TINA Tutorial: Starting Up

TINA is an easy-to-use software tool for the design, checking and fabrication of
electronic circuits. It has three significant parts: the first is schematic entry where an
electronic circuit is entered into the computer, the second part simulates the operation of
the circuit and when it works as you want, the third part is turning the circuit diagram into
a printed circuit board (PCB) that you can get made and use as a “chassis” to assemble
the various components onto.

In this first term you will get accustomed to schematic entry and simulation. The PCB
design and manufacture is left until the third term. There are many software tools that
could be used but many are designed for a knowledgeable user or more suited to highly
industrialised circuits. But whatever the software, the simulation engine is usually based
on SPICE. This acronym stands for “Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit
Emphasis” and was developed in the early 1970s in the Department of Electrical
Engineering at University of California at Berkeley.

The aim of this handout is to summarise the basic operation of TINA. It is only a
summary, there is no substitute for actually using TINA and learning how to operate it.

In this handout we will learn how to enter a simple circuit and see how the simulation
engine works

1) Schematic Entry
a. Components: placement, changing values, rotating, tolerances.
b. Voltage sources (DC and AC waveform generators)

2) Simulation
a. Using probes and ‘scopes.
b. Transient analysis
c. Displays and cursors

Finding TINA.
1) log on using your user name and password.
2) Go to All Programs in the Start menu
3) Find the TINA workstation folder
4) Select the application TINA[.exe] and you should see the start up screen shown on
the next page
The opening screen

Select these components from the “Basic” tab selection using drag and drop.
If you select the wrong component by mistake, Esc gets you back to nothing selected
Now wire up the components with the select arrow (just below “Analysis” on the menu)
on the component terminal or by using the wiring pencil (just below “Interactive” on the
menu). Left click, move to the destination terminal and click again to connect the wire

Make sure there is a dot where three or more wires are joined.

Click the DC button (next to the zoom drop down) and by selecting the Probe (the next
button to the right), move it to one of the resistors and check that the voltages over and
currents through both resistors are correct. The screen shot below shows the voltage
across and current through R2.
Now lets us change the value of the resistor R2. Double left click on R2 and look at the
dialogue box.

Resistors values are never exact (they have a % spread around the nominal value). Left
click on the resistance (you will get […] and clicking on […] will give you the tolerance
range as shown below.

Leave this at 5% for now but change the resistance to 9k [ohms] and the battery to 10v
and check with the DC probe that all the voltages and currents are correct
Now delete the battery (select it with the arrow and hit “Delete” on your keyboard) and
insert a voltage generator from the “Sources” tab selection. There are number of possible
outputs here so select the sinusoidal waveform (three pictures from the left) and use
50Hz, 1V amplitude
Now we need to hang a voltmeter over R2 so we can see the alternating waveform as it
changes with time. Get it using the “Meters” tab. It is easy to rotate R2 into a vertical
position shown below using the rotate button (below “Tools” on the menu) or use Ctrl R .
Your circuit should now look like that below.

Click on the “Analysis” button, select “Transient..” in the drop down menu and make
sure the “Draw excitation” is ticked and the “End display” is 100m (i.e., 100msecs).
Now once all this works, you should see the two waveforms shown below. The larger is
the input from the voltage generator, the smaller is the output voltage over R2. By using
the “a” and “b” cursors, determine whether the peak voltages of the input (green) and the
output (red) waveforms are in the same ratio as R2/(R1+R2)

Now go back and change the Transient … “End display” to 50m which expands the time
span. Also delete the R2 resistor and replace it with a 10uF [10u] capacitor and repeat the
transient analysis.
Note that after the start up, the output waveform and the input waveform don’t line up
any more. Decrease the frequency of the voltage generator until the transient output
waveform peaks at 0.707v. [707m]. You will have to increase the “End display” back to
100m as the frequency decreases. Notice we have used the “a” cursor to find the peak
value of the output waveform. The first peak around 25msec isn’t right because the
system is still in the start up condition. We could increase the Transient “Start display” to
100m and the “End display” to 200m to get around this problem.

Have a fiddle around with changing value of components to get familiar with the basic
operations we have shown you today. If you minimise the voltmeter plot, you can
expand it again with a button between next to Exit down the bottom left of your screen.
Actually I find it easier to delete the plot with the red cross top right of the Results
screen.

Try using a step input voltage waveform of the voltage generator VG1 to see the step
response of the resistor capacitor network. Notice how long it takes for the voltage over
the capacitor to rise to its final value. This is because the voltage on a capacitor cannot
change instantly.

By clicking on the label of any component you can relabel it to anything you like that
doesn’t have a conflict. Change VG1 to Vin and C1 to CL

Save the circuit in your own J drive (“save as” it something simple) so you can get it back
next week from any one of the Engcad computers. (As a check, shut TINA down, logout
and logon to a different computer, then see if you can reopen your circuit from inside a
fresh TINA screen.)
Appendix
1. Experimenting with Example Circuits, avoiding common problems

Start the program and click the File menu item in the top line of thescreen to drop
down the File menu. Select the Open command and the standard open file dialog box
appears with *.TSC, indicating that a file name with .TSC extension is sought. Select the
EXAMPLES folder, and a list of files with .TSC extensions will appear. After selecting a
file, the circuit schematic will appear.

Now you can execute an analysis, modify or

expand the circuit, and evaluate the results. Keep
in mind that every command may be aborted by
pressing the [Esc] key or clicking on the Cancel
button. We recommend that you load the
following circuits and follow the instructions on
the screen for the circuit types listed below. This
will avoid some common problems.

e.g.

Oscillator circuit EXAMPLES\colpitts.tsc

555 Oscillator EXAMPLES\555_AST.tsc
Rectifier circuit EXAMPLES\Bridge Rectifier1.tsc

2. Measurement Units

When setting parameters for electronic components or specifying numerical values, you
may use standard electronic abbreviations. For example, you can enter 1k (ohm) for 1000
(ohm). The multiplier abbreviations should follow the numeric value, e.g., 2.7k, 3.0M, 1u,
etc. The following characters indicate multiplier factors:

Note: Upper and lower cases must be carefully distinguished (e.g., M = m), and the selected letter
must follow the numeric characters without a space (e.g., 1k or 5.1G), or TINA will indicate an error.
3. Schematic Editing Using the Mouse

2.1 Using the right mouse button

If you press the right button of the mouse at any time, a popup menu appears. Using this
menu you can:
• Cancel Mode: Exit from the last operation (e.g. moving a component).
• Last Component: Return to the last component and reposition it.
• Wire: Switch to wire-drawing mode.
• Delete: Delete selected component(s).
• Rotate Left, Rotate Right, Mirror: You can also rotate a selected component by
pressing the Ctrl-L or Ctrl-R keys.
• Properties: Use this command to edit the properties (value, label) of the component
currently selected or being moved.

2.2 Using the left mouse button

In the descriptions below, ‘clicking’ always refers to the left mouse button.
• Selection: Clicking on an object will select or deselect the objects
• Multiple selection: Clicking while holding down the [Shift] key will add the
object under the cursor to the group of currently selected objects.
• Block selection: Press and hold down the left button while moving the mouse
(dragging).
• Selection of all objects: Press Ctrl+A to select all objects.
• Moving objects: Object can be moved by dragging it (Position the cursor on the
object, press and hold the left button, and move the mouse.)
• Parameter modification: Double-clicking on an object will bring up its parameter
menu so that you can modify its parameters (if it has any).
• Crossing wires: The crossing of two wires does not result in a connection at the
crossing unless you deliberately choose there to be one. Use Edit. Hide/Reconnect
to place or remove a connecting dot. However, it is better drafting practice to
never make a connection at a wire crossing, as this avoids ambiguity about the
presence or absence of a dot.
• Block or symbol copying: After a block or symbol has been selected, you may
copy it by pressing Crtl+C. Then click outside the block or symbol to release it,
and press Crtl+V.

4. Download all Users Manuals. Go to all Programs in the Start Menu of WINDOWS,
find the \TINA 9 Workstation\Documents folder, and select Quick Start Manual.