Best LTSpice to PCB

From experience, can someone please advise what is the most
strightforward way to get from an LTSpice schematic file to a low end
program capable of producing PCB manufacturing files, eg. layout,
routing and drill plot capablilties?

I had been re-drawing in EagleCad for the latter purposes. But I am
hoping there is a more direct way.

Thanking you,

Claus Jensen

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007 10:51:00 +1000, in sci.electronics.design Claus
Jensen <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>From experience, can someone please advise what is the most
>strightforward way to get from an LTSpice schematic file to a low end
>program capable of producing PCB manufacturing files, eg. layout,
>routing and drill plot capablilties?
>
>I had been re-drawing in EagleCad for the latter purposes. But I am
>hoping there is a more direct way.
>
>Thanking you,
>
>Claus Jensen
I dont know EagleCAD, but in LT/tools, you can export the netlist, so
if eagle can import a netlist, you are half way there


martin

On 22 Jul, 01:51, Claus Jensen <clausjen...@optimax.com> wrote:
> From experience, can someone please advise what is the most
> strightforward way to get from an LTSpice schematic file to a low end
> program capable of producing PCB manufacturing files, eg. layout,
> routing and drill plot capablilties?
>
> I had been re-drawing in EagleCad for the latter purposes. But I am
> hoping there is a more direct way.
>
> Thanking you,
>
> Claus Jensen

I use Pulsonix for schematic capture and PCB layout. It has an
integrated SPICE, but the SPICE schematics have to be edited, of
course, as the PCB parts are different from the SPICE ones. There are
plenty of other PCB packages with SPICE.

Leon


Leon

Claus Jensen wrote:
> From experience, can someone please advise what is the most
> strightforward way to get from an LTSpice schematic file to a low end
> program capable of producing PCB manufacturing files, eg. layout,
> routing and drill plot capablilties?
>
> I had been re-drawing in EagleCad for the latter purposes. But I am
> hoping there is a more direct way.
>
> Thanking you,
>
> Claus Jensen
You may consider switching to B2Spice. They offer an Eagle PCB
interface. B2Spice has a free Lite version that may suffice your
needs. Good luck.
Jim

"Claus Jensen" <(E-Mail Removed)> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> From experience, can someone please advise what is the most
> strightforward way to get from an LTSpice schematic file to a low end
> program capable of producing PCB manufacturing files, eg. layout,
> routing and drill plot capablilties?
>
> I had been re-drawing in EagleCad for the latter purposes. But I am
> hoping there is a more direct way.
>
> Thanking you,
>
> Claus Jensen


Hello Claus,

LTspice can create netlists for some PCB-CAD programs but not for EAGLE.
Even with those programs, it's only useful to compare netlists.
The main reason for this limited use is the missing physical package and
pin-number information.

I recommend to draw the schematic in EAGLE for the PCB.
Then create a SPICE netlist from the EAGLE-schematic and
directly run it with the LTspice simulator

If you want a schematic in LTspice from the EAGLE drawing, you could
use the ulp from the LTspice-Yahoo-group(Files>Util>sym2ltspice.zip) to
convert EAGLE symbols to LTspice symbols. This may help for faster
re-drawing the schematic.

Best regards,
Helmut

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LTspice/

Claus Jensen wrote:
>>what is the most strightforward way to get from an LTSpice schematic
>>[...]to[...]PCB manufacturing files, eg. layout, routing and drill plot[...]?
>>
martin griffith wrote:
>I dont know EagleCAD, but in LT/tools, you can export the netlist,
>so if eagle can import a netlist, you are half way there
>
Here's what's available for Cadsoft EAGLE:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache...+Edwin.Robledo
The link to the original document (PDF) is at the top of the page.

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.e...ayer+converted
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.electronics.cad/browse_frm/thread/f85d28a336c67dae/7a528d64a1391bbb?q=*-*-have-equivalents-in-*-other-packages+supports+magical.tool+doesn't+flawed+limi tations-*-what-will-import-successfully+retrieve-data+*-*-*-limited-*-list-of-compatible-versions+zz-zz+qq-qq+exist
Flanagan's Beige Bag suggestion seems the most painless in this regard.

"Leon" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) ups.com...
> On 22 Jul, 01:51, Claus Jensen <clausjen...@optimax.com> wrote:
>> From experience, can someone please advise what is the most
>> strightforward way to get from an LTSpice schematic file to a low end
>> program capable of producing PCB manufacturing files, eg. layout,
>> routing and drill plot capablilties?
>
> I use Pulsonix for schematic capture and PCB layout.

Forgive Leon, he gets a free case of beer whenever he writes about Pulsonix,
even when it has absolutely nothing to with the question posed. :-)

> It has an
> integrated SPICE, but the SPICE schematics have to be edited, of
> course, as the PCB parts are different from the SPICE ones.

If you're just trying to build a PCB, you can often get away with minimal
editing. I've done filters this way in Pulsonix -- change the voltage source
and load resistor into SMA connectors and -- poof! -- everything is all set to
go to PCB. It's when you need a real BOM or other manufacturing data that
it's often just as fast to competely re-enter the schematic in another
program.

To the O.P.: If you look at LTSpice's help file, it'll tell you (page 22,
"PCB Netlist Extraction") what programs it can export netlists to. ExpressPCB
is supported and free; you might check that out.

> There are
> plenty of other PCB packages with SPICE.

Yes, but if you want to use Linear Tech parts, you're pretty much stuck using
LTSpice since the models are specific to various features that LTSpice
provides. There are legitimate engineering reasons for this -- building
switching power converter models for "generic" SPICE does tend to make for
very slow convergence. Although there are SPICE packages out there with a lot
more options and features than LTSpice, there are also plenty that are far
more limited, and not free (as in beer) like LTSpice _is_.

---Joel

Although there are SPICE packages out there with a lot
>more options and features than LTSpice, there are also plenty that are far
>more limited, and not free (as in beer) like LTSpice _is_.
>
>---Joel
>

Can you recomend the SPICE packages you refer to that have more
options than LTSpice? Preferably free or lower price point. Although
LTSpice is fast and easy to use, the component library is quite
limited by design.

Thank you,

Claus

"Claus Jensen" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed)...
> Although there are SPICE packages out there with a lot
>>more options and features than LTSpice, there are also plenty that are far
>>more limited, and not free (as in beer) like LTSpice _is_.
>>
>>---Joel
>>
>
> Can you recomend the SPICE packages you refer to that have more
> options than LTSpice? Preferably free or lower price point.

Well, I cringe to suggest this, but PSpice is still quite powerful, despite
Cadence's best attempts to kill or at least neuter it. It has a very powerful
behavioral modeling tool built-in that makes it quite easy to build new
component models from empirical (or data sheet) measurements. There is a guy
who made something similar for LTspice's VDMOS transistors, but PSpice can do
it for pretty much any device type. PSpice is not at all cheap, though, so
this probably doesn't qualify for what you're after. Download the old PSpice
applications guide at http://www.it.uom.gr/project/digital/appnts.pdf and
you'll get a feel for some of the extra features that are unique to PSpice.

SI-Metrix, which AFAIK is most inexpensively obtained by purchasing a copy of
"Pulsonix SPICE" (Leon's favorite package) has more based graphing and probing
options that LTspice does. Since Pulsonix's SPICE front end is a generic
schematic capture tool, you also get a lot more options on how the schematic
is displayed (fonts, drawing features, etc.) than LTspice provides.

Some features which I believe are 100% unique to LTspice include:

-- Use of ASCII files for everything; really quite convenient.
-- Very easy use of .WAV files for signal inputs and outputs

> Although
> LTSpice is fast and easy to use, the component library is quite
> limited by design.

My experience is that when you first start you spend a lot of time performing
library maintenance, but after a few projects you have most of the common
symbols drawn the way you like them and you only have to draw a new symbol
every once in awhile. Associating symbols with new models is pretty fast and
easy in all modern SPICE tools.

---Joel