Wow, freebie mechanical CAD from Autodesk & Solidworks. Whoda thunk... Thanks for the links. Though Autodesk's is being pushed as a front-end to fab services. I hope it can be used independently too.
I think eMachineshop and Shapeways also provide proprietary front end CAD packages. I remember the thrill of discovering eMachineshop 2 or 3 years ago! Now, if only I could think up something interesting to make!
And thanks for all the iEngineering apps! Those aren't all free, are they!?
Bolting (taping? clamping?) your iDevice to a shaker table – I love it! :-) For short periods? What could go wrong...?
Yes, I've seen some good audio suites. The only one I've ever seen in person (a few years ago) used a PDA (remember those) and some external hardware.
I forgot to mention iCalculators, yes. I've got a bunch, including:
I've also been trying to identify iPhone and iPad engineering apps. Here are a few I found and use:
iCircuit - a schematic capture and modeling app. LineCalc - calculator for coax cable Electronic TB (Electronic Toolbox) - includes a multitude of handy electronics design aids - one of my favorites. uWave Calc (from Agilent Technologies) - a few handy microwave-related calculators. E Formulas - includes several common electronics calculators. jEMLab - EM boundary conditions, polarization, incident plane waves and spherical charges calculator. Circuit Lab - a schematic capture and analysis app. dB Calc - calculate or convert various quantities in dB. EE Toolkit - another well-done electronics component and circuits reference app.
Digi-Key - has their on-line catalog available. Buyers' Guide - ITEM EMC Buyers' Guide includes a host of EMC-related companies and services. Directives - is a listing of all the EU directives with links to the actual directive text.
There are also a number of good convertion and calculator apps. I use Convert mainly, as well as Calculator Pro.
For those dealing with environmental shake tests, there's Vibration. Although I don't recommend it, you can bolt down your iPhone or iPad to the shake table and record the vibration profile of a product. It uses the built-in accelerometer.
iSeismometer is similar, but simulates a three axis (3 pen) seismometer. Pretty cool!
There are some so-called EMF detectors, but I don't know how accurate they might be: EMF Detector and Tesla Bot are two of them.
If you're into audio analysis for home theater or wishing to analyze room acoustics, I recommend Audio Tools - pricy in-app purchases, but a rather complete acoustics analysis system.
As mentioned previously, one of my favorites is Linear technology's LT-SPICE, now in version 4. I mainly use it to evaluate filter response characteristics, but there are also a wide variety of models, including all of LT's switching power supply ICs. From their description:
"LTspice IV is a high performance SPICE simulator, schematic capture and waveform viewer with enhancements and models for easing the simulation of switching regulators. The enhancements to SPICE have made simulating switching regulators extremely fast compared to normal SPICE simulators, allowing the user to view waveforms for most switching regulators in just a few minutes. Included in this download are LTspice IV, Macro Models for 80% of Linear Technology's switching regulators, over 200 op amp models, as well as resistors, transistors and MOSFET models."
Wale Bakare 4/7/2012 10:19:18 AM User Rank Sheriff
Re: Good freebies
With internet so many information are out there totaly free to assist in whatever area of technology project you intend to pursue. You see kids playing with computer learning many things at faster rate and am not surprise seen many of youngstars engage in coding - app developments, even to high tech developments.
I tend to think that people are making most of these things free because they cannot sell. It strikes me hard to see good products being given free, It is time engineers do their jobs and ask the business guys to help. Make it and ask the business guys to provide a sale path.
My problem with LTSPICE is the complexity of managing it when you have about 1000 transistors. It is a lot of work. If you work with Cadence, you may not like that LTSPICE. But oh yes, it is free and it works
I have used http://www.freepcb.com/ and it does seem good enough. Of couse when you need high quality and volume products, most of these freebies are not ready.
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