TINA/Spice/TL071: TINA Oscilloscope probe always shows 0V

Hi John,

First click "Use Rich Formatting" at the bottom right hand side of the text box.  It will open a more advanced window that looks very similar to MS word.  Use the "Insert Media/File" option to insert images and the "Insert File" (looks like a paperclip) to insert documents, .PDF files, etc.

KSI Mic PreAmp.TSC

Hi John,

I tested the circuit just now and was able to get the oscilloscope to work.  I hardly ever use this function in TINA and typically just use the "Analysis / Transient Analysis" to run time domain analysis but I can see how this oscilloscope tool could be nice because it provides real-time feedback.

I posted the version of TINA I'm using along with an image of the results.  What version of TINA are you using?

Colling,

I'm using 9.3.150.328

I'm not having an issue using the main oscilloscope.  I can get readings on any voltage meter I put in the circuit.  What I'm having issues with is the probe.  If I use the probe function to probe nodes in the circuit, I always get 0V on the probe.

I tried the same circuit on my old laptop running Windows crap (oh, sorry, I meant Windows 8).  The probes work there.

So what would cause the probes to not work on my new laptop running Windows 7 (yes, I went back to 7 because I couldn't stand Windows 8)?  Not saying it is a Windows problem, since I've used the scope probe function on other PCs using Windows 7.  But is there some system or tool setting I'm forgetting about or not aware of?

Don,

I did contact DesignSoft about this issue and received the following response:

"This seems to be a bug in Tina-TI. As a workaround I suggest you to use the probe function in the diagram window which works or upgrade to Tina 11 where the scope probe works as well."

Not sure what they mean by 'diagram window'.  As for upgrading to 11, TI's free version is at 9.1 so upgrading to 11 requires purchasing from DesignSoft, $103 minimum.

Thanks John. I had something like this before and TI and DesignSoft pointed fingers at each other. If I recall correctly, it kept crashing when using certain o-scope functions. This time, I followed one tip and set the compatibility for Tina-TI_9.3.150 to Win7-SP1, and it still didn't work. Fortunately, I kept an earlier version on my computer, in which the probe function still works. I'm on another computer now, but I think it's 9.3.50, or earlier. The version on this computer, which has WinXP, is 9.3.100 and the probe is dead here, too.

I honestly don't get this approach. If a company is careless in putting out free software, why would it expect people to put down money for the "real" package. If found a free graphing program on Sourceforge.net, and it was so hard and irritating to use in limited form, I wouldn't put money down on the paid version. I even have an old student version of MatLab I got years ago; it came with floppy disks 1, 1, 3 &4, so it can't be installed. A couple of years ago, I paid for TurboCAD, and got a version as hard to use as the free Blender. So I'm still using paths in Adobe PhotoShop 7.01 to draw patent figures.

And as much as I like micro-power T.I. chips, I don't know if I'm ever going to learn how to use the MSP LaunchPad development kits. Not only is C a mess to me, a fossil Fortran programmer, the example using swipe controls on the Sharp Memory LCD BoosterPack didn't work. The original TurboBASIC compiler would have been a better choice for me, since medications now make it tough to learn things like C. More's the pity. I have patent application filed that depends upon using a micro-controller to run the switching of guitar pickups (see HumbuckingPairs.com). I'm not sure how I'm going to get there, and I'm too old now to start a business on my own.

Hi John,

Thanks for following up.  I believe they're suggesting to use the probe options on the "Meters" tab to monitor the circuit output.  You can then run transient, AC, or DC analysis and the results will appear in the "Diagram Window".

Sorry you're having issues with the software.  I'm a power TINA user and as mentioned earlier I never use the oscilloscope tool and just use the options in the "Analysis" drop down and the results show up in the diagram window.

Hi Don,

Thanks for sharing your experience. To clarify I wasn't suggesting that we don't use oscilloscopes when making measurements in the lab, just that we don't use the oscilloscope function in the TINA simulator. We use the standard simulation tools in the analysis drop-down menu.

Yes, I have a scope too, but John Fenley is right; having the o-scope tool working fully in Tina-TI is essential to experimentation, presuming that the simulation is accurate. It's a lot easier and faster to figure out what's going on when you can see the signal expressed directly on a point in the circuit diagram, and make changes on the screen, than it is to change out components on a breadboard and translate back and forth with the diagram.

Then, after getting an idea of how you want to proceed, you go to the breadboard and find out how it really works. FET biasing and circuits have proven to be less than accurate in Tina. You can get results and effects that aren't there in real components. Makes you wonder just how much care they take with everything.

Please point that out to DesignSoft, and that adding bugs with improvements is not a good sales technique, for either you or them. Software designers have kindly provided this bone of contention for many years - following the example of Microsoft - the commercial equivalent of "good enough for government work". As if it isn't hard enough to play the hand without cards missing from the deck.

And "standard simulation tools"? Standard for whom and what application? Just because I don't use all the same tools you do doesn't give me the right to denigrate your work and approach. That's like a statistician who uses Chi-square a lot looking down on his colleague who uses Student's t.