Altium Designer (ECAD) & SW (MCAD) 1

[macduff]

Anyone using Altium with SW? If so, how well do the softwares play together? Do I still need to use circuitworks to import IDF data into SW? Our company is thinking of changing ECAD software.

Thanks,

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2009 SP 3.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Contact Altium and ask to speak to a few of their customers who use SW.

Or go direct to the customers listed at

http://www.altium.com/successes/testimonials/en/testimonials_home.cfm

 

[rfus]

Hey Macduff,

We use Allegro here, so I can't give you any first hand experience with it as I have not used it in a while. It used to be Protel and I used it a little years ago. The guys here who have used it often, and have older versions of Protel at home, wish that they were on Altium/Protel instead of Allegro. I guess the difference is like Allegro is to Altium as Pro/E (older version) is to SolidWorks. Where both are poerfull, Allegro is still somewhat command line centered and Altium is more intuitive and has more 'right click magic'. Things are more integrated within the package.

As for linking the two, IDF is pretty much the language between ECAD and MCAD for SolidWorks and all ECAD packages, unless there was some 3rd party tool that I didn't know about. As for interface with SolidWorks, I think that Altium supports 4.0 which is more advanced than 3.0 which is what Allegro has (although, a lot of the stuff in 4.0 you don't need). They also have a STEP export that is pretty snazzy, and I think there is the ability to do realtime changes in ECAD-MCAD packages and have either or update. This probably puts them out front when compared to most others. In Altium you can see the stackup and traces in 3d and export step, which would may be in very complex boards or in FEA. As i've said before, I still use dxf/dwg formats to go back and forth between the two. Right now i'm actually exporting a couple weeks of a redesign of a product with the placement of all the critical electro mech component placments, ref geometry, and areas from solidworks via a drawing, into dwg editor, and then into allegro. I wish I had premium (have used circuit works), but really when it comes down to it, that stuff is fancy, but it takes lots of work behind the scenes with propper naming and proper setup to use IDF back and forth.

I think you are on the right track to be looking at Altium, but I would worry first about it being the right ECAD package, and them worry about how well it interfaces with SW.

rfus

 

[macduff]

Thanks for the detailed response rfus!

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2009 SP 3.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[pierdesign]

I am doing this with one of my clients.

In Altium / Protel the PCB designers must apply a component height. This is neither eCAD default nor normal design behaviour. If they have not, they will complain, and only apply some heights. No-height components come in as sketches, often it doesn't matter.

Occasionally I ask PCB designer to give pin 1 of important connector a fake unique reference designator. This way, in Circuitworks, I can search for it, turn it on / other's off, etc. This applies with huge PCB with thousand's of component's or PTH's. The reason for this is not obvious: often in electronic packaging design data sharing like we're discussing it is useful to hand data back and forth many, many times, and often due to only one component or connector issue.

All 3D extruded components are dumb blocks using the silkscreen outline. Often they interfere; unsightly but irrelevant unless you are doing further analysis. I have not bothered making pictorial models of resistor's, chips, etc., this seems extravagant vanity. I have for large or unique PCB components: toroids, large power components, ALL connectors.

After bringing into Solidworks I select everything and apply fix constraint.

With realview on, every PCB and component comes in pale turquoise. Slightly annoying, but workable.

Watch PCB thickness carefully. This is about the only inconsistency I've experienced in an otherwise elegant data sharing process. Frequently I get wrong thickness or components not properly on PCB face. You can see the problem, when everything is floating or fixed and the PCB isn't correct thickness.

Plated and nonplated holes. All PCB's have hundreds, thousands of holes. Swx groups them into PTH and nonPTH. In my work, typically there are >700 PTH, 4 - 20 nPTH holes. Circuitworks gives you all sorts of warnings but generally I find it better to just have it model everything. It's not worth the time to go through a list of 817 PTH's and selectively turn on/off what you think you need.

File libraries. All Circuitworks help pages about building libraries, the software "learns", is non sensical until about your 3rd or 5th PCB. Then it makes a lot of sense.

File naming. Is as important from the PCB designers in Altium / Protel as it is in Solidworks. The conundrum is that all electrical components in eCAD have standard naming convention, and are properly reused, hence the "software learns" library feature. PCB designers, however, like SWX designers, for obscure reasons are loath to use unique names for every custom part like actual raw PCB's. Beat into the PCB designers that everything custom must have a height property and a unique name, never reuse a file name.

No height components, incorrect PCB thickness, eCAD custom part name reuse are 99.9% of problems I've had.

I strongly recommend reading and using the IPC-A-610D-2 standards on printed wiring board mechanical design details. PCB eCAD designers are notoriously ignorant of simple things like screws, washers, etc.