Vacuum Tube Computer Simulation Modeling

[oldheathkitphil]

HELLO

HAS ANYONE OUT THERE USED ANY COMPUTER MODELING SOFTWARE FOR VACUUM TUBE AMPLIFIERS ??

SOMETHING LIKE WINSPICE OR PSPICE ?

IF SO ARE THERE ANY THAT ARE FREE OR 30 DAY EVALUATION FULLY FUNCTIONING TYPES ????

I FIND A FEW REFERENCES ON THE WEB BUT THEY SEEM QUITE OLD 2003, 2004 ETC.

CAN ANYONE RECOMMEND A PARTICULAR PROGRAM THAT WOULD MODEL SOMETHING LIKE A DYNACO ST70 ?????

DOES SPICE DATA EXIST FOR THE 12AX7 AND EL84 ????

THANK YOU MUCH

 

[anatech]

Hi oldheathkitphil,

Please.
Stop yelling and turn your caps key off.

Please do a search and look in the tubes forum in past posts. There are commercial products available for you and some free models and programs you can use.

-Chris

 

[ruffrecords]

SwitcherCAD

Perhaps the most popular free spice program is LTSpice. Google will find it for you.

Cheers

Ian

 

[kevinkr]

Lots of tube models will work in LTspice which is based on Berkley Spice 3. No limitations on number of nodes or components. Free and very powerful. Users group on yahoo groups.

There are models for just about all common audio tubes, and quite a few uncommon ones as well.

Send me an email at directdotheatedatgmaildotcom and I'll send you the library and symbols you need.

 

[anatech]

Hey Kevin,
I reckon it's time for me to learn. Would you be so kind?

bhomester at gmail dot com .

Now the secrets out! I don't spice.

-Chris

 

[billr]

go to www.duncanamps.com then look for spice, there's a page on models and simulators

bill

 

[kevinkr]

Hey Kevin,
I reckon it's time for me to learn. Would you be so kind?

bhomester at gmail dot com .

Now the secrets out! I don't spice.

-Chris

Hi Chris,
Welcome to the world of LTspice. I'll send you the models tonight.

 

[anatech]

Hi Kevin,
That's very kind of you. Thanks!

-Chris

Edit: Wow! The new Duncan amps site is really cool! Guess where I'll be for the next little while?

 

[ray_moth]

I agree, LTSpice is the best choice, being free for personal use. As mentioned already, Duncan Amps is the place to go. You can get the software there and quite a few models for diodes, triodes, pentodes, FETs, junction transistors, zeners and other SS devices.

Users group on yahoo groups.

There is, but it seems to be totally disorganized, which makes it just about impossible to find anything useful. The 'help' function in LTSpice itself is also useless. It may sound ungrateful to complain about free software, but it does seem a shame for a wonderful product like this to be rendered difficult to use, just because no-one could write proper 'help' for it.

 

[aletheian]

I use LTSpice and Circuitmaker2000. There are hundreds of tube models floating around the internet, and they are not terribly difficult to build up for yourself once you get the hang of it. (transfermers, however, are very difficult to model).

 

[kevinkr]

I agree, LTSpice is the best choice, being free for personal use. As mentioned already, Duncan Amps is the place to go. You can get the software there and quite a few models for diodes, triodes, pentodes, FETs, junction transistors, zeners and other SS devices.


There is, but it seems to be totally disorganized, which makes it just about impossible to find anything useful. The 'help' function in LTSpice itself is also useless. It may sound ungrateful to complain about free software, but it does seem a shame for a wonderful product like this to be rendered difficult to use, just because no-one could write proper 'help' for it.

While LTspice Help is not the easiest or clearest Help I can think of it is far from useless.. I use it fairly frequently as I discover more features I didn't know the program had. Incidentally I use LTSPice in preference to Cadence at work.

 

[jackinnj]

(transfermers, however, are very difficult to model).

Depends upon what type of transformer -- there is a huge body of research on transformer SPICE.

With respect to TUBE spice -- the models get you in the ball park but not to the finish line -- this is where it is helpful to have a curve tracer --