How to Simplify Your Output Generation Workflow Handing your design off to manufacturing can be a project in itself. Learn how to simplify your output generation workflow in Altium Designer® to create error-free and accurate PCB documentation for manufacturing. You’ve completed an exhausting PCB design. The project is done, right? Not at all; it simply is an intermediate point before the product enters fabrication and assembly into the final product. Handing the design to manufacturing can be Read Article How to Utilize Queries to Save Time and Resources Navigating your PCB boards and verifying their compliance to your project’s design rules is becoming ever more complex in today’s dense and elaborate designs. How can you maximize your time and leverage your design rules to their true potential? Read on to find out. Using Queries to Save on Time and Resources It’s becoming increasingly more complicated to navigate your boards and verify their compliance to your project rules in today’s Read Article If All Else Fails, Read the Instructions... Remember that catchphrase when you were an engineering student: If all else fails, read the instructions… By our very nature, engineers just love sussing things out – how does that work? Why is it like that? What does that switch do? Engineers and designers actually thrive on the challenge of working it out, poking and prodding, testing, examining, and thinking about how this amazing thing is meant to work. But not every device/product Read Article Expedite PCB Production with a Live Drill Table Having visibility over the number, size and symbols that represent each hole in a PCB design can reassure that no hiccups will delay production and increase costs down the road. Now you can expedite the production of your PCBs with access to the live drill table in Altium Designer®. Read on to learn more. One of the most important elements involved with manufacturing printed boards is the PCB drill table, also called the drill legend. This table Read Article Eliminate Mistakes in Your Schematics with Electronic Rule Checking In times of rising design complexity and shortened timelines, it’s more and more for mistakes to sneak through in the schematic that can translate to the printed circuit board. Read on to find out how to easily identify and eliminate issues in your schematic with the Electronic Rule Checking your PCB in Altium Designer®. Many designers and companies put all their efforts in having a proper PCB layout and, nowadays, checking in real time the Read Article Isolate Objects on a Design with Custom PCB Queries It can be a great challenge for engineers to make edits to specific objects on overpopulated boards. Leverage the global editing and custom query features in Altium Designer® to easily locate objects and maintain consistency in your designs. Read on to learn more. Every faces significant challenges once a board gets overpopulated with and traces. One of the greatest tasks of working with complex electronic designs is managing a large number of Read Article Communicate Design Intent with the Right Output Job File Learn how to save hours of manual labor by automating your output job file creation process using the Project Releaser in Altium Designer®. In my previous blog post , I talked about the manual processes still being used to create professional PCB design documents like fab and assembly drawings, and how a tool like Altium Draftsman® can help automate that process. Unfortunately, creating your drawings is only part of the battle you face when Read Article The PCB Design Guide for Engineers Part 2 - PCB Planning As a PCB designer, the planning of the development of a one or several printed circuit boards can be a daunting task. There will be a host of other software tools that will be used in the development of your project. From tools that can be used to track the progress of your human resources within your team to the software tools used by your internal and external resources to bring your project to life. What about high speed components, the solder Read Article Experience a Completely Unified Design Environment With today’s ever growing market expectations, strict project deadlines, and increasingly complex designs, what solutions exist to minimize the time spent switching between your design tools to complete projects? Now you can successfully deliver products on time and within budget in a completely unified design environment. Read on to find out how. Do you feel like your schematic and pcb tools are from different planets? Are you still using a Read Article 5 Tips for Specifying PCB Hole Size Tolerance in Pads and Vias One of the crucial yet often overlooked aspects of PCB design are the holes through which components are mounted. Specifying the tolerance of hole dimensions in PCB fabrication ensures proper fit of plated-through-hole (PTH) components. Just as important, those dimensions must be clearly communicated to the fabricator so that the boards are properly made. Now, Altium ® PCB design software allows you to add hole tolerance attributes for your pads Read Article Not All PCB Design Birds Are Meant to Fly My first job was for a large company, which was surrounded by anxiety and excitement. My main goal was to apply years of learning to justify the fifty-thousand-dollar price tag of my education. I used electronic CAD applications in school, all of which were Windows-based, but my first foray into professional design tools was all Unix. My cube was occupied by a Sun Solaris and HP UX box, both of which generated enough radiation to power a small Read Article PCB Design Variant Management to Synchronize Designs Product customization is increasingly popular to satisfy customer demand as both time-to-market and the complexity of products continue upward without abatement. By making variations of a baseline product, the new products can address different markets and requirements. But how do you go about keeping synchronized PCB variants? Making the Case for PCB Design Variants You are developing a PCB layout for a smartwatch that comes in three different Read Article Can You Place Bypass Capacitors Before or After the Circuit In my experience working with teams of engineers on PCB design projects, there inevitably comes a point where the brains in the rooms start disagreeing with each other. In some cases, the answer as to who is in the right is clear. However, as is often the case in technical trades, there are also times when it’s not clear (and the difference is chalked up to “different styles”). A disagreement between electrical engineers that I’ve run across is Read Article Gaining Insight into Your PCB with Color Displays How many PCB design hours have you wasted trying to decipher a legacy project you just inherited? How about wading through thousands of connection lines, trying to determine the best component placement? It can be disheartening, to say the least. What if there was a better way? How Color Override Can Help You Restructure Designs Let’s take a look at how you can use Net Color overrides to provide visual enhancements for both the schematic and PCB Read Article Synced Up Designs: Syncing Your Schematics and PCB Layouts Increases Efficiency and On-Time Delivery A while back, I was working at a company that designs and installs systems for automating smart irrigation and environmental monitoring. We had gotten into the habit of making last minute “hacks” (pin swapping, gate swapping, etc.) to our boards to accommodate a specific need from a job (or to compensate for a design flaw or oversight on a particular model after getting it back from the manufacturer). While this improvisatory method worked in the Read Article Optimize Component Power Ratings with Embedded Design Rules Ensuring your initial design rules are properly applied the first time is critical to eliminating the need for redesign. By creating conditional limitations and implementing embedded design rules, you can circumvent the potential for error to avoid respins and ensure precise power ratings in your PCB layout. Read on to learn more. I remember my first design that failed during qualification. It was a proven design that had already passed a Read Article How to Select the Best Tool for PCB Design Collaboration Today’s products are designed by a team of experts, and without the ability to collaborate time is wasted and errors are introduced. Learn about how to select the best tool to make PCB design collaboration easy. There was a time when once a circuit design was completed, it was handed off to “the PCB designer”, who then produced the board layout . Now, with products as complex as tablets, smartphones and even electronic games, there is no single Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page210 Current page211 Page212 Page213 Page214 Page215 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More