SALIGUMBA, KYLLE DENNICE S.

2018102685 – BE – 2
BE154L – A43
ACTIVITY 1
INTRODUCTION
Technology opens the door of a new era throughout the world. Innovations that often
solve problems (or to just simply help with daily activities) are created by technology; examples
are gadgets, machines and appliances. One of the things that made this possible is the electronic
circuits. [4,7] Electronics and circuits are usually found everywhere and the foundation of this
innovations are a basic electric circuit. [6,8] An electric circuit includes a device that gives energy
to the charged particles constituting the current, such as a battery or a generator; devices that use
current, such as lamps, electric motors, or computers; and the connecting wires or transmission
lines. [3] But how exactly electric circuits are created?
A lot of considerations, assumptions and computations are required to design and to
effectively execute an electronic circuit. Components of the circuit should be taken care with
measurements and appropriate values to run and to prevent accidents (e.g. short circuits and
overloading) which opposes a high risk to individuals. Mathematical equations would likely to
indicate the values of each component within a circuit. However, poor computations together
with lack of knowledge about electronic circuits might lead to unnecessary expenses on
components or prototypes.
Technology also made possible for an individual to design an electric circuit without
considering the amount of time required for computations, the costs of components, and the risks
opposed by executing an electric circuit – a software that simply provides simulation of the
circuit desired. LTSpice is a software that provides components and flexible inputs in schematic
form to showcase circuit designing and the output of the circuit. LTSpice could execute the
circuits with the desired values to show outputs of the circuit. Moreover, LTSpice is a widely
used and user friendly free software thus, instructions and solutions to problems acquired are
most likely to be found in Internet.

VIDEO #1: LTSpice Tutorial – EP1 Getting started

By: FesZ Electronics
https://youtu.be/JRcyHuyb1V0

Installing LTSpice:
 The website, https://www.analog.com/en/design-center/design-tools-and-calculators/ltspice-
simulator.html# is where LTSpice could be downloaded.

The website allows two choices of the software that is suitable for operating system of
the medium used. For this paper, windows 10 is used. The following are the steps for installing
the LTSpice in the computer.

After the download if complete, open the file containing the software. If the file wasn’t
shown at the bottom of the screen, the download history of the browser contains the downloaded
file.
 By clicking and allowing the software to have changes with the computer, the software
liscence agreement of LTSpice is shown. The downloader should agree first in order to install the
software program.

After installing, main view of the LTSpice would look exactly like the figure below. The
first step is to create a new project/schematic which is directed in the figure.
Note that the LTSpice make use of schematic diagrams instead of virtual/actual representation
of the components. If possible, one should review the basic schematic diagrams of electric
circuit.
 There are three steps for simulation of the circuit: designing the schematic of the circuit,
assigning values or measurements, and obtaining the data by running the simulation. The
following will be discussed in the next section. The basic electronic circuit to be the basis is a
voltage divider.
Simulation: Voltage Divider
Voltage divider, as said in the name is a simple circuit that allows a large voltage from
the source to be a fractioned into a smaller one. [1] It is said to be one of the most fundamental
circuits in electronics. [2] the voltage divider involved applying of voltage from a source to a two
resistors connected into a single source.
Designing:
To start with creating a voltage divider, a new schematic project in LTSpice would look
like the figure below with a default name of Draft1.asc as seen in upper left top of the software.
The green arrows represents the basic schematic components found within a circuit.
 BASIC COMPONENTS

The first component is the resistor (presented with the red arrow in the figure below).
Resistors are components that limits the flow of eletrons with a fixed value of electrical
resistance. [5] This components are passive components that only consumes power and doesn’t
generate one and commonly used to limit current and divide voltage. When the the two resistors
have the same value of resistance, the voltage is cut is half. Moreover, different resistance values
could still lessen the voltage but computational methods are required to determine the output
voltage. This is applicable when the voltage source is larger than the voltage requirement of the
circuit. [9] The resistor with right ammount of electrical resistance that could consume the desired
voltage should be used. The symbol/schematic of the resistor is the ff:

The resistor can be placed in the schematic in LTSpice by either clicking the schematic of
the resistor or by clicking the R key in the keyboard.
 RESISTOR

A circuit should contain a voltage source for the voltage. A Voltage source is a device
with a positive and negative terminal that ideally should supply a fixed voltage over time and is
independent from the current drawn to it. [10] There are two types of electrical sources,
the voltage source and the current source. The current source is usually less common in circuits
than the voltage source, but both are used and can be regarded as complements of each other . [2]
The two types of sources could either be classified as an direct (DC) source to which electric
charges (current) flows in one direction or alternating (AC) source which electric current’s
direction changes periodically. [11] Some of the schematic symbols of the sources are shown
below:

There is no preview of power supply provided to the basic components of a circuit in the
LTSpice however this doesn’t imply that the software doesn’t provide. On the right side of the
software, together with the basic components, A symbol for ‘components’ could be seen (as
shown in the red arrow). By clicking the component symbol, variety of components are to be
found. One can eithe type the desired component or simply browse within the names of the
components. Either way, the voltage source within the component section is found at the last part
(The components are arranged alphabetically).

COMPONENT
SECTION

Clicking the “ok” button would place the schematic of voltage source in the pointer and
could now place the voltage source within the work space.

The last component for a voltage divider would be the ground. A ground is a reference
point in a electrical circuit simply refering to ‘earth’. Un-grounded appliances and devices could
cause the feeling of ‘shock’ when holding onto the electrical circuit. The schematic symbol of
the ground is shown below.
 For the ground in LTSpice, the symbol is represente like the last symbol shown from the
figure above. The symbol is found within the basic components at the top of the workspace in
LTSpice. For the voltage divider, two grounds should be placed; one at the bottom of the voltage
supply and the other at the bottom of the resistors.

GROUND

Lastly, The components should be connected to each other. This represents the circuit
wires in an electrical circuit. The voltage divider should be connected in a series circuit wherein
the current to each resistors are equal to each other and sum of the voltages in each resistors are
equal to the voltage of the power source. In parallel circuit, The voltage was the one equal to
every resistors thus, the essence of minimilazing the voltage wasn’t possible.
To connect everything in the LTSpice, the wire toolo is used. As shown in the figure
below, the wire tool is represented with a pencil and placed beside the basic components.

WIRE TOOL

The wire tool could simply put connections to the components by running the line
thorugh the components as seen in the figure below.
 The design of voltage divider is now complete however, this circuit wasn’t complete if
there are no measuremnets or values within each components. One should assign the values of
the components.
Measurements:
Components should have their own values to run the simulation. The values of the
voltage would indicate the voltage supply of the whole circuit and the values of the resistors
would determine the resistance of each resistors to the voltage.
For better understanding, the computations are given for this circuit. Let us assume that
all the voltage from the source to be distributed to the resistors. series circuit is often called a
voltage divider for its ability to proportion—or divide—the total voltage into fractional portions
of constant ratio. With a little bit of algebra, we can derive a formula for determining series
resistor voltage drop given nothing more than total voltage, individual resistance, and total
resistance: [5]

Voltage drop across any resistor

Current in a series circuit

… substituting for in the first equation …

Voltage drop across any series resistor

eq (1)
Assuming that the total voltage from the source is 10V, the first resistor (R1) have 10 kΩ
and the second resistor is 20 kΩ. For the series circuit, the total resistance is the sum of all the
resistors thus resulting to 30 kΩ. Applying the voltage drop across each resistor:
10 k Ω
E R 1=10 V = 3.3333V
30 k Ω
20 k Ω
E R 2=10 V = 6.6667V
30 k Ω
The sum of the voltages is equal to 9.9997 or approximately 10V which is the total voltage
source.
To input the same measurements to the LTSpice, clicking the right click towards the
components, the measurement section (as seen in the figure below) would appear. Input 10V for
the power source and 10 Kω for R1 and 20 kΩ for R2. The values is shown also in the schematic
diagram.
Note that for the resistors, the ‘k’ should be indicated as an input.
 It is also possible to put texts to the workspace. As seen the figure below, the text
command could be easily place a text within the circuit. The text ‘voltage divider’ is used in the
sample.

TEXT TOOL

This is where the text could be written. Font

size and justification could also be
customized
Simulation/Data:
The final step for simulation is to run the designed circuits. For the LTSpice, running the
circuit is represented by a running man found at the top left corner (see figure below).

SIMULATION

There are different ways of running the circuit that

is offered by the LTSpice however, this paper
focuses on Transient simulation of the circuit.
Transient simulation will run the circuit for a given
amount of time defined by the stop time parameter
in the figure.
As example, the running time is default in seconds
and the input time is 1 second. Leaving the ‘Time
to start saving data’ blank would result to
immediate saving of the data as soon as it runs.
Clicking the ‘ok’ button will result to the next
figure
 The top portion of the screen is the measurement window. The measurement window
shows the data you wanted to obtain including voltages of each resistors, wires and the source
itself. As you move the mouse pointer to the circuit, a probe is seen. By clicking any of the
components within the circuit, the measurement of the values is seen in the top window.

By clicking the wire of the circuit before reaching the resistors, the voltage data is seen as
10V which is true as the power source is 10 V. The left side (y – axis) of the measurement
window is the voltage amount and at the bottom (x – axis) is the running time. The said data is
represented in green line marked on the 10V on the graph given with the default name of
V(n001).
On the other hand, the figure below shows the voltage of drop of the circuit by the
resistor 1 (R1) which is represented in blue line under default name of V(n002). Based on the
computations on the paper, the voltage drop by the R1 is approximately 3.3333V leaving the
circuit with 6.6667V volts; wherein the data show in the software is that the voltage of the series
circuit 6.666V.

Since the circuit shows default names especially on measurement of wires, using the label net
tool (showed below) one can label each part of the circuit and eventually the default name would
change.

LABEL NET

Putting the ‘output’ as a name and drag to the circuit. Wire

tool is also needed to connect where the label is placed (as seen in the
figure below). Run the circuit and the measurement window will no
longer display V(n002) as the wire but V(output) (shown below).
 To remove multiple data in
the measurement window, right click
on the default name of the desired
eliminated data. Click the ‘Delete this
Trace’ as seen in the figure. This is
also where one could customize the
color of the line and the name.

One could also introduce simple

equations within the Expression editor.
Simply putting the equation in the
expression editor (seen un the figure on the
left) and the result is seen in the
measurement window. (seen below) In this
sample, the V(OUTPUT) is multiplied by 2.
 Another sample is by adding certain
values using the default names to another.
As seen on the left figure, V(output)*2 is
added to V(n001). The result is seen below.

One could also zoom in

the data by right clicking the
measurement window and
choose ‘Zoom to Fit’.
 However, estimating in the graphs could be deceiving, to know exactly what is the value
without estimating in the graph, by clicking the default name at the top of the measurement
window, the voltage value is seen together with the time it was created as shown in the figure
below.

To replace the units of the scale, placing the pointer onto x

or y axis will show an ruler and by right clicking, the
figure below will show. Simply one could adjust the
desired starting point of the graph.
Shown in the bottom figure is the adjusted graph values
which starts (bottom) from -200µA and stops at (top)
800µA. The tick indicates the partition of the values.

Proceeding to measure the current of each resistor, placing the pointer onto the
components changes from probe to different figure. Clicking the resistor will show the voltage as
well as the current. The first picture below shows that the current in R1 is 333.33333µA
represented in green line with default name of I(R1).
 As seen in the figure below, overlapping of the lines indicates that the value of the
current of R1 and R2 is the same thus, the current of the R2 is 333.33333µA.

Basically, the data is the evidence that at series circuit, the values of current between the
resistors are equal all throughout based on Ohm’s Law.
LTSpice could also determine the power of each component. By pointing at the
components and pressing Alt within the keyboard, a thermometer is seen.This would indicate
determining the power. By clicking the components using thermometer, the power is seen.
(shown below)
 The figure above show the power within the resistor R while the figure below shows the
power within the power supply.

Difference between voltages within the nodes could also be seen. Using the probe, click
and hold the output section (as seen below)
and press ctrl and drag to the different node (the figure below is from the youtube video with the
link at the top)

And the difference of the voltages of output node and the different node is seen in the
measurement window (seen below).
 Additional components could also be introduced within the circuit. A one component is
the capacitor. By placing the capacitor with capacitance of 10n within the output node at first
there is no change in voltage as seen in figure below.

However, if the stimulation Command is changed as seen below, by checking the ‘start
external DC supply voltages at 0V’ the voltage started to oscillate from 0v to 6.6667V.
The figure above shows that it oscillates however the graph wasn’t able to show properly. Thus,
by dragging at the left side of the graph (seen at the figure below), one can zoom the graph and
could clearly show the details.

The cutting tool (shown below) also easily cuts the connection between the components
even without deleting the components.
 Video #2: LTSpice Schematic – Simulation Series Part 1
By: Tom Anderson
https://youtu.be/WjknCUslnVA

Saving a schematic work is very important especially for project. Shown below is how to
save the schematic. Starting off with the file button at the top left part of the software wherein
the save button in contained.

FILE

By clicking the ‘save as’, saving the

file to an appropriate folder within the
computer with the file type as
“Schematics(*.asc)”.

Now for creating the design of the circuits, nothing much added to the procedures as with
the first video lecture. The design of the electric circuit of this video contains a one resistor with
a resistance of 1kΩ, a capacitor with capacitance of 10nF, two grounds and a power supply to
which AC analysis is used with the value of 1.
Shown below are the steps for creating the design to which same as the previous lecture.
Staring off by placing the components on the work space. Note that the voltage is found in the
component tool.

Using the move tool, components and even the labels of the components could be
rearrange in the space.

MOVE TOOL

Start now assigning with the measurements of each components. For the Voltage source,
the advance option should be click in order to show different option and types of a power
voltage. This dhows more specific type of power supply.
 By clicking the Advance button, the following
options are showed. AC analysis is used by the example
thus, an input o 1 to AC amplitude is used.
After the values are properly placed, the
connections should be established. Using the pencil like
tool on the top of the workspace, create lines or
connection of the components in the circuit.

CONNECTION TOOL

For the label of the nodes. As showed in the previous video lecture, the label net tool
(showed in the figure) would indicate the flow of voltage through the circuit. Vin is placed on the
connection between the positive terminal of the power supply and the resistor while the Vout is
placed between the resistor and the capacitor.
 LABEL NET

Video #3: LTSpice Schematic – Simulation Series Part 2

By: Tom Anderson
https://youtu.be/0feTG3o5puE
As a continuation of the previous video lecture, the design of the circuit is already
completed and its time to run the simultaion. On the first video lecture, Transient simulation was
used while in this video that runs the circuit with respect to a desired time. In this video,
simulation of AC analysis is used wherein the data is based and measured by the number of
points in start and end of frequency (Hz).
Running the circuit is by the tool represented by a running man on the top left corner of
the workspace. By clicking the tool, options are introduced.
 RUN TOOL

Within the simulation command options, instead of

the transient tool, AC analysis is used. The type of sweep
is given but for the example, decades is used. The Number
of points per decade is 41 and the start and end of the
frequency is 10 and 100 kHz. Click the ‘ok’ button to start
the simulation.

The measurement window is seen after the running.

By placing the probe to the node of the voltage output (Vout), data is presented. Amplitude is
shown by the solid line and the phase by the grid line.

Exploring the graph is the same with the first lecture. By clicking the name and dragging
the grid lines (white grid lines), values from different places within the line is determined
together with the phase.
 GRID LINES

VALUES

VIDEO #4: LTSpice Schematic – Simulation Series Part 2

By: Tom Anderson
https://youtu.be/xW08Q_ooI78

The previous video lecture shows the AC analysis while this video will show the transient
type of simulation. Using the same circuit design, starting off by changing the voltage option by
right clicking the voltage (shown below) and the following options is given. The value of
capacitor is also changed to 1.59uF.
 This option will be shown wherein changes are
implemented. ‘SINE’ is used from the ‘Functions’
and the amplitude is 1 and the frequency is 1kHz.
To simulate properly, the simulation command
should be changed. By clicking the ‘Simulation’
option at the topmost left of the screen (shown
below), options to edit the simulation command is
showed.

SIMULALATE OPTION
AC analysis creates a steady state data of thevoltage out while the transient simulation creates a
transient data up to a steady state (see figure below).

TRANSIENT STATE
STEADY STATE

Comparing with the voltage in to the circuit, the Voltage out is a lot larger than the
introducing voltage. By multiplying the values of the voltage out but 10, we could simply show
that the voltage out is ten times greater than the voltage in.

Multiplying the voltage output by 10 to show the

comparison between the voltage input
LAG