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PCB Design

First Impressions Migrating to Altium Designer 18

First Impressions Migrating to Altium Designer 18 Updating a software package is risky business – and not just because of new bugs that could be added. It’s also possible that a perfectly working new feature looks like a bug from the perspective of your workflow. I’ve recently upgraded to Altium Designer^® (AD18) and released a new design with it, finding a few nuances. And not just the new color scheme (FYI: AD18 doesn’t support the legacy skin colors, but may in future versions). Overall, the Read Article

37:07 Benefits of Spread Glass for Printed Circuit Board Manufacturing [OnTrack Podcast] Watch Video

Soothe PCB Schematic Library Management Pains with Straightforward Software

Soothe PCB Schematic Library Management Pains with Straightforward Software Outdated schematic library management processes cause a large bottleneck for the design group. These processes are often based on tools that are not up-to-date with current design methodologies and technologies and are therefore limited in what they can do. In the same way that a compact car isn’t going to be able to pull a heavy trailer, using an outdated library management system isn’t going to be able to handle the heavy work-load either Read Article

Ducks in a Row: Process Control and Document Traceability in One Place

Ducks in a Row: Process Control and Document Traceability in One Place Louis Pasteur captured the essence of complicated endeavors when he stated that “fortune favors the prepared mind.” Don’t miss opportunities for excellence when faced with complex tasks. Designing and building printed circuit boards and their assemblies is a complex task, made up of many meticulous endeavors. You could say that unified PCA documentation and communication favors successful outcomes when building products. Document types and Read Article

Keep the Petals on: Optimizing Daisy Chain Wired Communication

Keep the Petals on: Optimizing Daisy Chain Wired Communication As a child, I was fascinated by trains. I remember staring down an empty railway for hours, simply waiting for a train to pass by. From my youthful perspective at the time, it was magical how the train never fell off the track despite essentially being a moving chain consisting of many . Although I eventually outgrew my obsession with trains, I became enamored by the daisy chain style of wiring for communication in electronics. As my career as an Read Article

DC Power Supply Protection from Unexpected Damage and Inconvenience

DC Power Supply Protection from Unexpected Damage and Inconvenience When it comes to parenting, I might not be the best role model. This isn’t because I don’t take good care of my only son; it’s because I’m the stereotypical overprotective dad. I fuss over tiny bruises and rush for a digital thermometer at the slightest hint of a fever. Unable to stop worrying about how my son will adapt and get along with other preschoolers, I even become an occasional nuisance at his nursery. Over time, I’m starting to realize Read Article

Collaborative Design Software: Create a Schematic Symbol for any Component

Collaborative Design Software: Create PCB Schematic Symbols for any Component We’ve all been knee deep in a schematic capture session when we are suddenly hard-walled by a missing component in our project library. You check other libraries to see if the part exists but find everything except success. What do you do? Thankfully, these situations are mitigated by Altium Designer’s software solutions. With tools designed for you to work as intuitively and efficiently as you can, you will be cruising in no time. Creating your Read Article

How to Use Altium Designer to Quickly Place Components

How to Use Altium Designer for Quick PCB Component Placement “A place for everything, everything in its place” are profound words by the incomparable Benjamin Franklin that are especially applicable when applied to component placement on PCBs and in your Altium library loader. Let’s see how to use Altium Designer to put these words into action for your PCB design Placing Components Directly with no Schematic Whether you are creating a relatively simple printed circuit board or adding to an existing design Read Article

The Anniversary Edition OnTrack Newsletter April 2018

The Anniversary Edition OnTrack Newsletter April 2018 OnTrack Newsletter April 2018 VOL. 2 No 1 Welcome to the one-year anniversary edition of the Altium^® OnTrack newsletter! In celebration, our team decided to make this the reader’s choice edition by sharing the top three most read articles from Rock Stars and Superheroes and Makerspace for this past year. We also have a brand new video by Ben Jordan on Multi-board: Partitioning and Planning, and a fresh batch of Brain Food and Regional News below Read Article

Interface an LED With an 8051 Microcontroller: Processes and Applications

How to Interface an LED With an 8051 Microcontroller: Processes and Applications When my professors saw my first electronics project, they weren’t too hopeful about my future as a design engineer. With hundreds of jumper wires clumsily soldered onto a prototyping board, my feeble attempt at making a ham radio barely passed as a joke. I was learning about the dot matrix, pic microcontroller, and RGB LED lights. Everyone has to start from the beginning! Thankfully, I’ve come a long way since those days. If you’re starting your Read Article

Tips for Minimizing Power Consumption in Your Embedded System

Power Consumption Tips: What are Ways to Reduce Power Consumption in an Embedded System? For years, I always forgot to turn off the lights and fans at my house. Despite initially denying that constantly using these appliances significantly increased my electricity usage, I eventually broke my bad habit and began turning off every little switch. After all, being more prudent about my electricity usage reduces my monthly bills and promotes a greener earth. Unfortunately, minimizing system power consumption in an embedded system Read Article

Flex PCB Vs Rigid PCB: How Adaptable is Your Design Approach

Rigid PCB Vs Flexible PCB: How Adaptable is Your Design Approach After working on multiple projects for a demanding client, I often relieve my stress by kicking it out at a local martial arts gym. When I was a teenager, I was quite flexible and had no trouble landing kicks. These days, however, my kicks are somewhat restrained by my rigid legs; I’m simply not as flexible as I used to be. Of course, flexibility and rigidity are important concepts outside of the martial arts gym as well. While designing PCBs Read Article

Beyond Unified Workflow: True Unified PCB Design

Beyond Unified Workflow: True Unified PCB Design When it’s crunch time my only focus is on getting my PCB design to the finish line correctly and out the door to manufacturing - unified workflow comes later. I know from experience that there are a number of obstacles in that can get in my way and cause a delay. You know, unavailable parts, feature creepage - I’m used these obstacles, they are part of the job. But I am routinely stressed by needing to manipulate different design tools and data Read Article

3D PCB Editor Simplifies Concurrent ECAD/MCAD Modeling

3D PCB Editor Simplifies Concurrent ECAD/MCAD Modeling Spending my weekends contending with powerful, yet non-intuitive modeling software is getting old. It is a shame we’ve come so far from the first CPU and its promise of computing power to still struggle with endless menus, and setting intricate parameters just to get started. The learning curves continue to suck precious hours from engineers and PCB designers, leaving many to give up new functions, such as 3D, in favor of reliable 2D environments Read Article

How to Connect Two PCB Boards With a Bus With a Bus: Do Not Pass When Flashing Yellow

How to Connect Two PCB Boards With a Bus: Do Not Pass When Flashing Yellow During my school days, my favorite time of the day was when the bell rang and we were free to go home. While waiting for my school bus, I spent time messing around with my friends and would be so engrossed in playing that I’d occasionally miss my bus. Naturally, my mom wasn’t too thrilled about having to pick me up after a busy day of work. Missing the school bus, fun as it may have initially seemed, resulted in some serious grounding. Without Read Article

Knowledge Before Power: Making Shapes to Create an Assembly Drawing in Altium Designer

Knowledge Before Power: Making Shapes to Create an Assembly Drawing in Altium Designer You are going to be doing a lot of critical work in your CAD tools. Everything from the building, connecting schematic nets, laying out the PCB, and finally creating the assembly drawings. That’s a lot to consider when you are first exploring your PCB design system that it can be easy to overlook a very basic function in all of those “how-to” videos and demonstrations. How in the world do I create a simple rectangle or even a line in these tools Read Article

22:06 SKA Africa Telescope and Multiboard PCB Design [OnTrack Podcast] Watch Video