[Qucs-help] Beginner's Encounter with Qucs

[Brian M. S. <ma...@sk...>]

I just tried qucs for the first time, and I wanted to contribute my first
impressions along with the difficulties I have had so far.  I think qucs
is wonderful, and I hope I can contribute to making it more of a success.
I am running version 0.0.12 on Suse 10.2.

The first problem I encountered was that the pull-down list to find
different types of components was not obviously a pull-down.  I saw only
lumped components, and could not find anything else.  The screen shot in
the help section doesn't match what I see on my screen.  That version has
a row of tabs.  I did figure this out after a while, though.

Next I was repeatedly confused by what I think is a bad standard for
component placement GUI's.  After I select a component and drop it into
the schematic, I almost certainly do not want to drop another.  Yet the
GUI stays in the component-drop mode.  Better would be to switch to the
component select-and-move mode automatically after dropping a component.
I have seen other programs with the same behaviour, and it always throws
me off.

I could not find some basic components.  I wanted an ideal diode.  I also
wanted a voltage source with a sawtooth (or triangle) wave.

Next, the units for frequency appear to be GHz only.  I am trying to model
a power supply type of circuit operating at 20 kHz.  The units were
awkward.  Just typing in 'kHz' didn't work.  Being able to set the units
for the schematic would be nice.

Last, when I tried 'simulation', I got the error:

    checker error, no actions defined: nothing to do

The problem with this error message is that it does not tell me what is
wrong, or what I can do to fix the problem.  The error message needs
improvement.  My circuit has labeled wire-endpoints, so the message and
the help documentation give me no idea how to proceed.

Any tips on this last problem would be appreciated.  I put a copy of my
schematic at <http://www.skewray.com/qucs_1.sch>.  It should be obvious
from my circuit that I am not an electrical engineer.

Regards,

Brian

-- 
Brian M. Sutin, Ph.D.     Space System Engineering and Optical Design
Skewray Research/316 W Green St/Claremont CA 91711 USA/(909) 621-3122