I’m a complete and utter novice when it comes to designing a circuit. i like to teach myself things. i’ve taught myself many things. how to play guitar, drums…fusion 360(i can design anything on that software that i can imagine). i had to train my brain to think like a machine, but eventually i got there. i’ve built amplifiers, modded amplifiers…took a pcb amp, and made it point to point…etc. when it comes to starting blank though, i’m completely lost and confused. i have the goal, i know how my design will work. i have in mind a design for a drum tuner. so after all these years, i’m hunkering down and learning how valve/vacuum tubes actually work. how circuits actually work. taking that last little bit of magic out of things, so i can build my tuner i need. i’ve finally understood just how a piezo really modifies the electrical charge in a circuit to create a physical read. being mechanically minded, cause and effect of real world stimuli are how i learn. so electrical engineering has been difficult. retraining my brain to think like waves, and electrical charge instead of cause and effect.
what i’m looking for, and have failed to find is a simple circuit design software that will essentially, function like a built circuit in real life, without me burning up a resistor or whatever else, in trial and error to get to the exact frequencies i need. autodesk has eagle, which is a impressive software for someone with a database of knowledge about circuits. but for me, i couldn’t even get started to figure out how to learn basics.
i need a software that is free, the people that are designing these softwares, don’t seem to understand that money doesn’t just come out of thin air for something that isn’t producing it itself… if i can actually use the software to get my job done, then maybe i’ll pay for it… but it has to work for me first, not the other way around… i don’t have to waste money on something i can’t use, that i can’t learn how i want, to achieve my own goals… where i can modify various circuits, and study this all to find that last little bit i’m missing.
i need a software that will show me where i’m wrong, demonstrate current flow, show simulated readings, if i change a resistor here, it should tell me that i’ll burn one out over there, or what it changes in the circuit at that other location.
the softwares i’ve found, are more like a calculator that you type in 1+1, hit =, and it asks you for the answer…