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Nolan,

I'm not sure if there's a link still up - let me look into this Monday and see if we can post a public link to FilterPro 2.

I'd like to know why you think FilterPro 3 is "terrible". Yes, we left a couple things out of the first release (we're going to put them back in), and I'm sure that with a complete redesign, some bugs may have crept in - but we fixed countless bugs that were in FilterPro 2. I'm going to be posting a comparison in the coming days - should have done that before, so you could have been forewarned, but at least you should be fully aware of what changes we made and what things were fixed.

I would very much appreciate you telling us of any bugs you find in FilterPro 3. And keep checking this forum for further developments on FilterPro.

Thanks,

Rick

Hi Rick,

Thanks, would be great to be able to get ver 2.0 again (at least until ver 3 has the full set of features).

OK, maybe "terrible" is a bit harsh. The new software is good but there are features from the old version that are sorely missed.

I think the biggest problems I experienced are:

1) You can't specify Chebyshev ripple - this was the main reason for my frustration. 

2) If you go back to the Design Wizard (after creating a design) and change something in step 2 (say the filter order from 2 to 4), then the filter response in step 3 seems to get reset to Gaussian. This caught me out a few times wondering why (after a whole design cycle) my Chebyshev filter was actually a Gaussian filter.

3) In version 3, you seem to be more limited with entering component values. I think there was a lot more freedom to experiment with component values in the old version. For example, in the old version (if I remember correctly) you could change both C1 and C2 (in a second order Sallen-Key Low-Pass filter) . With the new version it appears that if you change a component value (e.g. C2), then it recomputes all other component values. Its nice to have the ability to enter your own component values and see what effect it has on the filter response. This would definitely be a cool feature and allow the tool to be used for both design and tweaking of filters.

Thanks for providing such a great free tool. Please just keep the old software install available until the new software is fully featured.

Thanks,

Nolan

I often used Filterpro 2.0 as a quick tool for designing 2.order filters with a certain gain and Q.

When I design special higher order filters, I can seldom use "pre-defined" filters, but build them out of customized 2.order blocks.

I can't do this with the new one - can't specify filter frequency and Q.

Yes, the old one was buggy, but worked for most things.

Regards, Eskil

I completely agree.  FilterPro 3 looks very "trendy" but in fact, for a serious designer it is absolutely useless.  It seems they presume that engineers don't know much about filter characteristics.  "Filter Design for Dummies", tell me a few corner parameters, and I tell you what you have to do...

If I design a filter for radio applications for instance then I often know the type of filter I need, or the order.  Just need the freedom to play with the values, and not  re-calculate the components manually for each iteration.  But I certainly don't need a program that makes such design decissions for me, and in the end the whole program flow is pretty much a one-way street.

Too bad for TI to waste time and money on such an "improvement".  Luckily I kept a copy of the version 2 installation file...

I need to know minimum band width of OpAmp used in filter. FilterPRO 2.0 told me that, FilterPRO 3.0 NO !...

Actually, FilterPro 3 does tell you the minimum GBW required for the op amp in each stage. Below each stage in the schematic is a listing of the characteristics of that stage (fn, Q, etc) as well as the minimum GBW required. You may need to scroll the schematic view to see all that because the graphs below the schematic may be in the way.

Can someone post a link to the old one please? The new one needs to re-incorporate the old ones features and people need a stop-gap while this is being done.

Thanks

See this thread: http://e2e.ti.com/support/development_tools/analog_elab_and_tools/f/399/t/93128.aspx for link to FTP site.

Hi!

I just tried using FilterPro for a simple Butterworth filter and wanted to read some attenuation values from the graph.  Things were looking a bit odd until I concluded the frequency scales were wrong, by up to about 10%.    The lines for the exact decade values seem about right but the intermediate lines are (at least often) incorrectly positioned.  This is on an HP Pavilion Laptop, g series.  

I also found myself unhappy to not be able to go back and just tweak a value I had previously entered to observe the advantage or price of doing so while seeking an optimum tradeoff in properties. (In my case, which corner frequency of the Butterworth filter yielded a tolerable attenuation in the frequency range of interest when that value was not -3dB). When one has reached finish going back seems no longer possible.  Because the number of values to be re-entered is small it is only a minor annoyance, but one I suspect is easily fixed.

Thanks for listening to users!

Sincerely yours,

Robert Mueller

Thanks for the feedback, Robert. We're still listening.

The graph issue is a problem, although this is the first I've heard of it. I know using the cursors is difficult because they don't snap to the graph, but if you're saying the axes are wrong then that is a different problem.

Others have commented on the second issue you've raised, and as I've said before, we'll be taking a look at improving that in future filter design tools.

This link no longer seems to work.  Could anyone please post a link to an installer for FilterPro v2?  I used it very successfully for many years and sorely miss it on my new computer.

Help. Can anyone help with this? I have a new laptop, and need to install this. I can't set Q to design resonant 2'nd order blocks. That was a seriously useful feature, only available in the old version.