Solve Elec, as the name says, is a software that makes the task of dealing with electrical designs a lot easier. Right from the circuit stage, analysis, to finally getting a report, Solve Elec is your friend to help and correct the multitude of ideas developing in your mind. Read on to know what Solve Elec has to offer to make designing easier and fun.
An all-in-one workstation
It is often comfortable to have the various elements of the design stage on one screen, right next to each other. Especially in complex circuits where each click of the mouse leads to different scenarios, one needs to shift between the various pop-up windows to figure out what is happening where.
The workstation of Solve Elec is designed to hold the basic necessary tabs, neatly arranged in columns on a single screen. Be it the design tools for creating, running and editing a circuit, a window showing its properties or the measurement setup that helps you monitor your circuit—each has its own space that can be customised. Easy to see, easy to access!
Modes that replicate current behaviour
Right at the start, mode of operation has to be selected. This turns out to be the most important step as not all components can be ported between alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) modes, which only seems logical after all.
In DC mode, components from switches to integrated amplifiers are available to you, while voltage and intensity sources drive a constant value for the entire duration of the simulation.
In AC mode, voltages, intensities and potentials are sine waves of the same frequency; the waves represented as complex values in circuit properties. Methods of complex analysis are exploited to find a solution for the circuit that can only contain components operating in linear mode, so that the sine wave is preserved.
Solve Elec Features aiding effective analysis
A graph is one of the easiest means of analysing relationships between data, and the graph plotter in Solve Elec lets you plot quantities associated with components defined by metres or by formulae. The customisable graph asks you to define a parameter from among the component-associated quantities, while plotting metre or formula values on both axes.
There are also curve functions that help draw intensity and tension curve values on a graph. The plotted graph uses different colours to highlight different state functioning, like linear, active and saturation mode for a transistor’s characteristics, each of which is described by the graph legend. You can turn off the legend to make modifications to the graph.
For any circuit consisting of linear components, its equivalent circuit, as seen from any two points, can be obtained using Solve Elec. From the equivalent resistance of a set of resistors to Thevenin equivalent circuit, data is provided along with the formulae involved. For AC voltages and currents, oscilloscope feature can be exploited to view the signals as if on a real instrument.
What happens when frequency is changed. No electrical analysis is complete without analysing the circuit’s frequency response. Solve Elec lets you trace this response using transfer functions and gains obtained for circuits working on an AC source. The necessary condition is that the circuit must contain a single input voltage source and only one voltmeter defining the output voltage.
A transfer function tool, when initiated, checks the circuit, analyses it and displays the results on the transfer function pane. For a resistor-capacitor (RC) filter circuit, the pane contains details like definitions of the function, values of the various parameters involved and finally ending with the cut-off frequency of the designed filter. Corresponding frequency response can be linear or logarithmic, and phase relations can also be displayed.
