Circuit Simulation – How to Use Proteus Simulation Software

Circuit simulation in a simple term, is a process of using a circuit simulation software on a computer, to ascertain the behavior of an electronic circuit before building the real circuit. It is a virtual representation of a real electronic circuit to note how the circuit will behave in real life.

What to Learn in this Tutorial

• Understand what is circuit simulation
• What to considered during circuit simulation
• Advantages and Disadvantages of circuit simulation
• What is Proteus simulation software (Proteus Design Suite)
• How to use Proteus simulation software

You can use the Quick Navigation button to navigate to any of the sub-topics listed above.

Understanding Circuit Simulation

Electronic circuit simulation is an indispensable part of electronic circuit design, especially in the design of integrated circuits (ICs). The simulation of ICs is a very structured area that is grounded in the first principles of current and voltage relationships. The process of simulating a circuit begins with the “modeling” of each element from the circuit in terms of basic building blocks of electronics such as current and voltage sources, resistors, capacitors, and inductors. The parameters for each element in the model may be time-varying or time-invariant. The goal of these models is to accurately mimic the dynamic behavior of the elements while providing the simplest possible representation. Specifically, with these models, the designer can easily construct a set of current and voltage relationships that describe the behavior of the entire circuit.

What to Consider During Electronic Circuit Simulation

It should be noted that, as much as circuit simulation helps in telling how an electronic circuit will behave in real life, care should be taken to make the necessary and appropriate approximations in the simulation results, so as to accommodate the tolerance of some electronic components in real life. This is because the electronic components used in real-life electronic circuit design are affected by some environmental factors, like temperature, humidity, etc.  Hence, a resistor that is marked 1k could have a value that might not measure exactly 1k. For instance, in sensitive circuits like high frequency circuits, a 950 ohms resistor placed where a 1k resistor should be, would likely not produce the desired result.

Advantages and Disadvantages of circuit simulation

Advantages

• Conditions can be varied and outcomes investigated, this way you can get multiple results from a single simulation set up.
• Critical situations can be investigated without risks, one can know the behavior of high voltage circuits without having to expose oneself to dangerous electricity
• It is cost effective. With circuit simulation you can carry out many tests that you would have spent a fortune doing when you purchase different kinds of electronic components for different tests. But with one-off purchase of the circuit simulation software, you can carry out hundreds and thousands of tests.
• With circuit simulation, the design process can be sped up and the circuit behavior can be studied easily over a short period of time.

Disadvantages

• When the result obtained from simulation does not correlate with the real-life result, there would be a big challenge, because time, effort and money would have been wasted in the simulation.
• Circuit simulation requires in depth understanding of the very concept of electronic circuit design and the mastery of the electronic circuit simulation software in use, it requires an expert.
• Some circuit simulation software can be relatively expensive. This might not be a challenge to big tech companies and academic institutions, but  for hobbyists and tech enthusiasts.

 

What is Proteus Simulation Software (Proteus Design Suite)

Among all the many circuit simulation software out there is one that stands out, and that is Proteus Design Suite. The Proteus Design Suite combines ease of use with a powerful feature set to enable the rapid design, test and layout of professional printed circuit boards. Proteus Design Suite is a proprietary software tool suite used primarily for electronic design automation. The software is used mainly by electronic design engineers and technicians to create schematics and electronic prints for manufacturing printed circuit boards.

How to Use Proteus Simulation Software

Just as other circuit simulation software, to use Proteus, you need to first download and install the software on your computer. The software is a paid one, but you will be able to download a crack version of the software with the link I will leave at the end of this post.

Please do understand that, the Proteus simulation software is a paid software. The crack version you download here is solely for educational purpose, if you want to use Proteus simulation software for business, consider buying the paid version here

There are several versions of the Proteus simulation software, the latest version is Proteus 8.14, you can use the links below to download any of the four versions, Proteus 8, Proteus 8.11, Proteus 8.12 and Proteus 8.13.

• Download Proteus 8.14 Demo
• Download Proteus 8.13 Crack
• Download Proteus 8.12 Crack
• Download Proteus 8.11 Crack
• Download Proteus 8.0 Crack

Once you have downloaded the Proteus simulation software, come back and watch the video below on how to use the Proteus simulation software. If you are finding it difficult to install the software, watch the second video below.

I hope you have been able to understand what electronic circuit simulation is, the advantages and disadvantages of circuit simulation and how to use the Proteus circuit simulation software.

You can check out circuit simulation tutorials with Proteus below.

• What is a linear power supply, Building a linear power supply in Proteus.
• Step up transformer simulation in Proteus
• Stepdown transformer in Proteus – How to Simulate AC voltage
• How to a make Sine Wave Inverter with 555 Timer in Proteus
• 555 Timer Astable Circuit in Proteus | 555 timer Circuits
• Dark activated LED Lighting system in Proteus
• Voltage level indicator circuit using LM3914 dot/bar graph
• Digital Scrolling Text Display in Proteus with MAX7219 and Arduino
• How to Simulate HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor in Proteus
• How to Use Arduino in Proteus – Arduino Simulation in Proteus