Magnetics Designer

Magnetics Designer is a CAD application designed specifically for helping engineers design wound transformers and produce a SPICE model and schematic symbol of their final design, so they may use the design with schematic entry programs and analog simulators. Plus, it offers support for a database with a large number of components and materials.

User interface

The program adopts a clean design and implements a wizard for offering you step-by-step guidance throughout the entire design process. This approach is suitable especially for rookies as it helps them enter the appropriate data into the Magnetics Designer panel.
Advanced users may skip this step and jump directly to the Magnetics Designer panel where they can configure the parameters on their own. This window integrates a multi-tabbed layout and lets you tweak data related to core, bobbin, transformer, inductor, IsSpice, unit of measurement, vendors and wire.

Creating a new design

You can define a new design by selecting the core family, vendor and material (the available materials depend on the selected core family and vendor), opting for an inductor or transformer, and entering the number of primary and secondary windings.
What’s more, you can provide details about the operating frequency, temperature rising point, values for each winding (e.g. minimum inductance, DC current, AC current), flux swing (full or half wave), and waveform (sine or pulse).
The program displays popup notifications at the end of the project informing you about possible errors, hints and automatic corrections. You may export data to MAG file format so you can upload it in your future editing projects or print it.

Magnetics Designer features

Professional users may tweak the design process in detail via the Magnetics Designer panel where they can select a core, change core parameter, lock core geometry, and apply a core selection algorithm. What’s more, you can enter sector and bobbin dimensions, view the winding stacks, define bobbin geometry and show the magnetic fields in the winding stack.
Furthermore, you can define the required input by specifying the operating frequency, average voltage, DC and AC current, save a SPICE mode, SpiceNet symbol and OrCAD or Protel symbol, alter the unit of measurement, manipulate a database of transformer manufacturers, core manufacturers, core distributors, and wire manufacturers, as well as see view graphs for different windings.

An overall reliable CAD program

All in all, Magnetics Designer integrates a comprehensive suite of features for helping engineers design transformers and inductors. It comes with a multitude of tweaking options so you need to save some time to get used to working the application.