How to simulate external voltage source in Falstad?

Question

I am looking to simulate circuits on Falstad: http://www.falstad.com/circuit/circuitjs.html . One of the features on the website is the ability to add an external voltage source programmable with JavaScript (Can be found under the drop down toolbar > Inputs and Sources > Add External Voltage Source (Javascript)). How can I do this? Is there some documentation available?

Answer 1

The falstad website has an "example" here, although it doesn't explain much outright: https://www.falstad.com/circuit/jsinterface.html

The circuit simulator runs in an <iframe>. Elsewhere on the page, there are two input fields:

• extsin frequency:

  <input id="freq" value="10">

• extsin amplitude:

  <input id="ampl" value="10">

Note their id values of freq and ampl.

extsin is the name of the external voltage source within the simulation. The name can be changed by editing it:

Further down in the page source is the javascript block. Below is the whole code block for reference.
(Unfortunately I don't think StackExchange has a way to format line numbers in code blocks)

<script>

// get iframe the simulator is running in.  Must have same origin as this file!
var iframe = document.getElementById("circuitFrame");

var sim;
var freq, ampl;

function round(x) {
  return Math.round(x*1000)/1000;
}

// called when simulator updates its display
function didUpdate(sim) {
  var info = document.getElementById("info");
  info.innerHTML = "time = " + round(sim.getTime()) + "<br>running = " + sim.isRunning();

  // get voltage of labeled node "vsense"
  var vsense = sim.getNodeVoltage("vsense");
  info.innerHTML += "<br>V(vsense) = " + round(vsense);

  freq = parseFloat(document.getElementById("freq").value);
  ampl = parseFloat(document.getElementById("ampl").value);

  var bstr = "";
  var bval = 0;
  var i;
  for (i = 7; i >= 0; i--) {
    var v = sim.getNodeVoltage("D" + i);
    if (v > 2.5) {
      bstr += "1";
      bval = 2*bval+1;
    } else {
      bstr += "0";
      bval = 2*bval;
    }
  }
  info.innerHTML += "<br>counter value = <tt>" + bstr + "</tt> = " + bval;
}

// called every timestep
function didStep(sim) {
  var t = sim.getTime();
  var q = ampl*Math.sin(freq*Math.PI*2*t);

  // set voltage of external voltage "extsin"
  sim.setExtVoltage("extsin", ampl*Math.sin(freq*Math.PI*2*t));
}

// callback called when simulation is done initializing
function simLoaded() {
  // get simulator object
  sim = iframe.contentWindow.CircuitJS1;

  // set up callbacks on update and timestep
  sim.onupdate = didUpdate;
  sim.ontimestep = didStep;
}

// set up callback
iframe.contentWindow.oncircuitjsloaded = simLoaded;

</script>

Here are the key parts for setting the external voltage:

The values from the frequency and amplitude inputs on the page are read here and stored:

  freq = parseFloat(document.getElementById("freq").value);
  ampl = parseFloat(document.getElementById("ampl").value);

Further down, the voltage of external source of name extsin is set using those freq and ampl values:

// set voltage of external voltage "extsin"
  sim.setExtVoltage("extsin", ampl*Math.sin(freq*Math.PI*2*t));