HELP & CONTROLS
Lab guide
Connect components, take measurements, and save your setup.
01 / CONTROLS
Move, look, and place
Computer
- Move around the permitted workbench area with your current movement bindings. Move the mouse or trackpad to look without holding a button.
- The mouse stays captured and the crosshair stays centered. Press Escape to pause and use the menu. Editing panels release the cursor until you return to the bench. If capture is blocked, the lab stays paused; retry or use a full browser.
- Aim the centre dot to interact. Escape cancels the current action, closes an inspector, or pauses and frees the cursor.
Phone or touch tablet
- Your observation point stays fixed. Swipe to look; tap the actual part or terminal to interact. Swiping never picks up a part.
- While holding a component, tap a clear place on the table to put it down. Temporary controls let you rotate, return, or cancel.
- Menu and Reset view stay within reach. Reset view changes only your view and zoom. Portrait works; landscape shows more of the desk.
Change your controls
Open Menu → Controls & settings. Click a keyboard binding, then press its replacement key. Mouse buttons keep their fixed actions. You can also add keyboard alternatives, adjust sensitivity, or configure touch buttons. Desktop bindings and phone preferences are separate.
Guest controls save on this device. Signed-in controls sync to your account.
E always picks up or places a component or probe. C handles wires, Enter uses switches and instruments, and X cancels. V returns the object you are holding. On Mac, a secondary click can be Control-click or a two-finger click; every essential operation also has a keyboard control.
Current browser controls
Notebook notes stay on this device, separately from saved experiments.
02 / WIRING
Connect two terminals
- Aim at a terminal and press C to start a wire. Press C at the next terminal to connect. On touch devices, tap terminals directly.
- Choose the second terminal to finish. The preview joins the circuit only when both endpoints are accepted.
- Select a completed wire, then choose Delete wire or Reconnect wire. Cancel restores the previous connection.
Cancel an unfinished wire: use Cancel action (X by default), or secondary-click. Delete / Backspace also discards the draft; clicking its starting terminal again cancels it. No second connection is needed. On touch screens, use the Cancel action button.
Remove a completed wire: aim at it or tap to select it, then use Delete wire (Delete / Backspace by default). On touch screens, tap Delete wire. Cancelling a reconnection restores the original wire.
Undo edit and Redo edit cover completed wire changes. They do not rewind simulation time or component movement.
Remove all wires keeps stored energy. Reset entire lab clears connections and stored energy, and returns components to the shelf.
03 / MEASUREMENTS
Use the multimeter
Press M to change meter mode, P to pick up the red probe, or L for the black probe. Aim at a terminal and press E to place it. Enter or clicking the dial also changes mode.
Put a probe back on the table
While holding the red or black probe, press V (Return probe to table) to disconnect it and rest it beside the meter. On a touch screen, tap Return probe to table. You can also aim at a clear part of the table and click or tap to put it there.
X, a secondary click, or Escape cancels the move and restores the previous connection. Return probe to table deliberately leaves the probe disconnected. Keyboard shortcuts can be changed in Controls & settings.
Voltage
Connect the probes across two points. The DC display averages a completed 100 ms simulation-time window and keeps the sign. Reversing the probes reverses the reading. SETTLING means the window is incomplete.
Current
Place the meter in the current path. Its low resistance affects the circuit. Excessive current can open its fuse; reset the lab to replace it.
Resistance
Use an unpowered circuit. The meter disables its test source when it detects external voltage or accessible stored energy.
An open connection, exceeded range, blown fuse, or unavailable solve has its own display state. Incorrect placement can change the circuit’s behavior; it is not an experiment-specific error.
04 / SIGNALS & COMPONENTS
Observe a changing circuit
Oscilloscope
Connect CH1 and GND to two circuit points. Its input has finite resistance. Click the timebase knob to change the displayed time window. The trace shows the actual simulated voltage.
Transformer
Interact with the transformer to inspect and change primary or secondary turns, or reverse the secondary dot polarity. Use Pick up / place to move it. Winding resistance and coupling affect its behavior.
The meter automatically uses mV, µV, µA, nA, mΩ, kΩ or MΩ for small or large readings. Voltage range extends to 600 V and resistance to 20 MΩ. AC voltage/current indications use RMS once a full waveform window is available. Ω measures resistance, not capacitance or inductance: ideal coils and forward-conducting ideal diodes may correctly read zero. Use Properties to see capacitance or inductance, and voltage/current modes to observe their response in a circuit.
Polarity and stored energy
Diodes and LEDs use continuous electrical models and have polarity. K marks the cathode, shown by a diode’s band. Choose current-limiting components for your circuit. Capacitors keep stored energy during wire edits. Component ratings explain overload warnings.
05 / SAVING
Keep your setup
- Try the lab without an account. Sign in with email and password when you want to save experiments.
- Name your setup and choose Save. Find it in My projects to open, rename, copy, export, or delete it.
- Export this desk downloads the current setup even before saving. Importing creates a new project.
Optional autosave saves meaningful user edits after a short delay, not every simulation step. The status shows whether changes are unsaved, saving, saved, or could not be saved. A project opened in another tab is protected against overwriting a newer save.
What a saved experiment includes
Component positions, orientations, properties, wires, transformer settings, switches, source settings, and meter placement and probes.
Loading restarts the simulation. Time, stored energy, protection, and waveform history restart from configured initial conditions. The exact instantaneous electrical state is not resumed.
Use Account settings to change your password or delete your account after confirmation.