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I'm working on my Capstone project and a major component of it involves designing a circuit that works with the IOIO-OTG, some motors and a battery. I'm trying to find a free circuit software that will allow me to import component design files from Sparkfun and design working circuits. The idea is to design the circuit fully before building it to ensure we don't fry any expensive equipment.

However, when I started looking for software for my platform (OSX), I was confused as to what I really needed. There are some applications which draw circuits, but don't simulate them. There are others that will take VHDL code and burp out a circuit. Then there's all the "Spice" variants. Finally I tried the Eagle application (which is the file format of the design files from Sparkfun), but found out it isn't actually free and might not do what I need.

Can anyone help me shed some light on what kind of tools I need to develop properly designed circuits using readily available design files?

haroldT
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    Why did you conclude Eagle isn't free? The free version only restricts the number of schematic pages you can use and the size of the PCB. All other features are unrestricted. Although those features are circuit design and PCB layout, not simulation, as you have already found out. – Dan Laks Sep 16 '14 at 01:33
  • Questions that ask, what software can do X under operating system Y? are not a good fit for the stackexchange format because the answers are likely to quickly become outdated and not be useful for future readers. – The Photon Sep 16 '14 at 04:54
  • possible duplicate of [What are the freeware SPICE simulators available?](http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/1206/what-are-the-freeware-spice-simulators-available) –  Sep 16 '14 at 08:52
  • There are no tools that will let you *fully* design a circuit before testing it. There are a number of tools that will simulate an approximation of it, but none of them will do so "fully". – Connor Wolf Sep 16 '14 at 09:22
  • You have to understand the limits of the simulations to be confident anything beyond very simple circuits can be relied upon enough to depend on them... (Simple gotcha is to get more out than you put in ... it does not work in real life) – Spoon Sep 16 '14 at 11:18

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Hi you can use following simulation S/W

http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/#LTspice

http://www.analog.com/en/reference-circuits-solutions/content/reference_circuits_and_solutions/fca.html

Praveen.v
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