kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have some additional information that may prove useful:

1) Using relative paths in the spinit file does not work on windows.

2) Placing a spinit file in the path where the ngspice and libngspice
binaries reside works with no need to set any environment variables.

Option 2 could be used by the installer.  The installer itself would
have to create the spinit file by substituting the install path for the
path of the .cm files.  I'm not sure if this would work on osx.  Maybe
one of our osx devs could test this.  If it does, than that would
resolve the simulation init issues.

I've attached a simple circuit that demonstrates the issue.  When the
.cm files are not located, the simulation will run with the following
warnings and cause the output of the op-amp to be an impossibly high 260V:

Error on line 0 :
a$poly$e.xu1.eos %vd [ xu1.53 xu1.98 ] %vd ( xu1.3 net-_u1-pad1_ )
a$poly$e.xu1.eos
MIF-ERROR - unable to find definition of model a$poly$e.xu1.eos
Warning: Model issue on line 0 :
.model a$poly$e.xu1.eos spice2poly coef = [ 1.7e-3 1 ] ...
Unknown model type spice2poly - ignored
Error on line 0 :
a$poly$e.xu1.eref1 %vd [ vdd 0 0 0 ] %vd ( xu1.98 0 ) a$poly$e.xu1.eref1
MIF-ERROR - unable to find definition of model a$poly$e.xu1.eref1
Warning: Model issue on line 0 :
.model a$poly$e.xu1.eref1 spice2poly coef = [ 0 0.5 0.5 ] ...
Unknown model type spice2poly - ignored
Error on line 0 :
a$poly$e.xu1.eref2 %vd [ net-_u1-pad1_ 0 /out 0 ] %vd ( xu1.97 0 )
a$poly$e.xu1.eref2
MIF-ERROR - unable to find definition of model a$poly$e.xu1.eref2
Warning: Model issue on line 0 :
.model a$poly$e.xu1.eref2 spice2poly coef = [ 0 0.5 0.5 ] ...
Unknown model type spice2poly - ignored
Error on line 0 :
a$poly$e.xu1.eo3 %vd [ xu1.98 xu1.30 ] %vd ( vdd xu1.42 ) a$poly$e.xu1.eo3
MIF-ERROR - unable to find definition of model a$poly$e.xu1.eo3
Warning: Model issue on line 0 :
.model a$poly$e.xu1.eo3 spice2poly coef = [ 0.7175 0.5 ] ...
Unknown model type spice2poly - ignored
Error on line 0 :
a$poly$e.xu1.eo4 %vd [ xu1.30 xu1.98 ] %vd ( xu1.44 0 ) a$poly$e.xu1.eo4
MIF-ERROR - unable to find definition of model a$poly$e.xu1.eo4
Warning: Model issue on line 0 :
.model a$poly$e.xu1.eo4 spice2poly coef = [ 0.7355 0.5 ] ...
Unknown model type spice2poly - ignored
Reducing trtol to 1 for xspice 'A' devices
Doing analysis at TEMP = 27.000000 and TNOM = 27.000000
Warning: vv3: no DC value, transient time 0 value used

Let me know if you have any other questions or comments.

Cheers,

Wayne

On 10/6/2016 10:56 AM, Nick Østergaard wrote:
> Hi Maciej
> 
> In the latest nightlies they are now stored in lib/ngspice/
> 
> I guess that should equate to a relative path to the executables to
> ../lib/ngspice/*.cm, given that the exe's are in the bin folder on the
> same level as lib.
> 
> So feel free to submit your fix. Also, are there any demos that make
> use of those cm libs such that it can be tested?
> 
> Nick
> 
> 2016-10-05 23:16 GMT+02:00 Maciej Sumiński <maciej.suminski@xxxxxxx>:
>> Hi Nick,
>>
>> Are the .cm files included in the Windows nightlies installer? If so,
>> could you tell me what is the relative path to the directory storing
>> them? The easiest way to fix the problem is to send a few commands to
>> ngspice before a simulation starts.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Orson
>>
>> On 10/05/2016 10:23 PM, Nick Østergaard wrote:
>>> Is this really needed?  What exactly does the .cm files provide?
>>>
>>> When I run the latest nightly I can run the allen key demo without
>>> problems as far as I can see.  Maybe some other simulation modes do
>>> not work properly?
>>>
>>> 2016-09-30 14:37 GMT+02:00 Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>:
>>>> That would work as a long term solution as well.  I was trying to at
>>>> least prove that it can be done without make changes to the current
>>>> code.   Until a full solution is implemented, users (me) will have an
>>>> interim solution if they want to use the spice simulator.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Wayne
>>>>
>>>> On 9/30/2016 3:40 AM, Maciej Sumiński wrote:
>>>>> We have also discussed on IRC another possibility, which is loading the
>>>>> extensions manually instead of having ngspice process its initialization
>>>>> file (spinit). This way we can adjust the paths during runtime.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Orson
>>>>>
>>>>> On 09/29/2016 08:51 PM, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
>>>>>> After much cursing and many config attempts, I finally have a working
>>>>>> spice simulation solution on windows.  I'm guessing similar parallels
>>>>>> can be applied to osx as well.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Option A: running from a mingw32 or mingw64 terminal.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1) copy the installed spinit file (by default will be in
>>>>>> ${MINGW-PACKAGE-PREFIX}/share/ngspice/scripts) to ~/.spiceinit.
>>>>>> 2) change the msys2 paths (/mingw##) in ~/.spiceinit to absolute windows
>>>>>> paths with / not \ (in my case C:/msys64/mingw##).
>>>>>> 3) Launch kicad.exe from the terminal.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I realize this is not very elegant and will only work with either the 64
>>>>>> or 32 bit mingw (not both without editing .spiceinit) but it works and
>>>>>> is handy for mingw users.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Option B: configuring windows and run kicad from a shortcut.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1) locate the installed spinit file
>>>>>> ($INSTALL_PATH/share/ngspice/scripts) and change the msys2 paths
>>>>>> (/mingw##) to absolute windows paths with / not \ (in my case
>>>>>> C:/msys64/mingw##).
>>>>>> 2) Run kicad, open the config paths dialog, and add an environment
>>>>>> variable SPICE_LIB_DIR with path to the spinit file minus the last
>>>>>> "scripts" path ($INSTALL_PATH/share/ngspice).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I also tried copying the .spiceinit file from option A to %USERPROFILE%
>>>>>> but that did not work when launching kicad from a shortcut.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Option B a cleaner solution but still requires some configuration by the
>>>>>> user.  This is going to be an interesting problem to solve for our
>>>>>> package devs.  We need to figure out a way to generate or modify the
>>>>>> spinit file base on where it gets installed by the installer on
>>>>>> platforms where this is relevant.  We will also either have to set an
>>>>>> the SPICE_LIB_DIR environment variable or teach ngspice how to find the
>>>>>> correct spinit file at run time.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> At least now windows users have a way to have the same functional spice
>>>>>> simulation as linux users.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Wayne
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>> Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>

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