parts (switchers), coverage is sparse, and a SPICE netlist is a poor language for encoding the control logic. LTspice, for example, includes encrypted models for many of their switching power supply parts, and those include special non-standard SPICE behavioral components to make the models possible to execute in a reasonable amount of time. Other companies with web-based / server-side simulation keep the models entirely opaque and tremendously limit your ability to configure the surrounding components. The goal is to get you just far enough to have confidence that their chip is the solution for you, and then get you to use their tools and field application engineers. This is the status quo and they're generally not in any rush to disturb it.

[nullified]

LTspice [0] is an excellent (and might I add free) SPICE simulator. Linear includes proper models of the majority of their chip lineup, including LED drivers. Their power supply IC models are also excellent. You can simulate a full LED driver circuit and a whole lot more with LTspice. TI also has a similar SPICE simulator [1], but it's not nearly as good, and its simulations are much slower and a bit more unreliable.

I design electronics for a living, and I use LTspice all the time for power supply and analog circuit simulations.

[0]: http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/#LTspice

[1]: http://www.ti.com/tool/tina-ti

[zachrose]

Is this based on Fritzing (fritzing.org)?

[ris]

Nope, just a non-free clone with a marketing budget.

I must say I'm not sure how to feel watching the maker and hacker culture I love so much having its open heart slowly ripped out.

[BuildTheRobots]

that was the first thing to go through my mind -the graphics look _extremely_ familiar.

[ddunkin]

It doesn't seem as in-depth as something more pure electronics like this: http://www.falstad.com/circuit (also as iCircuit for iPhone)

[mflindell]

They really went out of their way to try and rip of Github, it seems like a lot of sites now would rather copy it because developers are used to the design.

[rglover]

For someone who's been looking for an easy point of entry into learning this stuff (me), this looks awesome.

[moron4hire]

Arduino is already the easy point of entry for learning this stuff. Stop talking about it and just do it.

[fnordfnordfnord]

Okay now we need a code debugger with breakpoints. Then, real hardware in the loop!

[kbruneel]

Working on it!

[qq66]

Is this similar to Upverter?

[trekky1700]

Sure seems like it.