Да я прочитал уже :-)
Сначала был Orcad\Ultiboard
Потом перешли на Альтиум.
Но стандартная библиотека УГО полностью заменена на свою.
It is about three years now since our lab migrated from Ultiboard/
Orcad to Altium Designer CAD software for the drawing of engineering-
level schematics and the design of those famous Elektor
printed circuit boards. It is an enormous improvement to work with
a completely integrated CAD package, but there is, of course, the
odd situation every now and then when you think nostalgically of
the old software, even though this changeover has been a big step
forward and Altium has taken a lot of work off our hands.
Without doubt, the biggest improvement was the direct linking
of the schematic and the PCB design, which we did not have previously
because each job was done using a dedicated CAD package.
It is now much simpler to verify whether the circuit and the PCB
actually correspond to each other. This is of course not a unique
characteristic of Altium Designer, other CAD packages may do that
too, but in Altium it is very easy to make alterations to the schematic
and then propagate these changes to the PCB, and the other
way around. This does not work in other CAD packages, either not
as easily or not in both directions.
Bigger footprints for our readers
To be honest the libraries that came with Altium were a big disappointment
initially. It was certainly a case of watching out for
the incorrect pinning of components. And the standard throughhole
parts may be perfectly suitable for assembly by a manufacturing
company, but the pads and holes are so small that soldering
by hand and certainly desoldering requires more than average
soldering skills. At the request of many readers we therefore
quickly changed the footprints and they are now almost the same
as those created by Ultiboard from the old days. This, of course,
also makes things much easier for ourselves when building and testing
the prototypes. Since then we use the bigger footprints for kit
sets and individual printed circuit boards, the smaller footprints are
only used for boards that are available in pre-assembled form only.
We, incidentally, do the latter only with SMD boards if we think
that most readers will have difficulty completing the soldering task
successfully.
Work in progress: the libraries
The work on the libraries is not finished as yet — we are still busy
with the database libraries, where the components are linked directly
to footprints, order codes, etc. But this is a very time consuming
job and the daily work for the magazine always has higher
priority. That is why it is not quite completed. However, when completed,
this should save a considerable amount of time.
Making new PCB footprints in Altium is very easy, by the way. Using
the IPC Footprint Wizard, the shapes for complex SMD ICs are
easily made and at most a small amount of cosmetic work needs
to be done to the overlay (silk screen) as it appears on the PCB.
Sometimes the pads on the board need to be made a little larger to
simplify hand soldering. But even without this wizard, making new
(through-hole) components is very straightforward.
Many roads lead to Rome
Lots of things can be done in Altium Designer — too many we say
sometimes. It is sometimes hard to see the forest for the trees because
of all the options, tools and settings the program has on offer.
Example of a schematic designed with Altium Designer (project ‘Car Tilt Alarm’ from the September issue). Elektor illustrator Mart Schroijen subsequently
uses a special CAD program to convert this schematic into the familiar Elektor style.
More than once you need to search where a settings is ‘hidden’ or
think how you solved a particular problem on an earlier occasion.
It is of course also a consideration that no one in our lab has a fulltime
job as PCB designer and the complexity of designs varies enormously.
The more complex functionality of Altium is not used very
often and it is then difficult to become very familiar with it.
Every now and then it’s also difficult that there are multiple roads
that lead to Rome in Altium. It is a frequent occurrence that you
ask a colleague for help and that he happily uses a different set of
menus than those that you are used to yourself, this is not always
enlightening. On the other hand it can, of course, be very useful
that you can obtain the same result using different methods.
Altium is very capable at importing PCB layouts from other CAD
packages. Unfortunately the very popular Eagle is not one of them,
this CAD software that is by far the most popular among our readers,
for as far as we can determine. We have asked Altium whether
this option can be added to the program, but unfortunately we
have not yet received a positive response to this request. That is
why in our lab we also frequently use Eagle to change board layouts
so that they meet our needs or requirements.
Сначала был Orcad\Ultiboard
Потом перешли на Альтиум.
Но стандартная библиотека УГО полностью заменена на свою.
It is about three years now since our lab migrated from Ultiboard/
Orcad to Altium Designer CAD software for the drawing of engineering-
level schematics and the design of those famous Elektor
printed circuit boards. It is an enormous improvement to work with
a completely integrated CAD package, but there is, of course, the
odd situation every now and then when you think nostalgically of
the old software, even though this changeover has been a big step
forward and Altium has taken a lot of work off our hands.
Without doubt, the biggest improvement was the direct linking
of the schematic and the PCB design, which we did not have previously
because each job was done using a dedicated CAD package.
It is now much simpler to verify whether the circuit and the PCB
actually correspond to each other. This is of course not a unique
characteristic of Altium Designer, other CAD packages may do that
too, but in Altium it is very easy to make alterations to the schematic
and then propagate these changes to the PCB, and the other
way around. This does not work in other CAD packages, either not
as easily or not in both directions.
Bigger footprints for our readers
To be honest the libraries that came with Altium were a big disappointment
initially. It was certainly a case of watching out for
the incorrect pinning of components. And the standard throughhole
parts may be perfectly suitable for assembly by a manufacturing
company, but the pads and holes are so small that soldering
by hand and certainly desoldering requires more than average
soldering skills. At the request of many readers we therefore
quickly changed the footprints and they are now almost the same
as those created by Ultiboard from the old days. This, of course,
also makes things much easier for ourselves when building and testing
the prototypes. Since then we use the bigger footprints for kit
sets and individual printed circuit boards, the smaller footprints are
only used for boards that are available in pre-assembled form only.
We, incidentally, do the latter only with SMD boards if we think
that most readers will have difficulty completing the soldering task
successfully.
Work in progress: the libraries
The work on the libraries is not finished as yet — we are still busy
with the database libraries, where the components are linked directly
to footprints, order codes, etc. But this is a very time consuming
job and the daily work for the magazine always has higher
priority. That is why it is not quite completed. However, when completed,
this should save a considerable amount of time.
Making new PCB footprints in Altium is very easy, by the way. Using
the IPC Footprint Wizard, the shapes for complex SMD ICs are
easily made and at most a small amount of cosmetic work needs
to be done to the overlay (silk screen) as it appears on the PCB.
Sometimes the pads on the board need to be made a little larger to
simplify hand soldering. But even without this wizard, making new
(through-hole) components is very straightforward.
Many roads lead to Rome
Lots of things can be done in Altium Designer — too many we say
sometimes. It is sometimes hard to see the forest for the trees because
of all the options, tools and settings the program has on offer.
Example of a schematic designed with Altium Designer (project ‘Car Tilt Alarm’ from the September issue). Elektor illustrator Mart Schroijen subsequently
uses a special CAD program to convert this schematic into the familiar Elektor style.
More than once you need to search where a settings is ‘hidden’ or
think how you solved a particular problem on an earlier occasion.
It is of course also a consideration that no one in our lab has a fulltime
job as PCB designer and the complexity of designs varies enormously.
The more complex functionality of Altium is not used very
often and it is then difficult to become very familiar with it.
Every now and then it’s also difficult that there are multiple roads
that lead to Rome in Altium. It is a frequent occurrence that you
ask a colleague for help and that he happily uses a different set of
menus than those that you are used to yourself, this is not always
enlightening. On the other hand it can, of course, be very useful
that you can obtain the same result using different methods.
Altium is very capable at importing PCB layouts from other CAD
packages. Unfortunately the very popular Eagle is not one of them,
this CAD software that is by far the most popular among our readers,
for as far as we can determine. We have asked Altium whether
this option can be added to the program, but unfortunately we
have not yet received a positive response to this request. That is
why in our lab we also frequently use Eagle to change board layouts
so that they meet our needs or requirements.