Forums » CircuitLab Feature Requests

If using CircuitLab for developing VFO or other oscillator circuits, it would be beneficial to have a Frequency Counter object that could be attached to circuits at desired node points.

And/or Oscilloscope, Signal Generator, Pulse Generator, Ohm/Capacity/Inductor meter.

After becoming more familiar with CircuitLab capability and operation I am not sure that a frequency counter would be all that useful. Designing a VFO, or any oscillator in Circuit Lab is difficult because they start based on amplification of random noise, which Circuit Lab does not provide in device parameters. I even tried using negative resistance values, but that did not generate enough noise to start an oscillator. Might it be useful to include a setting for random noise factor in gain producing device parameters...? Not sure yet.

Signal Generators are already provided as components that can be inserted into your circuits. They even have frequency & level scanning capabilities.

Ohm, Capacity, & Inductance is provided as part of each component specification and are programmable. Inductance or capacitance at specific frequencies might be interesting, but maybe that should be an external calculator function instead of something embedded inside CircuitLab code....or maybe CircuitLab could provide a pull-down calculator function that focused on calculating impedance, inductance, capacitance, frequency, from any two of these as user entries?

Because my earlier suggestion for a Frequency Counter object was ill-advised in light of my gaining more knowledge about CircuitLab, I would suggest that users become very familiar with the simulator and that then they may find needed functions are already there. This was my own situation.

Thanks

I think the counters are useful for logic gates and other applications. I would like these when working with Boolean expressions with time domain when working with function generator.