Proteus: Arduino simulator

Introduction

Proteus is an electronic software in which you can create and simulate an electronics circuit. Furthermore you have an editor for your smartphone to control all your project remotely with Arduino or Raspberry pi cards!

Proteus software, edited by Labcenter Electronics, has a free version. Nevertheless the free version has limited functionalities compared to the full version.

Download Proteus

You can download the free version of Proteus on this website.

Thanks to this version, you can discover the software and you can buy it to have the simulation part.

Once the software downloaded, this is what we see:

Then we accept the using conditions:

We choose typical installation:

Once we have finished the installation, this is what we see:

Discovering Proteus

A) Project without card

We will create a new project. We have the choice to start from scratch or start from a development card to directly test your program.

Then you can choose a background to your project : it can be just a square such as landscape A0 or a more personalized design.

Now you have the choice to create a PCB card with an arduino or keep an empty project. We will see later what is a PCB card.

Then you have the choice to add a firmware to your project with Vsm studio:

Here we have a summary of the choices we have done previously:

This is what we have:

As you can see, there is no Arduino card on the project. We will see how to have it.

B) A project from a development card

To have a development card such as an Arduino in your project, you need to select it when you create your project.

You can choose one of the arduino card available:

After choose one of it you will see the electronic sketch of the card. You can plug your component on it to build your circuit :

As you can see, the Arduino card are described by the processor they have in it.
Here is a table of the corresponding between the processor and the Arduino card:

Processor	Corresponding Arduino card
Arduino 168	Arduino Pro Mini
Arduino 328	Arduino Uno
Arduino Mega 2560	Arduino Mega
Arduino Nano 2.x	Arduino Nano old version
Arduino Nano 3.x	Arduino Nano new version

C) A project from a PCB card

When creating a new project, you click on create a PCB card and choose one the Arduino card of the list.

You can see the characteristics of the Arduino card chosen, in our case the arduino uno.

We have the possibility to choose how the wires will be on the card : we choose trough all the PCB card.

Finally we have an image of what we have chosen : the wires through all the PCB card.

You have the possibility to choose a firmware of the card you are using. For our example we won’t choose any firmware.

We have a summary of our choices:

Here we have our PCB card:

What is a PCB card?

A printed circuit, is a board in which you can plug some components. Theses components are linked with wires printed directly on the board. You can find theses cards in many electronic devices.

By using Proteus you can create a PCB project from scratch and develop your card physically when the project is finished.

How to add components on Proteus?

Here we will how to make your own circuit and add components.

For example we will start with a new project and choose a development project : Arduino card 328.

We can see in the device list the electronics components which are already in your circuit:

With a right click you can choose Pick from Libraries to find others electronics components:

Here is what we have:

Here you find the components you need by writing the name on the search bar.

Make your own program

Once the circuit has been done, you have to make the program in order to have an electronic card which does what you have planned.

Once you have clicked the simulate button, a code page will appear. This program will control your card.

The code we choose for the arduino card, is in Arduino language. We can recognize void setup and void loop like in Arduino ide environment.

In our circuit we have a led, therefore we will blink it in our program:

The void setup permits to declare a led as an output. The void loop can blink this led in an infinite loop.

Measure instrument on Proteus

Proteus has many measure instruments that can be used to verify that your circuit works correctly.

Here you can see many screens which will display many values during the simulation.

If you want a precise location to measure in your circuit, then you have to use a probe on the location you want to measure:

You can choose a probe in current or tension. You just need to click on one of the output to see it highlighted and having it’s value during the simulation.

Simulate your circuit

One advantage of proteus is that you can simulate your circuit to be sure it does what you wanted.

The simulation is not available in the free version of Proteus.

Price of your circuit

Once your circuit is finished, you can have the bill of all the components in it.

Notice : With the free version of Proteus, you can only have the number of components used in your circuit but not their prices.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Proteus is a really good software to create and simulate your circuit. The difference between Proteus Tinkercad, Fritzing and Flowcode is that Proteus is less used for Arduino cards and Raspberry pi. It is more for electronics card such as Microchip….

Furthermore Proteus has more options than others electronics software, such as the bill of the price of your circuit, or the measure instruments.

Therefore Proteus is a really good software more used for a professional purpose. If you are a beginners in electronics, we recommend you to use Tinkercad software to create and simulate your circuit.