Altium Designer Documentation | Altium Designer User Manual | Documentation

Looking for:

Altium designer 17 tutorial pdf free.Can I add a FET in parallel to this boost circuit 

Click here to DOWNLOAD

   

 

Best Altium Tutorial Books for Free - PDF Drive - Navigation menu

 

The pros and cons of using Altium, Eagle, or DipTrace are discussed. There are numerous software packages available for designing printed circuit boards PCBs , too many in fact.

However, for hardware entrepreneurs, startups and makers I prefer a less well-known PCB design packaged called DipTrace. Disclaimer: This article is not intended to be an unbiased review of every PCB design package available. Instead, I wrote this article to share my own experiences.

This does make them more competitive although many will find the requirement to pay a recurring fee indefinitely to be a big negative for Eagle. But, all three of them are difficult to use. Plan on spending at least several days, but more likely weeks, learning how to use any of them especially Eagle! A powerful, but cheaper and easier to use PCB design package is called DipTrace , which is what I personally recommend, especially for new hardware entrepreneurs, startups and makers.

You only pay the difference between each level. GROUP 1 — Corporate engineers — Most established companies can easily afford to spend thousands of dollars on software. Altium is probably the right choice for you. GROUP 2 — Independent freelance engineers — If you already know how to use Altium from a previous corporate job, and you can afford it, then Altium may be your best choice.

If not, then then DipTrace is probably your best choice, unless you need to collaborate with other engineers. GROUP 3 — Engineer entrepreneurs — If you have prior experience designing electronics or wish to learn how then you may be better off designing your product yourself. Or at least as much as possible. DipTrace is definitely the way to go for you! For me, as well as most entrepreneurs and a majority of freelance engineers, there are five primary criteria that matter most when selecting a circuit design software package:.

No need to waste hours reading a boring manual with DipTrace. Eagle is the clear loser in regards to being intuitive to use. In fact, it will probably be many weeks before you are actually comfortable with it, if ever.

It is only half the price of Eagle, or only an eighth the price of Altium. DipTrace also has a low barrier to entry because you can begin with their low-cost Starter version and upgrade your way up as needed. Altium is the clear winner for this criteria, with Eagle in second, OrCad in third place, and DipTrace coming in last. All four packages come with huge libraries of components. Because they are so popular, Altium and Eagle are probably the winners for this criteria because component manufacturers are more likely to provide a component library for one of these two packages.

Honestly, it was horrible software that was very confusing and difficult to use. So it also cost an incredible amount in lost design time from engineers. In general, it took new designers several months to get really efficient in its use. Not so with DipTrace. At the other extreme is Eagle which will cost you weeks of lost design time. DipTrace consists of four separate modules.

One for schematic entry, one for PCB layout, one for creating new components, and one for creating new PCB landing patterns. DipTrace Opening Menu. The DipTrace schematic capture module is an advanced circuit design tool that supports multi-sheet and multi-level hierarchical schematics. Circuits can be easily converted to PCB and back annotated. Verification and Spice export for simulation allow for full project analysis. The DipTrace PCB layout module offers smart manual routing, shape-based autorouting, advanced verification, and 3D previewing.

Design rules can be defined by net classes, class-to-class rules, and detailed settings by object types for each class or layer. DipTrace features a design process with real-time DRC, which reports errors on the fly before actually making them. The board can be previewed in 3D and exported for mechanical CAD modeling. Design Rule Check DRC with in-depth detailing, net connectivity verification, and comparing to source schematic ensure maximum quality of the final design.

You can design the schematic in DipTrace, but if you wish to outsource the PCB layout the schematic will probably need to be exported to a PDF file, then manually redrawn in the new software package by the PCB layout engineer. So if you have any doubts which package is right for you, then I highly recommend that you download and test their free versions first.

I think you will find that DipTrace is the only software that is intuitive enough to allow you to create your design immediately without spending hours reading the manual. Most likely, unless you read the manuals, you will get very frustrated trying to use Eagle, OrCad, or Altium.

If you need to work with other engineers on the same project then Altium Designer is probably the best choice. All of them offer free trial versions though so if you are unsure I suggest you download the free trials and compare them for yourself.

Protel SE was once wide spread, was taken over by Altium. How is Altium compared with the old Protel SE? More or less professional? I first heard of Predictable when my client acquired your services for a hardware report when they were looking at some next gen concepts. I appreciated that fresh perspective that you brought to the table and we found really good value in your report. They upped the ante over the past few years and now offer DesignSpark Mechanical. Feel free to email me at info null predictabledesigns.

Great article! Suggestion: display dates on the comments. That would be helpful. Why not start with the free day trial? Hi John, asking your layout engineer to new a learn a new software package would be very unusual and very inefficient. Do you really want to pay him for the extra hours it will take for them to learn a new tool? Also they would need to buy new software, and will likely require you to pay for it.

We have to weigh that against the extra hours to manually redraw the layout in the new software. The engineer might be motivated to expand their skillset. Conversion: Direct conversion to their package might be possible. I have used OrCad, and Eagle.

I have used Eagle for years and looking back it took me some time to learn. At my work the company has decided to use Altium and I have been hearing from coworkers that Altium is taking some time to get used to.

I was up and running with complete install and making schematics in the same day. I found that KiCad was very intuitive. I recommend KiCad. These Diptrace fans made the switch to KiCad. Thank you for a very informative review. I have one question.

At this price would you recommend Orcad over DipTrace? The only functionality these dummies ever have is daisy-chained connections for continuity testing. I sometimes put a lot of stuff on a TV, usually with no or few connections.

It would be more helpful in taking a little time to take on due diligence of the players ranked by seats in use, popularity if you will. Even the very expensive tools offer a trial period. Your favored tool is in the middle of the pack as far as instinctual use, and you get what you pay for as it has it quirks as any software does.

Your comments on libraries is somewhat misleading as the major distributors are offering vast libraries that output library files that you can integrate into your own at will.

I will say that such libraries whether a default offering from the tool or from part distributors, or 3rd party apps, need to be verified by the designer. In reality each designer should come to learn the basics of library creation, its impacts on reliability, manufacturability known as DFM, DFT.

Otherwise, how do you confirm to yourself, your customer, your employer that you have vetted a given footprint and accuracy of connectivity of a CAE symbol. Errors in library parts historically create coffee coasters, lost time, and lost business. Net list management, mitigating errors and collisions, gerber outputs have improved much in so many decades.

If you put in enough years in this discipline you run into incorrect footprints, incomplete CAE symbols and even incorrect data sheets. I had in one case three incorrect data sheets for the same part, different sources with the fourth being actually right. Document control and language translation issues from oversees manufacturers are not unheard of. It does not make your customers very happy no matter how legit that the error was beyond normal and expected diligence.

We have gotten away from having parts in hand before tape out and we place a lot of trust in a number of engineering data sources.

You have to add to your tasks the vetting of these sources. The layout … Read more ». Thanks for the comment though! That is a great tool as well. Yes, KiCad is pretty good. The 5.

I just discovered this website and liked this article, but there are no dates! Please consider adding dates to your articles.

 

Altium designer 17 tutorial pdf free.Altium Designer Documentation

 

You must perform a new clean installation. With both Altium Designer Introduced in Altium Designer 17, ActiveRoute brings a new approach to interactive routing - select the connections and ActiveRoute them to produce high-quality routes, in a fraction of the time it would take to manually route them.

ActiveRoute has strong support for modern design techniques, including differential pairs and room-based width requirements. In this update, ActiveRoute receives a number of valuable enhancements including: additional select options for route or guide creation; a greater width allowance for the route guide; and better feedback in the Messages panel.

Complimenting ActiveRoute is powerful Glossing technology, which can be used on any existing routing. With this update, ActiveRoutes that follow a route guide, are now automatically Glossed. Complimenting ActiveRoute and useful at any stage of the routing process, is new, powerful Glossing technology. Glossing shortens and tightens existing routes, reducing the route length, the segment count and the number of corners.

This release sees stronger Glossing support for differential pairs, to ensure that the pair members remain zipped together as much as possible, along their entire length. Glossing also performs sophisticated analyses of pad entries, repairing potential fabrication and assembly problems. A foundation feature of Glossing is to respect the designer's intent - pad entries are checked against applicable design rules, the position of subnet jumpers and existing room boundary crossovers are maintained, and room-based width rules are complied with.

Acknowledging the reality that design is an iterative process with lots of give and take, the new Retrace command retraces existing routes including differential pairs , updating them to meet the current design rule settings. Just imagine, you've finished routing the diff pairs, only to hear that the fabricator needs to change the dielectric properties - now all the pair widths and clearances need to be adjusted! This release brings substantial advances in the creation and application of Keepouts, with the introduction of Object Specific Keepouts.

Placed Keepout objects can now be configured to specify which type objects they apply to, such as Tracks, Copper areas, Vias and Pads, which significantly enhances the flexibility and effectiveness of Keepouts. There are situations where you want to allow a specific DRC violation, for example, when a connector hangs over the edge of the board. This release sees the introduction of the new Waive Violation feature, which can be applied and monitored through the PCB Rules and Violations panel.

Waived violations are detailed in the DRC report. The Altium Designer The release also incorporates a range of Bug Fixes and drawing feature improvements. Altium Designer And by designing only with elements from a vault - vault-driven electronics design as it were - the integrity of those designs is inherently assured. Altium Designer provides a central location from where you can set up various preferences across different functional areas of the software.

These are global system settings that apply across projects and relevant documents. Use the controls and options available on the loaded page to configure your preferences for that area of the software as required. This could be a mixture of satisfying company policy, and your preferred working environment. The Preferences dialog provides a number of useful tools to ensure your set of preferences is just as you require, including:.

And if you have an appropriately licensed Altium Vault, you can formally release your Altium Designer Preferences into a target Item and revision thereof in that Vault. Once the preferences set has been released, and its lifecycle state set to a level that the organization views as ready for use at the design level, the preferences can be reused across installations of the software - as part of the centralized enforcement of a designer's working environment.

This sees the preferences set used as a configuration data item in one or more defined Environment Configurations , under a concept referred to as Environment Configuration Management. These rules collectively form an 'instruction set' for the PCB Editor to follow. They cover every aspect of the design - from routing widths, clearances, plane connection styles, routing via styles, and so on - and many of the rules can be monitored in real-time by the online Design Rule Checker DRC.

Design rules target specific objects and are applied in a hierarchical fashion. Multiple rules of the same type can be set up. It may arise that a design object is covered by more than one rule with the same scope.

In this instance, a contention exists. All contentions are resolved by a priority setting. The system goes through the rules from highest to lowest priority and picks the first one whose scope s match the object s being checked. With a well-defined set of design rules, you can successfully complete board designs with varying and often stringent design requirements. And as the PCB Editor is rules-driven, taking the time to set up the rules at the outset of the design will enable you to effectively get on with the job of designing, safe in the knowledge that the rules system is working hard to ensure that success.

The process of compiling is integral to producing a valid netlist for a project. In fact it is the process of compilation that yields the unified data model of a design - the single model of the data that is accessible across the design domains in Altium Designer's unified design environment.

Connectivity awareness in your schematic diagram can be verified during compilation according to rules defined as part of the options for the design project - on the Error Reporting and Connection Matrix tabs respectively. This area of the Altium Designer documentation provides a comprehensive reference describing each of the possible electrical and drafting violations that can exist in source documents when compiling a project.

By entering queries into this engine you can logically scope precisely those objects you require. A query is a string you enter using specific keywords and syntax, which will return the targeted objects.

Queries are primarily defined in a Filter panel, but are also used to define scoping for PCB design rules.

As you build your knowledge of the Query Language, and the functions, keywords and syntax available, you will be able to type expressions directly. However, until that level of confidence is built, the Query Helper can be a beneficial crutch on which to lean! The vastness of the Query Language may seem a little daunting to begin with, but over time you will learn to appreciate its power - building a set of favorite query expressions with which to target common sets of objects and committing them to muscle memory.

And to quickly get up to speed, information is available for each of the query functions. Simply highlight or click inside any given keyword - in the Query Helper , a Filter panel, or the Full Query field of a PCB design rule - and press F1 to access its page within the documentation.

Altium Designer's unified design environment consists of various Servers plugged into a core platform. Together with the core platform itself, these servers provide the resources of the software - its features and functionality. The resources are delivered in the form of commands, dialogs, panels, and the like. They are documented across the following sections of this documentation space:.

Altium Designer Documentation. Using Altium Documentation. Now reading version For the latest, read: Altium Designer Documentation for version The Altium Designer documentation is versioned.

You can switch to a particular version's documentation set manually, directly through your web browser, or you can sit back and access the correct version automatically, from within Altium Designer. F1 mapping functionality, and other documentation links, are instilled with the smarts necessary to arrive at the correct documentation destination, for the version of the software you are actively designing with.

Read about Installing Altium Designer. Read about Getting Altium Designer Licensed. Browse Shortcut Keys. Read FAQs. Read more Coming from a different design tool? Not a problem. Scoot on over to the area of the documentation that looks at Interfacing to Other Design Tools.