User's guide to the circuit analyzer program

1. The Circuit

The circuit analyzer program analyzes simple linear DC circuits, which have max. 4-5 loops. At the end of the analysis the program determines the current intensity in every current branch.

The program analyzes 'normal' circuits and does not handle extreme ones. The program requires that the circuit

• should be interconnected
• should contain at least 2 loops
• should have at most 4-5 loops (It could be more, but the calculation speed would significantly increase)
• Every loop should contain at least one resistance

2. The workspace

The workspace has 3 panels

1. Upper panel which contains the program's toolbar.
2. Right panel with the layout of the circuit.
3. Left panel, with the values of the electronic elements, and the analysis results.

On narrow screens or on mobile the circuit layout will take up the whole width of the screen, and the left panel with the values of the electronic elements, and the analysis results goes to the bottom.

3. The toolbar

The toolbar is normally a single-line wide toolbar with many icons. However, on narrow screens or mobile it appears as a multiple-line toolbar. As in this case it can take up a big portion of the screen, the top-left hamburger menu button can be used to collapse or open the full toolbar. In collapsed state only the circuit-editor buttons are shown. Hovering over a certain icon, a tooltip shows the funcion of that button.

4. Set up your editing environment

When you open the program, an examle circuit is shown. You can clear the example and start a brand new circiut with the button from the toolbar

You can always reload the example circuit with the button.

To increase the size of the working area horizontally and vertically, use these buttons from the toolbar:

You can set other editing and display options with the button

• Grid size will affect how big the circuit elements will appear on the working area
• Show grid turns on/off the display of the grid in the working area
• Show points will determine, if the junctions in the circuit will appear as big ponts, of just simple junctions
• Resistance style, Voltage gererator style and Current generator style will change the appearance of the circuit elements from European-style to US-style and vice versa. The style will affect the appearance both on the and the editing area

5. Set up a circuit

For creating a circuit its recommended to turn on the visibility of the grid, and clear the editing area, as was shown in the previous section. After that you should select from the toolbar, what do you want to draw (Wire, Resistance, Voltage Generator, Current Generator). The active drawing element will change to green on the toolbar

5.1. Place an electronic element

Electronic elements can be placed only between two nodes on the grid. Firstly you should switch on the toolbar the element type you want to draw. Then push the mouse's left button above one node, drag it to the other one, and release the mouse button. When you place a voltage or current generator, its direction is from the first node to the second one. During dragging, the new element appears in blue.

Only one electronic element can be placed between two nodes. If you want to place two electronic elements between the same two nodes, you should set up an additional "extra" node and connect that to the circuit with a wire and the other electronic element. It is also not allowed to put the end on the node exactly behind an other elements wire. If you cannot place an element, because it somehow overlaps with an other element, during dragging it appears in reddish instead of blue.

5.2. Deleting

You can delete an electonic element by changing the editing mode to delete mode on the toolbar with the button, and then clicking on the element. When you hover above an element in this mode, the to-be-deleted element will be shown in red, with 2 lines crossing above it.

An alternative for deleting is to search the element in the element names and values panel. The actual element will be shown in orange both on the panel, and on the circuit picture, and a small delete icon will apear right from its name and value on the panel. Clicking on this icon also deletes the element

5.3 Set the values of the electronic elements

The program automatically gives a new unique name and zero value to every electronic element you add to the circuit. Its name and value is shown on the left panel. The zero value is indicated with ???? (4 question marks) on the panel. If you hover over a certain element, its color changes to orange, and its value is shown besides it.

To change the value of the element, simply click on its value (on the name and values panel) and enter the new value

You can change the dimensional unit as well, by clicking the dimensional unit and changing it from the dropdown menu. The available dimensional units are Ω, kΩ and MΩ for resistance, mA and A for current generator, and mV, V and kV for voltage generator. (m- milli, k- kilo, M- mega)

6. Analysis

When the circuit is ready, you can start the analysis by clicking on the icon.

When the analysis is ready, the results - or if it's not possible to solve, then the error message - will be shown.

The current directions are shown on the circuit, and the results are shown in the names and values panel. If you hover over a result value, it will be shown in orange, and the respective circuit elements will also turn orange on the network.

If you hover over the network, the respective branch will appear in orange, and the result value will be shown besides the mouse cursor.

You can go back to editing mode by clickin on any if the circuit elements on the toolbar

6. Mobile usage

This program works on mobile browsers, too, however it is not optimised for mobile, and there are some known problematic issues, mainly accidentally creating new circuit elements. To prevent most of these issues, turn on select mode by the icon when scrolling, or doing anything besides element creation.