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Electronics => Beginners => Topic started by: TheAdmiralty on December 24, 2016, 12:23:07 am

Title: Quick Altium Resistor Simulation Question
Post by: TheAdmiralty on December 24, 2016, 12:23:07 am

Evening, everyone!

Got a basic question for you guys.  I'm getting used to Altium right now - picked up a student license while I still can, and am trying to get the most out of it.

I'm just building up a component library for a project right now, and I need a Bourns resistor pack; the footprint and symbol are trivial, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to attach a SPICE model to it.  I want to have four parts of the component so that the resistor symbols can be placed separately; how exactly do you map pins to individual parts of a component?  I'm using this little subcircuit:

Code: [Select]

.subckt RPACK8I 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
        + params: Value=10k
R1 1 2 {Value}
R2 3 4 {Value}
R3 5 6 {Value}
R4 7 8 {Value}
.ends

...which I thought would work fine, but it's giving me "Could not map Pin <3 through 7>" in the netlist preview.  It's fine as a single part, but that'd be a pain in the ass to drop all four resistors in a single block on the schematic.  I'm sure I'm missing something really simple here, but Altium is a lot to take in all at once; anyone care to point it out?   :-/O

Much appreciated!

Title: Re: Quick Altium Resistor Simulation Question
Post by: T3sl4co1l on December 24, 2016, 01:26:00 am

SPICE models are assigned per-symbol, not per-physical-component.  Use the regular resistor.  Then check that each part is pinned correctly (there's a little [<<] [>>] button below the pin assignment box to check each part). :)

Tim

Title: Re: Quick Altium Resistor Simulation Question
Post by: TheAdmiralty on December 24, 2016, 03:24:18 am

Yep, didn't realize that.  I was under the impression that the netlist template's "@DESIGNATOR %1 %2 @VALUE" indicated that everything was at the package level, and that I'd at least need eight modeled pins for an 8-pin device.  Or something.  I've been staring at a combination of Altium, LTSpice, some 3D modeling programs, and Mouser for the last ten hours and they're all starting to blur together at this point.  Learn something every day.   :-BROKE

Working great, now.  Thanks!