1

ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS FOR BIOLOGICAL

ENGINEERING LABORATORY
BE154L/A43/4Q1920

ACTIVITY NO. 1

COMPONENT AND EQUIPMENT FAMILIARIZATION

LTSPICE AS SIMULATION TOOL

JUNE 03, 2020 / JAN 08, 2020

Date created / Date Submitted

LT SPICE TUTORIAL

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The tutorial shown below is for students and persons

who are interested in creating circuits and analyzing them using LTspice. The tutorial is divided in 2
sections which discusses basic installation of LTspice and basic circuit creation of DC, AC, and Transient
circuits using tools available in LT spice.

A. Getting Started in LTspice – Creating and Measuring Voltage Divider Tutorial

a. Download and Install LTspice from the link below. If you are using a windows OS
computer, click the download windows button. If you are using a macintosh OS or mac
OS, click the download MAC OS button. After downloading, open the download file and
the installer would open as shown in Figure 1. Read the license agreement or just click
accept. Choose the bit version of your computer and click install now as shown in Figure
2.
i. Link: https://www.analog.com/en/design-center/design-tools-and-
calculators/ltspice-simulator.html

Figure 2 Installing LTspice

Figure 1 Downloading LTspice
ii. Screenshots
b. Open LTspice. Figure 3 below shows the starting screen for the program.
i. Screenshot

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Figure 3 Starting Display of LTspice

c. To create a new schematic; click on the paper with an arrow icon on the top left the
program. The circuit would be automatically be named as draft 1. Figure 4 depicts the
icon while Figure 5 shows the display after clicking the icon.
i. Screenshots

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Figure 4 Paper with an Arrow icon

Figure 5 Display after clicking the icon

d. To place
components; the icons present in the ribbon is used for the placing components such as
resistors etc. Hotkeys are also present in the program which provides quick and easy
ways to place components. Figure 6 shows the ribbon
i. Screenshot

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e. To create a resistor either click on the resistor icon or press r. Figure 7 depicts the
creation of the resistor. To create a voltage source, click on the component icon which is
found in the ribbon. A pop-up would appear which shows the numerous tools present in
LTspice. Scroll to the right and click the voltage and place voltage in the schematic.
Figure 8 depicts the pop-up window while Figure 9 shows the voltage placed in
schematic which are in the next page.

Figure 6 Ribbon of tools

i. Screenshots

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Figure 7 Creation of a Resistor

Figure 8 Pop-up window for Components

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Figure 9 Creation of a Voltage Source

f. To create a
voltage divider, place a voltage source and 2 resistors. The 2 resistors should be placed in
series which is depicted in Figure 10. To connect the voltage source and the resistors,
click on the wire tool located in the ribbon and connect them which is depicted in Figure
11. Also connect 2 grounds, one for each
i. Screenshots

Figure 10 Voltage divider Component Placement

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Figure 11 Connected Components of Voltage Divider

g. To input the values for the voltage and resistors, right click on the component and a pop-
up window would open where the input values will be placed which is shown in Figure
12.

i. Screenshot

Figure 12 Input of values for Components

h. For this tutorial, you can try the input 10V for the voltage source, 10Ω for R1, 20Ω for
R2 as depicted in Figure 13. You can also add text to the components by clicking on Aa
symbol found in the ribbon
i. Screenshot

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Figure 13 Input of values and Text

i. To simulate the circuit created, click on the running man and pop-up would appear
wherein you input the amount of time the circuit would be simulated and the simulate
command. Figure 14 depicts the pop-up and for this tutorial the stop time would be 1
second and the default simulate command would be used while Figure 15 shows the
display after confirming the pop-up. The simulation display shows a time scale up to 1
second since the input was 1 second in the pop-up.

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i. Screenshots

Figure 14 Simulation Pop-up

Figure 145 Simulation Display

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j. To measure the voltages across the voltage source and the first resistor, click on the wire
to measure the voltage. The measured voltage would shown on the time scale however it
is only specific up to one decimal place only. To measure the voltage in the middle of the
two resistors, click the wire in the middle of the two resistors. Again, the measured values
would be shown in the time scale. Figure 16 depicts the measurements of voltages
wherein the green line shows the voltage across the voltage source and the first resistor
while the blue line shows the voltage across the voltage divider. To have a better view of
the values you can on the name of measured to see a more specific measurement as
depicted in Figure 16.
i. Screenshots

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k. To measure the current flowing through either R1 or R2, click on the component and the
current will appear on the time scale at the right. Figure 17 show the voltage and current
passing through R1. One can enhance the graph by right clicking the values in the
timescale and setting parameter of values.
i. Screenshot

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Figure 16 Voltage and Current

l. To change the color of the line, right click on the name, ex. V(n002) and change the color
to your desired color as depicted in Figure 18.

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i. Screenshot

Figure 18 Color Changing

m.We can create an output by clicking on the A button in the ribbon. For this tutorial, the
color of the output was changed to pink just as an example. Figure 19 depicts the creation
of the output. You need to re-simulate the circuit so that the output voltage would be
shown in the timescale.
i. Screenshot

Figure 19 Output Creation

n. We can create algebraic expression in the color changing menu so that the timescale
would show a simplified version of the values that we want. In this instance the value of

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the output voltage is 6.667V however since there is a *2 at the V(output), the Voltage
shown in the graph was doubled. Figure 20 displays the doubled voltage output.

Figure 20 Algebraic Expressions

o. For other functions, one can press either Ctrl while clicking a component to measure the
power dissipated by the component. One can hold alt while clicking two components to
determine the voltage etc. There are many hotkeys present in LTspice that can be used to
ease simulation
p. Lastly, one can edit the simulation command by clicking on the simulate button found in
the upper left of program either to add start up times and such to one’s liking. One can
zoom in the graph by holding left click

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i. Screenshots

Figure 21 Changing the Simulation Commands

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Figure 22 Zooming in

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B. Simulation Series Part One, Two, and Three – AC and Transient Circuits
a. One can save the schematic by clicking the File button located in the upper left and
pressing save which would open a pop-up window for saving. Figure 23 shows the saving
pop-up
i. Screenshot

Figure 23 Saving the Simulation

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b. We can create a simple resistor-capacitor circuit by using the instruction found on the
first part of this tutorial which is depicted in Figure 24.

Figure 24 Creation of a Basic Circuit

c. To create an AC circuit, when you input the voltage click advance and add an AC
amplitude ex.1 as depicted in Figure 24.
i. Screenshot

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Figure 25 AC voltage supply

d. Wiring the components, placing

values for the components,
naming Vin and Vout was

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created by following the instructions found in the first part of the tutorial. We are now
ready to simulate an AC circuit.

Figure 26 AC Circuit

e. Click the running man icon to run the simulation. It opens a pop-up where you can edit
the simulation. Click AC analysis and for this example the type of sweep that would be
used is Decade, the number of points per decade is 41, the start frequency 10Hz and the
stop frequency would be 100kHz as seen in Figure 27 while Figure 28 shows the display
after clicking ok.
i. Screenshots

Figure 27 Edit Simulation Commands

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Figure 28 Simulation Display

f. Measure the Voltage output and a graph would be shown in the top as shown in Figure
27. Edit the voltage source to SINE with amplitude of 1 and a frequency of 1kHz as again
shown Figure 29.
i. Screenshot

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Figure 29 Graph and Voltage SINE

g. Edit the Transient in the Simulation Command window by right clicking .ac dec text. It
would open a pop-up window of the Simulation Command window. Input 10m for the
Stop time and click ok as seen in Figure 30 then measure Vout and Vin which shows a
transient simulation as seen in Figure 31.

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i. Screenshots

Figure 30 Transient Analysis

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Figure 31 Transient Analysis of Vout and Vin

h. We can multiply Vout by 10 so that it leveled with Vin by right clicking Vout and adding
*10 to the algebraic expression as seen Figure 32
i. Screenshot

Figure 32 Transient Analysis with a multiplication factor

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