This is a Civilized Place for Public Discussion

Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public park. We, too, are a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation.

These are not hard and fast rules. They are guidelines to aid the human judgment of our community and keep this a kind, friendly place for civilized public discourse.

Posting Guidelines

Please observe the following guidelines on how to ask a question in the PLECS User Forum.

Research first

Before posting a question, we encourage you to do your own homework and research possible answers/solutions in Plexim’s documentation, previous PLECS Forum posts, and the wider internet. Share any research findings in your post. Everyone wins when you save yourself and others time and avoid question duplication.

The title is key

Use a title that is clear and concise. Other Forum members and moderators should have an idea of what your topic is about directly from reading the title. Leave out anything irrelevant to what you are asking about (salutations, urgency, “help”).

Ask one question at a time

Keep each post to a single question/topic. If you have multiple questions that are not strongly related to each other, split them out into separate threads.

Describe the problem thoroughly

Clearly explain the issue you are having. Did you receive an error message? What have you tried to remedy the issue? What are you expecting to see instead? Include any messages, simulation results, or other information helpful to understand your question.

It’s not a crime to want someone else to do your work for you, but if you just ask for a free model or debugging support, you are likelier to receive feedback by demonstrating having made a reasonable effort.

Provide all relevant files

In order for others to reproduce and/or debug the issue, providing your simulation files always helps. In addition to the model file, scripts (.m), thermal descriptions (.xml), and data files (.mat, .csv, .xls, etc.) may be required. Screenshots are usually not enough for others to address your question!

Categories and tagging

When posting select the most appropriate category for your question. There are three main categories on this discourse site:

  • PLECS: Questions relating to general power electronics and controls modeling in PLECS, PLECS features, model optimization, and error messages are appropriate for this category
  • RT Box: Use this category for posts related to the PLECS RT Box including converter modeling, real-time control, and basic configuration questions.
  • Coder: This category is for all questions relating to code generation for microprocessors in PLECS.

Double-check your content

Review and proofread your post before submitting.

User forum vs. support ticketing system

Please do not submit a ticket directly to the Plexim Support Team on the same topic at the same time to avoid us from duplicating efforts. Students should post all questions to the PLECS forum.

Questions posted in the Forum may or may not be answered by a member of the Plexim team, and someone who submits a question to the official Support channel may be encouraged to post the question in the Forum to benefit the wider PLECS user community.

If you suspect there is a software bug or have a feature suggestion for PLECS, please contact Plexim directly. If you want someone to look at your model for advice or to ask if others have managed to model something you are pursuing, the Forum is a great choice.

Participation is two-way

If you find a useful answer in the Forum, show appreciation by liking the post (:heart:). And if your question itself is fully answered by another member, select the answer (✓) to show that your issue is resolved. Not giving any acknowledgement when someone made an effort to help you is not in the spirit of the Forum.

Improve the Discussion

Help us make this a great place for discussion by always adding something positive to the discussion, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

One way to improve the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Spend time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.

The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.

Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree

You may wish to respond by disagreeing. That’s fine. But remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:

  • Name-calling
  • Ad hominem attacks
  • Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content
  • Knee-jerk contradiction

Instead, provide thoughtful insights that improve the conversation.

Your Participation Counts

The conversations we have here set the tone for every new arrival. Help us influence the future of this community by choosing to engage in discussions that make this forum an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.

Discourse provides tools that enable the community to collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, watching, muting and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.

Let’s leave our community better than we found it.

If You See a Problem, Flag It

Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be community facilitators, not just janitors or police.

When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. Replying encourages bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.

In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators do not preview new posts; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.

Always Be Civil

Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:

  • Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
  • Keep it clean. Don’t post anything obscene or sexually explicit.
  • Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
  • Respect our forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.

These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even the appearance of any of these things. If you’re unsure, ask yourself how you would feel if your post was featured on the front page of a major news site.

This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.

Keep It Tidy

Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:

  • Don’t start a topic in the wrong category; please read the category definitions.
  • Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
  • Don’t post no-content replies.
  • Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
  • Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.

Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

Post Only Your Own Stuff

You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission. You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law.

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