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PCB Design

The Cost of CAD Software: What Strong Design Tools are Really Worth

How Much Does Cad Software Cost and Is It Worth It? We've all been there, we buy bargain products to save money only oftentimes for disappointment. This might happen when that knock-off shirt doesn't fit you properly or the cost CAD software ends up being far from what you were looking for. Although it takes money to make money holds true at times - the question still stands: How much should I invest in this software in order to achieve my desired result and how much does CAD software cost? The Read Article

PCB Routing Options to Maximize Design Adaptability

PCB Routing Options to Maximize Design Adaptability Amusement parks often feature small raceways with gasoline-powered, two-passenger mini-cars going around a multi-lane track. Drivers can experience the thrill of steering and accelerating while trying to beat friends or family to the finish line. There’s a catch though. A rail-like barrier positioned in the middle of each lane prevents cars from moving from one lane to another. Consider the amusement park like a circuit: designing the amusement Read Article

Specialty Product Design Duplicates Success Across Campaigns

Specialty Product Design and Manufacturing Duplicates Success Across Campaigns No matter what stage of business you’re at, if one of your designs has turned from circuit board ideation to fully manufactured product then you’ve already accomplished a great deal. But, the hardware arena that you reside in will always have opportunities for product development, expansion, and growth. There are a handful of considerations that should be taken into account before you get too giddy. Product designs, to be specialized, have to Read Article

Menu Changes and Switching Units in Altium Designer

Menu Changes and Switching Units in Altium Designer When I was a kid, the one place I always felt safe and secure was at home. Regardless of what happened outside, my childhood home was my refuge and I wanted to live there with my parents forever. Of course, as I grew older, I longed to do new things, meet new people, and have new experiences, but to do so meant changing where I lived. Just as I had to embrace change to grow as a person, it is sometimes necessary to make changes in order to Read Article

38:06 Surface Finishes on Printed Circuit Boards with Mike Carano [OnTrack Podcast] Watch Video

Sporty 3D Component Model Drivers for Layout in PCB Design

Sporty 3D Component Part Models Drivers for Layout in PCB Design Driving for most of us is an intuitive utility given the majority’s need to move around our current infrastructure. Many of us don’t think twice as we grab the car keys and head to the store for another latte. Although complex machines, drivers intuitively rely on fingertip commands to move the car down the road. Using PCB layout tools could be the same with cleverly built platforms emphasizing ease of use over knowledge of intricate operational Read Article

PCB Layout Considerations for Length Tolerance Matching and Avoiding Violations

PCB Layout Considerations: Differential Pair Length Matching Tolerance and Avoiding Violations Detangling my daughter’s hair reminds me of detangling PCB traces. Everything needs to be set into layers, and crossover should be avoided. Detangling the hair of a 9-year old doesn’t take as long as routing PCB traces, but the results are just as painful if not done correctly. Ideally, though, your daughter’s hair isn’t causing short-circuiting of electronics or small fires to spark up. Routing traces in a layout is arguably the most important Read Article

Using Project Templates for PCB Design Development

Using Project Templates for PCB Design Development If you've ever had the opportunity to use a bush ax to clear out an overgrown plot of land, then you have glimpsed the hardship and difficulties that early pioneers experienced as they carved paths across North America. The efforts of these pioneers were an exhibition of the best aspects of the human spirit. Although being a member of that group is no longer possible, you do have the means to be a trailblazer for the fellow PCB designer. When Read Article

35:57 Medical Device Innovations with Mary Elizabeth McCulloch and Project Vive [OnTrack Podcast] Watch Video

55:02 S1E20 OnTrackPodcast BilHerd Watch Video

Designing for Medical IoT Applications: Challenges and Considerations

IoT Medical Product and Application Design: Challenges and Considerations Ideally, any technology is going to drastically affect people and the ability of people to accomplish whatever tasks they need. Yet, when new technology is entering the medical domain, the stakes are always a bit higher: one has to be cognizant that any faults, errors, or malfunctions are going to immediately affect someone’s health. Granted, not every medical device is going to be life-or-death, but they should still be considered carefully Read Article

Constraint Driven Design versus Rules Driven Design in a Unified Environment

Constraint Driven Design versus Rules Driven Design in a Unified Environment Wouldn’t it be great if more rules in life were checked automatically? I love to cook Italian food, but it gets tiring going back and forth between a cookbook and a pot of tomato sauce. The only automatic rules checking mechanism in the kitchen is your oven timer. Fortunately for PCB designers, high-quality software packages include constraint and rules checking features that can check your layout and schematic automatically. The ability to set Read Article

how to convert schematic to pcb layout in altium

How to Create a PCB Layout from a Schematic in Altium Designer You’ve done your usual excellent job of putting together the PCB schematic. The circuitry is defined and you are ready to go to PCB layout. But this time it’s a little different. Maybe your regular layout resources aren’t available, or perhaps you want to try to do your first layout yourself. Whatever the reason, you are ready to start working on the board side of PCB design, but you’re not sure how to create it from a PCB schematic in Altium Read Article

High-Speed PCB Design Analysis

High-Speed PCB Design Analysis: Simulations and Signal Integrity Checks High speed PCB design analysis is an admittedly broad area, comprising basic calculations of important design details, as well as simulations to verify a PCB layout. Some important evaluations are performed in the schematic, or at the very beginning of a design when a layout is being planned. These analysis techniques also have different levels of difficulty or advancement, and they will sometimes require an external program to fully evaluate the Read Article

Creating a Bill of Material with PCB Design Software using Altium Designer

PCB Design Software: Creating a Bill of Material using Altium Designer You’ve done it, your printed circuit board is finished and ready for PCB assembly. The schematic is finalized, the layout is checked and approved and you are ready to get this thing built. To do that though, you need to create a bill of materials. Fortunately, we are long past the days where these documents were created by hand. Every CAD system out there will automatically create a bill of materials through some library or other process. But Read Article

The Power of Assistive Technologies & Design for Assembly OnTrack Newsletter - June 2018

The Power of Assistive Technologies & Design for Assembly OnTrack Newsletter - June 2018 OnTrack Newsletter June 2018 VOL. 2 No 3 Welcome to the June edition of the Altium OnTrack newsletter! In this edition, you will be both impressed and inspired by some very young innovators who are profoundly changing people’s lives by designing and building medical assistive devices. In Design Like a Girl, you will meet Mary Elizabeth McCulloch and learn about her speech-generation device startup, Project Vive. In Makerspace, you’ll read about Read Article

What's New In Altium Designer 18 Webinar Recap June 19

What's New In Altium Designer 18 Webinar Recap June 19 Altium Designer^® Webinar: June 19th In case you missed our Altium 18 live webinar, no worries. You can catch up here with the video recording and presentation slides. If you’re not a fan of videos I’ll try my best to summarize in the webinar notes bellow. Most of the key takeaways will be the same as the may webinar but do take a look at the questions as they’ll be different. For future webinars if there’s something you’d like to see add it to Read Article