Configuring PLECS
The PLECS configuration parameters can be modified per user in the PLECS Preferences dialog. Choose the menu entry Preferences... from the File menu (PLECS menu on OS X) to open it.General
The language used by PLECS can be specified in the Language field. PLECS uses the language settings of your computer as default setting. Available languages are English and Japanese. To activate the new language settings PLECS must be restarted.
The setting Symbol format controls whether resistors and capacitors are drawn in DIN or ANSI style. The table below shows the different component representation for both settings.
DIN | ANSI |
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When the Grid setting is set to on a grid is displayed in the background of schematic windows for easier placement of components and their connections.
When the Circuit browser default setting specifies the default filtering mode used for all circuit browsers (see section ??).
The maximum amount of memory that is used by PLECS during the simulation can be controlled with the setting Cache size limit. Once PLECS reaches the memory limit it will discard earlier computation results which may have to be recalculated later during the simulation. On the other hand the value should not be higher than about one third of the physical memory of the computer where PLECS is running, otherwise the simulation performance may be degraded due to swapping.
In PLECS Standalone the XML-RPC interface can be enabled or disabled for external scripting. When enabled, PLECS listens on the specified TCP port for incoming XML-RPC connections. See chapter XML-RPC Interface in PLECS Standalone for details on using the XML-RPC interface.
When opening a model, PLECS can reopen all scope windows that were open when the model was saved. The option Scope windows enables or disables this behavior.
Libraries
To add custom libraries to the library browser add these libraries in the User libraries settings. All custom libraries must be located on the library search path, which is defined differently depending on the PLECS edition:
- For PLECS Standalone the library search path can be changed in the Search path settings on the same preferences page.
- For PLECS Blockset the custom libraries must be located on the Matlab search path. The Matlab search path can be set from the Matlab file menu. The Search path settings are not available in the PLECS Blockset preferences.
Thermal
The setting Thermal description search path contains the root directories of the thermal library. See section Thermal Library for more details.
Scope Colors
The Scope background setting determines whether the PLECS scopes are drawn with a black or white background.
The Scope palette setting determines the appearance of the curves inside the PLECS scopes. To create a new custom palette, select any existing palette and click on Duplicate. To remove a palette, click on Remove. Note that the default palette is read-only and cannot be removed.
The Signals group box lists the base properties used for the curves in a scope plot. You can specify color, line style and line width individually for each curve. If a plot contains more curves than the number of entries in this list, PLECS will restart at the beginning. The default palette specifies six solid, one pixel wide line styles.
The Distinguish traces by setting specifies how different traces for a specific signal are distinguished from each other (see Adding Traces). In the default palette, traces are distinguished by brightness, i.e. by using different shades of the base color. In custom palettes, you can alternatively distinguish traces by varying the color, line style or width. The selected property will then not be available in the signal list. Again, if a plot has more traces than the number of entries in this list, PLECS will restart at the beginning.
Update
PLECS can be configured to check for updates every time it is started. If the computer running PLECS is located behind a firewall it may be necessary to configure proxy settings. These settings can be determined automatically or entered manually.
The Server name configures the fully qualified domain name or the IP address of the HTTP proxy server. Leave empty to disable proxy usage.
The Server port configures the TCP port of the HTTP proxy server.
The Proxy user configures the username to use for proxy authentication. Leave empty to disable proxy authentication.
The Proxy password configures the password for proxy authentication.
Note To check for updates PLECS sends its version to the PLEXIM update server. No further personal information is transmitted.