Design Libraries

Building Your Next Multi-Level Bill of Materials

Building Your Next Multi-Level Bill of Materials My wife and I always argue about what goes on the grocery list each week. I’m a total carnivore, while she prefers I get everything we need from local farmers. Planning out our shopping trips in multiple lists does more than just allow us to plan our Saturdays coherently, it helps ensure marital bliss. Any PCB that you intend to manufacture will need an associated bill of materials. If you’re building a complex product that includes multiple sub Read Article

Working with IPC Compliant Footprint Models

Working with IPC Compliant Footprint Models Industry standards have been a boon for designers and the electronics industry. Standards are important because they tell designers and manufacturers what to expect from certain component packages, and they assure designers that the components they select can be reused across their designs. It’s all about increasing productivity and ensuring your devices will work as you intended. The IPC 7350 series of standards (specifically, IPC 7351B) Read Article

SMD LEDs in Your PCB and Your Bill of Materials

SMD LEDs in Your PCB and Your Bill of Materials Unless you refuse to get out of the house on a Friday night (like me), you’ve probably been at a concert and had the privilege of being bathed in multi-colored lights from the stage. LED arrays provide a great concert experience, but I think that learning what makes them tick is far more interesting. Kingbright (KPKF) surface-mounted LEDs are probably my favorite LED to use on a PCB. They look clean on your board and they are available from a Read Article

Using Library Search Features for Easier Component Selection

Using Library Search Features for Easier Component Selection Components are those critical elements in your PCB that keep it ticking along and doing its job. Your component libraries contain all the information about available components in a single location, making it easy to add components to your board and use component information with your simulation and rules-checking features. Other design software packages like to separate these features into different programs, or they force you to use an external Read Article

How Integrated Libraries Help You Manage Your PCB Supply Chain

Effective Supply Chain Management through PCB Libraries and Supply Chain Integration If only sourcing PCB components worked like e-commerce. Recommendation engines are great in that they can help you decide what to buy when your preferred item is not available. Most PCB design packages don’t have this type of functionality, which would save a massive amount of time when planning a manufacturing run. Whether you’re sourcing electronic components or some other parts for your next product, you’ll need access to updates supply chain Read Article

Free Bill of Materials Software vs. Integrated Design Software

Free Bill of Materials Software vs. Integrated Design Software The first time I prepared functional requirements for a web platform, I thought the document was massively complex. I forget the number of youtube tutorials I watched on preparing this document. Now that I have prepared several of these documents for a number of startups, I could probably write functional requirements in my sleep. A bill of materials might also seem like a complex document if you have never prepared one in the past. When it comes Read Article

Circuit Breakers in Your PCB and Your Bill of Materials

Circuit Breakers in Your PCB and Your Bill of Materials Circuit breakers are not required in every system, but in some environments they are the main source of protection against overvoltage/high current, as well as any damage that can result from power surges. Circuit breakers are best known for use in residential circuit protection, but they can be used in any environment (such as power systems and industrial systems) that require circuit protection. Some circuit breakers can be mounted on a PCB Read Article

1:32:01 Professional Library Management Watch Video

Team Design Support Makes Rapid Prototyping a Breeze

Team Design Support Makes Rapid Prototyping a Breeze If you’re looking to document features and changes in your next PCB, word processing software and email chains simply won’t do the trick. Keeping information consistent over time and across an organization takes design software that enforces a consistent data format that is accessible by everyone on your team. If you’re using design modules with different workflows and data formats, you might as well be creating documentation using pen and paper Read Article

Altium Bill of Materials: Keep It Simple With ActiveBOM

Altium's Bill of Materials Software: Get Rid of ORCAD's BOM and Keep It Simple With ActiveBOM I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to be a software engineer. I want software that does routine tasks in the background, leaving me to focus on creative activities. Leaving behind rote demands moves my day into dealing with higher-level details like how electricity flows through components. That’s why I’ve ditched ORCAD Bill of Materials software and moved on to Altium’s ActiveBOM–the best Bill of Materials software. Making Bills of Read Article

29:12 Altium Designer Tips Tricks Library from Project Watch Video

How a Components Search Engine Helps You Choose Parts For Your PCB

How a Components Search Engine Helps You Choose Parts For Your PCB If you owned a computer during the 1990’s, then you remember when internet search engines became massively popular. Most homepages were likely set to one of the three or four major search engines. This made surfing the digital highway so much easier, and now search functionality is integrated in many different websites and applications. Anytime you need to quickly locate specific entries in a large database, using a search engine is the fastest Read Article

Browsing Electronic Component Distributor Inventory with Integrated Libraries

Browsing Electronic Component Distributor Inventory with Integrated Libraries Even though I make a lot of lists just to keep track of all the different activities going on with my business, it gets tiring. When I need to buy office supplies, it helps to have all my options in one place so that I can figure out where I need to go to buy everything. Thankfully, when you’re sourcing for your PCB, there are solutions that show you all your distributor options. Browsing through distributor websites to source components for your Read Article

Build Your Next Engineering BOM With Integrated Design Software

Build Your Next Engineering BOM With Integrated Design Software It’s easy to collaborate on a project with a small number of people. I’ve always found that two or three people can thoroughly hash out the details on a project in person and produce great results. But as a team grows in size, you’ll spend more time reading and writing documentation. This is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps formalize processes and products across an organization and ensures that everyone can stay on the same page. Any new Read Article

Electronic Parts Sourcing with Integrated Component Libraries

Electronic Parts Sourcing with Integrated Component Libraries The weekend is grocery time at our house, and we always make a thorough list of everything we need for the next two weeks and where we will be buying it. You may not be as meticulous as my wife and I when it comes to buying groceries, but it pays to be thorough when you need to build a bill of materials for your PCB. Once you’ve got your design complete, you need to ask yourself: where am I going to get all of these components I just placed in my Read Article

Identify Vendor Parts Early: Manage BoMs Proactively With Consolidated Part Sourcing

Identify Vendor Parts Early: Manage BoMs Proactively With Consolidated Part Sourcing Walking a tightrope requires intricate balance. Simply visualized as a walker and a rope in space. Simple moves into complexity when the walker’s senses are skewed to balance. Careful placement of each foot pulls from neurological pathways communicating intricate information simultaneously. Should information fail to arrive when the foot is moving may push the walker off the rope. Managing Bills of Material from early circuit concept through Read Article

A Complete Bill of Materials and Other Suggestions for Error Free PCB Manufacturing

A Complete Bill of Materials and Other Suggestions for Error Free PCB Manufacturing Long before my youngest son became a teenager, we already knew that in everything that he did he worked at turning the situation around to best benefit himself. At one point he was doing something that he shouldn’t be doing, and I told him that if he continued down that path that I would ground him. Instead of backing off as I expected, he instead had a contemplative look on his face as he asked me; “for how long would I be grounded?” I couldn’t Read Article