Micro-cap

[Thermionic Idler]

Thought you good people might appreciate a heads-up on Micro-Cap... which you could also call YASS (Yet Another Spice Simulator).

I have no idea at this point if it is any good in reality, but it used to cost $4700 and now costs $0. For your $0 you get the software and manuals but no updates or tech support as the chap behind it retired in 2019.

Also, the Spectrum Software site shut down last year, but was archived on the Wayback Machine, and downloads are available there:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230214034 ... nload.shtm . There are other download sites but I'm uncertain if they are genuine.

I've yet to install and try it out myself but from what I've seen via the Youtube intro vids, it looks like it might be quite promising, you can set things like component tolerance and measure how sensitive your circuit is to it. 458 vacuum tubes defined, though I don't know what model they used.

Anyway, I'll be evaluating it alongside QSpice (which I already prefer to LTSpice, having got a basic triode circuit working).

[Paul Barker]

All ears my spice so far is “no spice at all!”!

[Thermionic Idler]

So one huge advantage I just discovered, probably more applicable to those new to simulation as most of you will probably already have these set up - the installed version has 457 vacuum tube models already defined - they've got the Ayumi models in there as well as Koren. No need to faff about creating custom libraries and symbols - it's all built in. Just go ahead and start creating circuits.

[Paul Barker]

Too much to hope for EL38

[Thermionic Idler]

Too much to hope for EL38

Sadly that one does appear to be missing, yes.

[Paul Barker]

I read that sentense sequentially as a dyslexic person well one like me, does. So its good news then bad news. But what was I expecting? Nada. I wasn’t dissappointed.

Im probably better off with my way of designing amps without spice anyway.