By Kevin O. Otiato.
Are you interested in PCB design? Or wait. Just say electrical and electronic circuit design and simulations for your projects? Well, here is a powerful tool that I would like to present to you – Proteus Professional Design Suite.
There are many circuit design and simulation tools but Proteus definitely stands out. This is due to its ease of use and a large variety of electrical components it has. In addition to simulation of circuits designed therein, it can be used to simulate projects using other software such as Arduino. All these awesome stuff are introduced here. Get to learn more!
The following are the prerequisites for this exercise: Proteus Professional Design Suite software with all Arduino libraries installed, the Arduino IDE and some basic knowledge of Arduino/C programming languages.
Steps to creating a new project
Follow the following steps to create a new project.
- Launch the Proteus Professional Application.
- Click on new project within the start pane to initialize project wizard.
- Change the name of the project New i.e. replace ‘Project’ in Project.pdsprj with a name of your choice such as Arduinoprojecttrial.pdsprj. You can also change the path of the project by browse action. Click on next.
- Check Create a schematic for the selected template . You notice that default is selected for you automatically. Click on next.
- Check Create a PCB Layout for the selected template . You notice that default is selected for you automatically. Click on next.
- Click on next on the new pane.
- Ensure No firmware Project is marked the click on next.
- Click on finish to complete the setup process.
- This lead you to a new window with two tabs: schematic capture and PCB Layout.
Component selection
1. Ensure you are on the schematic capture.
2.Navigate and click on the button “P”. A new window opens.
3.Under the ‘keywords’, type the name of the component you are looking for. In the middle of the window, under the ‘Results[2]’, a list appears. It shows the available types of the component you are looking for.
4.Double click on the right one to select it as you preview its appearance and dimensions in the schematic and PCB preview panes. The selected component appears under the devices pane.
5.Repeat steps 3 and 4 to select other components. When you are done with the picking process, click on OK at the bottom of the selection window to close it.
Simple LED Circuit
1.Click on each of the components at a time to place them at the right positions you desire on the graphed pane.
2.On the left margin, locate the 2D Line Graphics Mode tab and click on it. A list will appear in the component pane. Navigate to select wire.
3.Make the connections by bringing the ‘pen-cursor’ at the tip of the component and left clicking as you drag to the next component until a red highlight appears then release. The two will be now connected. Do this to the other components until the circuit you want is formed.
Want to make Changes?
4. You might want to adjust the rating values of your components, even drag them to some locations or even copy your circuit to the clipboard for transfer to other document types and files.
You need to right click on the component you want to make changes to first. You notice that it is highlighted in red and a menu appears. All you need to do is to select the appropriate action.
Alternatively, to make changes to a block of components. Click on the selection mode then drag the arrow cursor on the circuit pane to select the targeted area. Right click and select the appropriate action.
Changes snippets
Simulation of simple LED Circuit snippets
Simulation using Arduino program
First of all, ensure you have installed all the latest Arduino Libraries in your PC and that all are accessible via the pick option in the ISIS schematic capture window.
Also ensure you have Arduino IDE installed and at least some a little C Programming Language syntax knowledge.
I believe this brief insight will help you get started. Look out for another article to help build on PCB design section using Proteus Professional Design Suite. Drop your comments and questions via otiatokevin8@gmail.com. Let’s keep the conversation on!
