What is Proteus
In this detailed guide about Proteus we will what Proteus Design Suite is and what are its actual use cases. This is the Fifth article after MULTISIM, of the series PIP INSTALL. If you want to know more about Proteus, checkout the additional resources we have included at the end of the article.
1. Introduction:
The Proteus Design Suite is a proprietary software tool suite used primarily for electronic design automation. It is a Windows application for schematic capture, Simulation, and Printed Circuit Board(PCB) layout design. It can be found in many configurations, depending on the size of designs being produced and the requirements for microcontroller simulation. All PCB Design products include an autorouter and basic mixed-mode SPICE simulation capabilities.
The software is used mainly by electronic design engineers and technicians to create schematics and electronic prints for manufacturing printed circuit boards(PCBs) and also as a rapid prototyping tool for R&D. It is also found in Universities across the world, teaching electronics, embedded design, and PCB layout to students. It also has features that allow you to virtually simulate your IoT projects.
2. Features of Proteus:
We are including only some of the most important features
Schematic capture :
Proteus capture combines a powerful design environment with full support for design re-use, assembly variants and a complete BOM reporting sub-system. Whether you are making PCBs or simulating embedded systems our schematic capture contains all the electronic design tools you need.
PCB design:
Proteus PCB Software combines Schematic Capture and PCB Layout modules to provide an affordable, powerful and easy to use suite of tools for professional PCB design.
Virtual System Modelling(VSM):
Proteus Virtual System Modelling (VSM) blends mixed-mode SPICE simulation with world leading fast microcontroller simulation. It enables rapid prototyping of both hardware and firmware designs, in software! .
You can Design, Test and Debug your embedded projects in the Proteus electronic circuit simulator before a physical prototype is ordered.
3. Installation:
- Download the Proteus version 8.9 Pro software from the link below:
Proteus_Professional_8.9_SP2.zip - Unzip the files and move them to an appropriate folder.
- Run the Setup file Proteus 8.9 SP2 Pro.exe from the package and installation will begin.
- To add the libraries you need in order to work with Proteus, open the libraries folder from link in step(1) and copy all the files in it.
- Go to C:/ Program Files(x86)/ Labcenter Electronics/ Proteus 8 Professional/ DATA/ LIBRARY and paste all the files in this folder.
- If you don’t find the DATA folder, go to the ‘View’ tab and select ‘Hidden Items’ in the ‘Show/hide’ section.
7. Go to C:/ ProgramData/ Labcenter Electronics/ Proteus 8 Professional/ LIBRARY and paste the library files in there.
8. From the link provided in step (1), install Bonjour and Virtual Serial Port Emulator (VSPE) by running the respective setup files bonjoursdksetup.exe and vspd.exe.
9. Select ‘Continue demo’
10. And your installations are finished!
11. After your installation is finished right click on proteus icon and go to properties.In the compatibility properties tick the run as administrator button
Tutorial: Flame Detector in proteus
To get familiar with Proteus, we advise you to build this sample project. We have covered all the steps in detail. After successful completion you will know the basic tools and techniques that are used in this software.
- Create a new project in Proteus with title “Flame_Detector”
2. Select a DEFAULT Schematic Template
3. Choose Do not create a PCB layout
4. Click Next and then Finish.
5. Include a part clicking on ‘P’ beside the toolbar
6. Add ‘SIMULINO ARDUINO’ component as shown
7. Add ‘Flame Sensor’
8. Add ‘20x4 LCD Display’
9. Add ‘10K POT’
10. Add ‘LOGICSTATE’ component
11. Add POWER and GROUND from ‘TERMINALS MODE’ from toolbar
12. Double click on POWER and edit String to ‘+5V’
13. Make connections as shown
14. Open Arduino IDE, write the code given below to display the flame sensor status on LCD display
15. Open Preferences and tick compilation in ‘Show verbose output’, this will enable us to find a path to hex file
16. Compile the code and copy path to the hex file as shown
17. Paste the path in UNO properties
18. Open flame sensor properties, select the path for its hex file. It would be similar to C\Program Files (x86)\Labcenter Electronics\ Proteus 8 Professional\ DATA\LIBRARY\ FlameSensorTEP.HEX
19. Finally run the simulation to get the project running
20. Toggle LOGICSTATE to change the output of the flame sensor. Since we don’t have actual flame to test, we check using a manual sensor output.
Amazing! You have successfully simulated a basic arduino project in Proteus.
4. Some More Tutorials
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo_2J2traQc&list=PLHD-Q7DS0lI1pOAEhqOgwJvIWe8qQNAd8
5. References
This Article is a part of the PIP INSTALL series by EA and HAM club at NIT, Warangal. If you are a software enthusiasts we have a good news for you, there are several more articles lined up to be posted. To stay updated, Subscribe to our Mailing letter and follow us on Linkedin, Instagram and Facebook
