7 Best Free Filter Designer Software For Windows

Here is a list of best free filter designer software for Windows. These software help you design filters as well as decide the right components for the filter. Some of these filter design software can design various types of filter like lowpass, highpass, bandpass, Butterworth bandpass, Chebyshev lowpass, etc., while many of these software are built to design only some specific types of filter. By selecting the right filter software, you can easily design the desired filter.

To design a filter, some software take various parameters and filter type as input to produce the output filter design. However, some software also take similar parameters, but only provide numerical results and graphs as output. Output results and graphs give you ideas about the filter design and its components. As input, these software take parameters like filter type (LPF, HPF, etc.), filter approximation (Chebyshev, Butterworth, etc.), input frequency, gain values, etc. to produce filter design and output values. The obtained results and graphs can be saved to PC in PDF format in most of these.

My Favorite Filter Designer For Windows:

Filter Wiz Lite is my favorite filter designing software because it provides both circuit diagram as well as filter response graph as output. Plus, it lets you create various types of filters, unlike other software which can design some specific categories of filters.

You can also check out lists of best free Circuit Design, Circuit Simulation, and Physics Simulation software for Windows.

Filter Wiz Lite

Filter Wiz Lite is a free filter designer software for Windows. With the help of this software, you can design active filters of various types namely, lowpass, highpass, bandpass, bandstop, and antialiasing low-pass filter. For each type of filter, it has a separate section (lowpass, highpass, etc.) on its interface through which you can design a particular type of filter.

In this software, you can also view the responses of different approximations (Butterworth, Chebyshev, Bessel, etc.) according to the input frequency, attenuation, and gain values. The response of approximations helps you know which filter approximation takes how many stages, order, single poles, poles pairs, single zero, etc. Plus, gain- frequency, phase-frequency, impulse-frequency, etc. graphs of the selected approximation is also available.

Now, according to the selected filter type and filter approximation type, a circuit schematic window will open up that contains various predefined filter designs which can be useful to create a filter. From circuit schematic window, you can select a predefined filter design for each stage to construct a complete filter. Once done, you can move to next stage where you can change filter’s resistors, capacitors, variation (R1=R2, C1=C2), etc. In the final stage, you can view the frequency response of the designed filter in the form of graphs (delay-frequency, phase-frequency, etc.).

The final frequency response can be saved as eSketch file and the whole filter design can be saved as .fwl file.

Filter Free

Filter Free is another free filter designer software for Windows. Using it, you can design as well as analyze the response and various other values of filters. It provides a Zmatch section that contains various parameters, values, etc., and by selecting the desired parameters you can create filter design and also view it.

In order to create a filter, first, select filter type (Gaussian, Butterworth, Chebyshev, etc.), filter class (lowpass, highpass, bandpass, and bandstop), filter attribute (order, passband frequency), frequency scale, graph limit, etc. After selecting parameters, you can choose how you want to implement your filter i.e. as an Active filter, Digital filter, Lumped filter, etc. According to selected filter implementation, you can further select the subcategories of filter implementations. Once done, press the synthesize filter button to get the desired filter design according to input parameters. The output filter design can directly be printed or saved as PDF.

For analysis, it provides an ideal filter response section that allows you to analyze time response, frequency response, S parameters, pole-zero plots, etc. of the designed filter.

Note: This free version is limited to third order analog design or to ten tap filter FIR designs.

Coilcraft Filter Designer

Coilcraft Filter Designer is a free and dedicated low pass filter designer software for Windows. You can create a low pass filter design using any of the two supported topology named minimum inductors and minimum capacitors. Minimum inductors topology uses minimum possible inductors in the filter and minimum capacitors topology uses minimum possible capacitors in the filter design. According to the selected topology, the circuit design of the filter will appear on the interface.

In order to make the physical changes in the filter design, few changes can be made on inductor types (0201, 0302,0402, etc.) as well as on the number of poles (3, 5, and 7). The change in the number of poles can increase or decrease the number of parallel/serial LC circuit used in the filter.

This filter designer also provides a graph window in which you can check the response of the designed filter at different parameters. To check the response, first, vary the values of parameters like passband return loss, stopband attenuation, impedance, and passband frequency. After that, press Enter to view the filter response in the graph section.

You can individually print or save (in PDF format) both graph and filter circuit design.

AktivFilter

AktivFilter is a free filter designer software for Windows. It is a feature-rich software through which you can design notch filter, active bandpass filter, high pass filter, lowpass filter, etc. with operational amplifiers (Op-amps). Its most important feature is, that it is able to coordinate a filter design on opamp types which means later adjustment on the built circuit is not required.

By using the file > new filter option, you can select various types of predefined filters which are more suitable for your filter design. While designing the highpass, lowpass, or bandpass filter, you can select the characteristic from Bessel, Butterworth, and Chebychev types. There are various component values that you can select for the filter like resistors (e12, e24, etc.), Op-amps (ideal, LF411, and uA741), capacitor values (optimized or manual), sequence of stages, etc. After entering the required parameters, press the Ok button to view the output value in the form of a graph.

In the results section of this software, you can view the complete filter design, right values for each required filter component, and output filter parameters (gain, frequency, stage, etc.). Overall, this software provides the most detailed result through which you can create a physical filter with ease. The output filter design can be saved as HTML file format.

Note: In this free version, you will face various limitations like only three available Op-amps, limited orders of filters (only 1st and second order high pass and low pass filter ), etc.

Speaker Box Filter Designer

Speaker Box Filter Designer is another free and portable filter designer software for Windows. You can create both active and passive filters through this software. Not just that, a dedicated coil calculator to calculate the number of turns according to input values (inductance and cross-section are) of wire is also available.

In its passive filter menu, you get the options to calculate the first and second order passive audio filter for 2 way and 3 way speaker boxes. By entering the woofer impedance, tweeter impedance, midrange impedance, frequency, and frequency high values, you can get the output. After calculation, you will get the accurate inductance and capacitance values of components which are required to build the filter.

Now to create the active filter, first, go to active filters section and select desired filter type (LPF and HPF) and filter order (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) and press the continue design button. After that, a small window will open up that contains the design of the filter. Plus, a resistance calculator to calculate R1 and R2 values according to input approximation (Butterworth and Bessel), capacitance, and frequency values, is also available.

By using the various output or component values and the circuit diagram, you can create a physical filter.

TinyCad

TinyCad is yet another free filter designer software for Windows. In this software, you can easily create the layout of the filter by connecting the important filter components and wire. All important components like inductors, variable inductors, capacitor, resistors, Op-amps, etc. are present on the left side of GUI. You can easily select and drop any component to editor section and create a filter or any other circuit design with ease. You can also save the created filter design as .dsn format.

This software has one problem that it does not provide any analysis tool or section, due to which you will not be able to view the response of the designed filter.

In general, it is a straightforward software in which you can quickly create and save the layout of any filter.

Pi Filter Designer

Pi Filter Designer is a free and portable filter designer software for Windows. This software is mainly used to design low pass pi filters. The design created by this software can only contain 3 elements and a fixed impedance of 50 ohms. Though, you can vary the values of primary capacitors (C1 and C2) between 39 pF to 2200 pF and also the values of other capacitors which are parallel to primary capacitors between 0 to 220 pf. According to the input values, you get the values of the required inductor (uH), cut off frequency, and total capacitance. The output values help you to select the right components for the desired Pi filter.

The Pi filter designed by this software will always have the same filter design that you can view on its interface, but can’t export it.