Altium- I am about to cry!!  :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: chimera_786
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 02, 2012, 08:35:49 am
content: Hello!So my boss comes in today and says: "here! this is the what I have for you!! Altium Designer 10".. I look at him and say.."what is that?". He shrugs his shoulders and peaces out. As it turns out, its a PCB design software.So now, along with continuing work on our current product design, I have to learn how to use altium!!I have been using eagle for some time and im very comfortable with it. Being a design engineer, its expected of me to 'just' know how to work a new PCB software. I have to present this new software in our next design meeting with "positive" results.I cant seem to figure out even the simple things of this software! Why is designing a custom foot print so hard in this...eh..I have youtubed and googled.. but nothing is clicking right now between me and this software! Eagle had a tiny learning curve and I was up and working that software when I was in high school. But Altium.. i feel like this should be a course offered at universities to handle this abominationWhere am I going wrong

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 02, 2012, 08:50:03 am
content: Altiums "flexibility" in the way it allows you handle and stores libraries can be rather daunting.But making a new footprint itself is pretty easy.Here are several videos:Dave.

author: chimera_786
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 02, 2012, 09:50:22 am
content: I did see these videos on youtube. I guess I have no alternative but to learn it..gotta present it in two weeks time.BTW Dave, I wanted to suggest something to you that came to my mind while I kept up with ur power supply design:Can you do a tutorial on powering a power supply using a transformer; not a lengthy one--just a 10 15 minute video on choosing a transformer with bridge rectification, smoothing cap (formula etc)---i assume your gonna get much more caught with the whole myth buster deal eh?The reason why I ask is that because I feel its a very fundamental thing that comes to mind when designing a power supply. I remember when I designed a power supply, I did not take into account a lot of things i.e in-rush current, PIV rating for Diodes, using a thermistor to initially limit that in rush current, bypass caps on the primary etc. But later on I did read up on it and tweaked my design but this was a little while ago.This might help future engineers/hobbyists who want to design a power supply but dont do the necessary research on the dangers of working with mains voltage, transformers, big smoothing caps etc---there are a lot of tutorials that go over using a transformer, LM317s, caps butnone of them mention the inherited dangers associated when using transformers and huge caps!We learn a lot from your experience and videos. Keep it up!

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 02, 2012, 12:24:24 pm
content: Altium really is a nice PCB package, and from my perspective very easy to use.I imagine most of your issues will be created from expecting it to 'behave like eagle'

author: Ajahn Lambda
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 02, 2012, 09:40:54 pm
content: Agreed. I found Altium easy to use, powerful (sometimes too much is too much lol), and much more intuitive than EAGLE. I think once you've messed around with it for a bit, you'll find EAGLE was actually much more painful.I just wish Altium would get its head out of its ass, and price its product with real-world user needs, much as Dave has said many times. Well, EAGLE/Cadsoft, too; those are crack prices for such an early-90s-looking product.

author: Randall W. Lott
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 03, 2012, 04:30:07 am
content: I almost shat myself when I first used it due to the amount of options.There are several fantastic YouTube videos on various methods. I never seemed to have time to make tutorial videos. You'll likely need to read their web help or watch their videos (which are stupidly only watchable on their site) for more advanced tasks.Now all other EDA programs seem to be inferior.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2012, 03:58:39 am
content: Quote from: chimera_786 on April 02, 2012, 08:35:49 amBy trying to use it as you were using eagle.Different mindset.If anything is simply in Altium it is making a custom footprint. It has IPc generators, pick your device family , feed it the numbers from the datasheet of the part and voila. you're done. To top it of you go to 3dcontentcentral , find the 3d model download that as a step file in AP214 format. Hit Place - Body , select the step file , click ok hit the number 3 on your keyboard so it switches in 3d view and you place the thing.One tip , since your boss dropped Altium in your lap : Tell him you ABSOLUTELY need a 3dconnexion spacenavigator. they're like 80$.This is the bees knees. once you get used to that thing ( pan zoom scroll , rotate , pinch twist , whatever you will be wondering what you were doing with pen-and-paper substitues like eagle ...Concerning libraries. I always advise people to make a new 'integrated library project' and start pulling in parts from there. You build your library as you go.a couple of tips. someone sends you an altium project ( schematic and pcb ) you like a certain schematic or pcb symbol. click it to highlight. E -C ( edit - copy ) [ another thing : LEARN the shortcut keys . A sa newbie : keep an eye on the status bar at the bottom of the screen. altium tells you there multiple things in real time : where you are x/y , what you are pointing at ( track and net information) and what it is electricall connected to or what part it belongs to. just hover the mouse arrow over it. when you are in a command it will cycle messages on that bar telling you what you can do tight now. for example : space = rotate , + = layer up - = layer down. These messages cycle every 2 seconds. READ them. in the first 5 minnutes you will pick up what you can do and what the shortcuts are.But we are wandering off. where was i .. ah yes. you like a symbol. click it hit E C ( edit - copy ) go to your library document ad in the library explorer ( the list with parts in your library ) right-click and select paste. voila. you just 'stole' a schematic symbol. you can do the same with pcb footprints. you can even select mulitple parts at once. hold down shift and click on each one you like. hit E C , go to your library eplxorer , right-clik paste. Boom done.I have a large Altium library that i maintain. it all compiles into 1 integrated library where everything is linked. including supplier data, 3d models.P P (Place Part ) 0805R-1k <enter> boom my 1 kiloohm 0805 is dangling from my mouse cursor.Another trick : cloning parts. you are placing parts in the schematic. and all of a sudden you need another 100nF capacitor. instead of going back to the parts selector , finding it... simply move your mouse over one that is already in your schematic ( even if there is a resistor dangling off your mouse cursor , just go move the mouse pointer over a cap that is already in the schematic ) hit the INS key (insert) on your keyboard. Presto. altium just 'cloned' whatever was under the mouse cursor and you can now drop that where you needed it. This also works for power objects , net labels etc. You can be placing a net label and switch to a part and back to something else. no need to go dig in menu's . the INs key is your friend.If you go to the help menu and you type in 'KEYBOARD shortcuts' it gives you a handy page you can print and stick to your wall for the first few days. ( after that you will know the shortcuts )Shortcuts are easy. Think about what you want to do.Place Part P PPlace Wire P WPlace JunctionPlace Net P NSelect Inside S ISelect outside S OSelect All S Adeselct all is actually X A ( eXclude All ) becasue D A is already in use.ne need to hold down the <ALT> key like in windows.most shortcuts are 2 letter, some are three like EMG Edit Move polyGon vertexpcb editor : + and - cycles layers. if you are routing it will punch a via for you.page up page down zoom in and outLater you will create project output and DRC configuration files that are transportable between projects. Altium has excellent free trainaing videos on their site. Accessible from within altium.Ah , make sure you have a FAST computer ( quadcore with 4 gigs ram) Altium likes Win7 32 bit the best ( it is NOt compiled for 64 bit since borland is not ready with their compiler yet. It does run on 64 bit but is sometimes flaky). Dual screens with lots of pixels work best. schematic left, PCB right ( or whatever you like )Another trick : in the PCb editor you can create custom layer views you have one tab per layer. left of that is a box that shows the color of the active layer with a little icon that saya LS on it. click that icon. here you can define your own 'views' ( even with certain items mirrored ) instead of having to mess around with toggling layers on and of depending on what you are ding : create a few custo views ( top layer + multilayer + top silk is on view. bottom layer + bottom silk + multilayer and in MIRROR is another. inner layers can be another view. ) that way you can very quickly switch presetsThere is much much more. I have been using this software since it was called Autotrax 1.61 under DOS and came on two 720K floppies. Done every generation. I also use (torMENTOR , Valid, Daisy , Allegro, OrCad, Cadstar , CB5000, EDS (thats to design hybrid circuits)) and have used (P-Cad , Tango , hiwire, Smartwork ( remember that ? ) ultiBoard) and many others . In terms of possibillities, user friendlyness and overall productivity. Can't beat Altium. It's sometimes faster to import an Allegro board in Altium , do the change and push it back to allegro than trying to do it in allegro itself. Or godforbid (tor)MENTOR... speak of the anti-productivity devil... )If anyone is interested i can post my altium library. It's large.. 53 Megabyte file , so emailing don't work. I'll post it on my webserver and feed a link. And it gets updated almost daily ( i do a lot of designs ... )

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2012, 04:45:26 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 04, 2012, 03:58:39 amWho doesn't like freePlease PM me a link if you don't want to make it public.I have also used Protel since it came on floppies (probably 5" ones). I have never had enough experience with other packages to feel competent to praise Altium or criticise its competititors.

author: JuKu
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2012, 07:05:56 am
content: Yes, do learn the keyboard shortcuts. Once you get familiar with those, you want a "game" keyboard, that gives you 20+ programmable keys. It makes a big difference in my productivity to have one hand on the mouse, and one hand has (without moving) single keys for all most used functions.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2012, 07:15:12 am
content: >> do learn the keyboard shortcuts.Shudder. I always figure that "you'll want to use keyboard shortcuts" is synonymous with "the GUI sucks."Of course, it's a very hard problem to have a GUI structure that is both logical and makes it easy to get to the most frequently used functions. About the only keyboard shortcut I have defined in EAGLE is alt-Z for "undo", but I make pretty extensive use of the user-defined GUI menus...

author: JuKu
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2012, 11:49:44 am
content: You can use the GUI. It is not the best, but usable. Still, I find it much more faster and fluent to use the keyboard than navigate the GUI. Part of that has to do with the number of things you can do, making the menus big.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2012, 01:16:33 pm
content: Another cool thing,You can- Shift select multiple objects,- Then activate the measure tool (Ctrl-M)-And then (while all that is active), use the keyboard Ctrl + arrow keys to move your selected parts around.One side of the measuring tool will stay anchored to where you set while the other side will move with your selected parts.This makes it really easy to move parts around until a desired distance is reached.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2012, 05:33:10 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 04, 2012, 03:58:39 amAgreed, I have tried Ultiboard (done at college, was disguisting to use), then Eagle (I was like, yay we have got better component libraries!) , then got to use Altium once for a few designs and loved it.I took 2-3 days at my internship to learn it properly, going through their tutorial books. After I got it working I was able to create a novel SMPS + smart dummy load system in under a day, it was so easy and quick to use.Next intern I had to do eagle.. man it looked so awkward to use. Yeah, if you want to move a component you have to press the move tool. If you want to copy it, you need to press the copy tool. If you want to copy multiple components you have to select the gruop tool, carefully select components, click on the copy tool, right click (left click would ruin your day) and then say 'copy group'. How is that for a convenient user interface design?In Altium I could just drag my components without changing any stupid 'mode' thing and press CTRL+C. That's a shortcut that almost works in any program, .. text, audio, video, images, and also an EDA. Yay.Now I am graduating at a company that uses Mentor DxDesigner and PADS. I consider it even more disguisting than Eagle. Like DxDesigner automatically saves a change you make. Undo gets broken from time to time (engineer at company happily told me there is a dedicated button for 'check for system file errors', which fixes the undo option. *pukes*)If you want to have an old version you are forced to back-up the whole design folder. The design folder consists of tons of directories and files scattered around. How could I grab one schematic sheet out of it and use it in another design? No idea.Alright, then I just open my old design. "Are you sure you want to close your current project?" What, can't view 2 projects at once? Alright, close my current design and open the other project because I really don't want to be redrawing schematics (chances of mistakes, time, etc.). So I select all components and select copy.I open my new design, press paste.. Great, it pasted it.. a quirky IMAGE of the schematic. It can't do copy/paste of the schematic itself. I've ran into very similar issues with eagle, it's horrible to use.In Altium the task of 'copying a piece of schematic' consists of opening the schematic file (which you don't have to close your current design for!), select components (just drag around at schematic), CTRL+C, move to new design tab, CTRL+V, move to position you'd like and click -> job done.Altium's power is in global management of components and libraries and design reuse (great if you could post libraries vincent!). The controls of any EDA is different, but as long there is a keyboard shortcut for it's fine. I don't agree that always using keyboards shortcuts is a sign of horrible GUI's. Let's say GUI-only control is horrible because you have to move the mouse all the time.For example: you're routing your PCB and want to change the trace width. PADS allows you to type W (Width) and then the width of your trace. So W1mm sets it to 1mm. With Altium very similar; press TAB, cursor is on trace width value (and you can edit all other values in this panel as well, like via size if you want to place one etc.), type new value and press enter. You can leave your mouse at the position you left it, so you don't have to carefully reposition it to get the section of trace you already had.In Eagle or Ultiboard you have to move to dropdown menu's to change the size.. it's so much slower and gets annoying.The things I mentioned are only the basic tools that are missing from some EDA's, and why I hope you will appreciate Altium sooner or later. I haven't even talked about really useful stuff like routing multiple traces at once (shift select 8 traces on your PCB, click route multiple, and whoila you got 8 lines following your cursor! Press tab to change the clearance between each line, works great) and smart paste in schematic (got a SRAM chip with 19 address pins? Place a net label ADDRESS[0..18], CTRL C, SHIFT+CTRL+V (Smart Paste), Net Label+Wire and select Expand Busses , whoila you got ADDRESS 0 to 18 all labelled on wires you can place in one go at the IC! Quirky symbol that has 18..0 instead of 0..18? Press Y, and all labels get inverted in the Y-orientation. It all makes sense.)

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2012, 06:42:53 pm
content: Quote from: westfw on April 04, 2012, 07:15:12 amNO. let me tell you why.Altium has a stack based command system. that means you can invoke one commands within commands. There is no way you can do this with a mouse.lets say you are placing a track. in the middle of the placement you need to move a component. This means you need to abort the placement... ( if you move the mouse the track would follow you all the way to the top screen at which point the vieport begins scrolling. so by the time you have moused over to the menu bar you just messed up your layout... especially when the realtime track push and shove is on ... )if you know the keyboard shortcuts you leave the mouse where it is hit M C ( move component ) move the part and when you dropped the part altium automatically returns to the place track mode at the point where you were. This command stack is fantastic productivity tool.instead of having to abort an operation, call in something else, go back blabla bla. simply layer your operations.Besides , having to mouse over to pull down menus is a waste of time. you are concentrating on placing copper and you have to take your eyes off the layout to go find a command. if you know the 2 letter shortcut : bingo.And get that spacenavigator thing. Spacenavigator left, keyboard middle , right hand on the mouse. You'll be soaring in productivity@hand : DxDesigner and Pads .. there is a reason i called it tormentor... poor tormented souls that need to use that.you gave the example of selecting multiple traces and routing them at once. you said shift select. There is an easier way ... Try the S - L shortcut.you will dray a small line. anything that touchs or crosses the line will be selected.so , you have a chip with 8 pins next to each other and want to route those 8 pins as a bus. S - L draw a line through the 8 pins and off you go , There is also S -U ( inside a rectangle you draw )

author: Randall W. Lott
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 04, 2012, 07:06:15 pm
content: Give it a few days of disciplined learning. It'll become easy.This is coming from someone who finds Eagle confusing.

author: baljemmett
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 04, 2012, 09:08:42 pm
content: Quote from: hans on April 04, 2012, 05:33:10 pmIt's actually all orthogonal -- command set and interaction style are two different facets of UI design, and looking at them in isolation can lead to trouble. For instance:QuoteIn Eagle, you can just type the new width during routing and it's applied. I believe that's because Eagle is actually driven by a command line, and all the 'tools' you can choose are basically just macros to enter the equivalent command. So to route a signal called FOO with a 10mil trace you could click the route tool, select 10mil in the dropdown, click the FOO airwire and route it -- or you could type ROUTE FOO 10mil, or ROUTE 10mil FOO -- or any combination of the above (e.g. click the tool, then just type signal names and/or widths as you go.)I know it's just an example, but it goes to show that understanding how the command model works for a package goes a long way towards influencing how logical it seems to use it. They all have strengths and weaknesses, and what one person finds great (like keyboard shortcuts) others will hate.

author: chimera_786
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2012, 09:34:32 am
content: off topic.. but this is why I absolutely love this forum!!! Every one here bothers to chip in with ideas and questions. I am a member of several forums..but this one has proven to be the best!!Thanks for the input guys..btw..my boss did ask how Altium was working out.. all I did was: shrugged and gave a thumbs up. That is SO NOT THE CASE!!!!!It is a very extensive software and I feel that I need better documentation becaz of just the shear number of options! I dont know why but up till now, I feel eagle is my staple PCB layout software. I am trying hard to break the chains and learn altium..its just a painstaking task becaz I cant do it at work due to other engagements and I cant do it at home caz well..im tired!!So only this weekend will I be able to go to town on Altium, hopefully!

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2012, 05:28:32 pm
content: you can not compare tools like Altium, CB5000, DxDesigner and others to Eagle, Kicad, Diptrace and others. They are in a different league.To give you an idea of things you can do with altium ( And these are things i have done... )I make a schematic. This has some analog stuff, some digital stuff and an FPGA. I wirte some verilog code in altium that ends up in the FPGA. I instantiate a CPU from the ip library that comes royalty free with altium in the same FPGA. I write some C code for that cpu (altium designers has the C compilers built in for all the cores..)I do simulations on the analog block using the built in simulator. I do the same for my verilog code.When i'm confident my hardware portion is ok i push the whole shebang to the pcb , import a 3d model of the case it needs to end in, do the parts placement ( including full 3d checking so i know it will fit.), make the memory interface using automatically tuned length equalisation and do some controlled impedance calculations. Pin swaps on the FPGA directly propagate in my code.When the board comes in, i assemble it and connect it to Altium using the little JTAG adapter (150$) they have. From within altium i now compile the cpu's source and the fpga , download it into my board. And here is the kicker : If i push one of the buttons on my board , attached to the fpga , the trace in the PCB viewer changes color to reflect the logic state. I can click on a pin of the fpga in the PCB viewer and tell it to turn this pin high or low. I can set breakpoints in my c code. When i push a button on my pcb the code editor neatly breaks at that position.I don't need ANY other tool than altium. Everything is done inside this one project. Everything is tied together. I don't need to learn 25 different tools and user interfaces or fidget around trying to import files between tools, or do extra effort making sure everything aligns between all the different tools.All i need is my Altium installation ( and the free versons of Xilinx , Altera , Lattice and other FPGA compilers . Altium talks to these in the background. I don't even have to open those or learn how to use them). For 5K$ ... it's going to be EXTREMELY hard to beat that.Now, take a look at what your current design tool' can do and then pull your conclusion... Are you in the 'design tool' category or in the 'pen-and-paper replacement' category...If you're still not convinced... you kow those two little rovers on mars that have been bravely soldiering on for 5 years or more and sending us all these great pictures of the red planet ? Guess what...All the boards in them were made on Altium... I don't need more convincing than that... ( of course it's the brilliant humans that sat behind the screen that need to get the credit for the design. But the fact they chose Altium... that say's enough )PS. I am NOT affiliated with altium ! Just a VERY happy user ( i even bough my own licence for hobby use. A couple of years ago they had a deal for 2500$ and i bit the bullet then. It was that or a new video camera...) .I do about 20 projects a year (at work) and this thing has never let me down. Yes, it does have its odds and ends and quircks. ( and sometimes locks up, but that is solvable by having a GOOD , CLEAN machine ) And it has a long learning curve. But it is incredibly flexible and powerful. You can create your own scripts , create project templates , tie it in to purchasing , backend processing , documentation output. I even pull in designs from other tools ( PADS , Zuken ) , or import gerber and decompile that into PCB data so i can make sure my part of the design will fit. I've done test socket desing for very complex packages and modeled the entire thing in Altium. Export step file , import step in soldiworks and transfer it to the mechanical department. When they are done 'massaging' the design i pull it back in and verify it still fits the footprint. And yes altium has shortcomings too.. EMC and field solving is not possible, but, it integrates seamlessly with CST studio and Hyperlinx. So there is your solution for that. this thing is an Electronics Design tool. Not just a 'schematic capture and pcb drawing tool...

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2012, 08:07:02 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 06, 2012, 05:28:32 pmYou can if all you actually want to do is schematic capture and PCB layout which is what the majority of their customers really use it for.The analog simulator is pretty much junk, it just doesn't have a good spice engine.The FPGA stuff is done quite well and is a product of Altium's vision of one day all electronic designs being a systems built on FPGAs and a development tool that did the whole job would sell like hot cakes.That vision was flawed, it hasn't happened and won't because dedicated silicon has progressed as fast or faster than FPGAs so an FPGA based system for the sake of it or because you can is hardly ever the right solution. When you really do need an FPGA you have to put up with being a generation out of date because Altium support lags behind the vendors.So the FPGA and embedded stuff is nice but mostly useless. The reason it is bundled with schematic capture and PCB is if it was a realistically costed optional package hardly anyone would buy it.More recently they have been wasting money on their next flawed vision of the future of everything being in the cloud and the idea of selling EDA 'apps' and IP like iTunes sells music. Their vision also included all future electronic designs being part of an 'internet of things talking to the cloud'.It has gone very quiet on the 'internet of things' bit, possibly because it is a junk idea but more likely they don't have any people or money to work on it. Perhaps they are beavering away at it in secret which means my subscription is buying more junk I don't want. They are still spending their time dicking around with Altium Live and the cloud with the occasional scrap of bug fix and improvement to the core tools to try to keep the people who are paying for it all happy.I think you are the first Altium "VERY happy user" I have come across. That said I haven't come across many that think they would be happier with something else.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2012, 10:11:45 pm
content: Quote from: Rufus on April 06, 2012, 08:07:02 pmThen you don't need Altium. Agreed. although , it is still a really good Schematic / PCB tool.QuoteThat has always been the case. But 99.9% of the electronics engineers out there have no access to a silicon fab.. Need something custom ? FPGA is your only option... And for those people that have access to a silicon fab ( like me) : we still use FPGA to prototype blocks before we spin the first wafer. At a cost of about 1.3 million $ per mask these days ... you do run your system on a FPGA first...QuoteNo it doesn't. All you need to do is keep your Quartus / ISE or other FPGA software up to date. Altium uses only the backend bitstream compiler and the route rin those tools. If altera ( i use mainly Altera ) releases new devices they also release a new version of quartus. Simply install it and done. You can immediately use it in Altium.Quoteyou got Altium and OrCrap confused. Cadence is the 'OrCad now does Apps' too' maker.QuoteYou must not have met many Altium users then. I don't know where you are located, but here in 'the valley' there is the Altium Users group. We meet a few times a year ( Last couple of times was at National Semiconductor and Tesla Motors. Altium presents a few features and does mini trainings during these meetups , after which real users ( typically from the company hosting the event ) present how they use certain features of the tool and share their 'tips and tricks'. Very educational. ( and there's free food and a raffle as well ). Draws a bunch of people and they're all happy people. Yeah , there's the usual friendly fire about 'havent you guys fixed bug xyz yet'. But that is the cae in any of these user groups. Visit a synopsys users group and it happens there also. Visit a linux users group and it is all out thermonuclear warfare ... ( vi vs emacs and gnome vs kde or whatever distro today is the 'hottest' ). comes with the territory.

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 12:15:20 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 06, 2012, 10:11:45 pmThe large majority of electronic designs don't need something custom because there are 100 semiconductor manufacturers out there trying very hard to make dedicated silicon solutions for all requirements. Altium thought FPGAs were going to get so cheap it wouldn't be worth using dedicated silicon but dedicated silicon got cheaper and more capable even faster and continues to need less power and support circuitry.Even when you do need an FPGA for something custom the choice of using a small FPGA and sticking for example a cheap ARM outside it or a larger FPGA with embedded soft core isn't straightforward.So like I said the whole system on an FPGA end to end design solution Altium provides is more or less useless because whole system on FPGA designs are more or less useless.Quote from: free_electron on April 06, 2012, 10:11:45 pmIf that were the case why does Altium need to install about 1GB of device family specific hardware support files which includes things like Spartan 3AN specific DLLs?Quote from: free_electron on April 06, 2012, 10:11:45 pmYou haven't seen the Altium Content Store where currently (and farcically) everything is free?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 09:19:04 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 06, 2012, 05:28:32 pmYes, it can do all that stuff, in theory, but in practice you would be one of the few people who use it to it's full extent like that.Simply because Altium cannot support all FPGA's for example, or really high spec high speed design, and once you need to step outside the limited comfort zone of what Altum supports in those areas, then you are left holding an empty bag.More than 95% of Altium users simply use it as an advanced PCB and SCH tool, like they always have. Many of those don't use it for anything else because they are afraid it's going to let them down in the non-PCB areas when they need it the most.But yes, some of the integrated stuff it can do is very cool, and it's quite attractively price in it's niche. The lack of competition at the price point is what has kept Altium going.Dave.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 09:43:23 am
content: Quote from: Rufus on April 06, 2012, 08:07:02 pmIt's more than a majority, around 95% is my educated guestimate.QuoteYep, and it clearly hasn't had any significant work done on it in years.Similar with the signal integrity and the autorouter, although SI seems like it might be getting some attention now.QuoteYeah, shame it will only apply to a very small percentage of the PCB/SCH CAD market, and just like FPGA's, they don't have the resources to make it universally usable. You can bet the farm that this vision will fail, and fail dismally.QuoteThey appear to be spending much of their effort on the core tool recently, because if you read the Altium forum, it's all that the users are screaming for. They don't care about the vault, the cloud, or the internet of things. So they are at least listening again.QuoteAnd that's the only reason Altium have gotten away with going off the deep end over the last decade or so, in pursuit of their silly visions.The loyal core PCB/SCH user base sticks with them.Dave.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 05:21:04 pm
content: Quote from: Rufus on April 07, 2012, 12:15:20 amyes, agreed, but .. for every 100 problems these 'standard' things solve there are 1000 problems the standard stuff does not solve..Want proof ? Xilinx and Altera are still shifting a truckload of their parts. If everything was solvable with off-the-shelf parts they would have long gone out of business. Many 3D TV's and large format LCD's have an fpga on board. Open the new Fluke bench multimeter ( the one that is also sold under tektronix name ). It's got two altera's in it. The in-guard has the multislope engine on board and communicates over an optical link to the outguard. that one has a nios engine and runs linux ( that's why that stupid meter has a 20 second boot time if you do a cold start. )FPGA's DO have their place and ARE actively used. there is a 'band' where the cost picture to switch from 'off the shelf' to 'full-custom' is not feasible. Custom has a very hefty price tag and long design cycle. plus its not flexible if you want to 'update on the fly' your time-to market is too long. That's where FPGA's step in. The risk is much much lower, even though the chip itself costs more.Quotei'm not going to speculate what altium thinks, its none of my business , or interest. point is that, if you are doing end-to-end design (schematic , analog , pcb , fpga ,cpu ) they provide you with a single tool. I like that ( that doesn't mean you have to agree with me. There's tons of people out there that like to spend days making TCL script and other widgets to glue different tools together. Me ? not interested. Fastest , least effort path is well enough, I'll use the free time to go scuba diving or tinker with my own 'pet projects'.QuoteFunny that you should mention that. that is exactly what i did a couple of years ago. I have a board with an ARM7 mapped into a Cyclone 2F50. A cypress FX-2 USB processor is also mapped into the FPGA and allows me to down load the bitstream and interface the PC with the guts of the system. I'm not going to bore you with the architecture, or what it is for, point is this rickety little ARM7 at 48MHz runs circles around a dual core ARM9 screaming at 800MHz that sits in a -VERY- expensive asic. Simply because i don't have to waste cpu cycles on complex things. If i find out the cpu is too heavily loaded for a particular task i simply change it from a software routine to a hardware co-processor that i plunk in the FGPA.QuoteI agree on that. 'system on fpga' is useless. But System 'with' an FPGA is extremely powerful. Take off-the-shelf SOC, glue an FPGA on and off you go.Quotebecause those contain the backend compilers. Altium does NOT perform any place and route. It has a code editor , that tie into the schematic and PCB , a debugger , but for everything else they simply talk to the xilinx tools. And that is good. altium doesn't spend time on developing an FPGA tool. they provide the 'glue between the FPGA tool , my board my schematic and they give me a nice debug environment to work in (push button on board , trace highlights on layout and vice versa. This shortens my time to bring up the board for the first time tremendously. ) That, and i don't have to learn another user interface if i switch FPGA ( altium doesn't care if you use altera, xilinx, lattice , actel or whatever. No need to learn new tools)Quoteyes i have. They don't call them 'Apps'. OrCad officially call them APPS. I was at Designcon West last week and Cadence had a big banner over their booth. 'OrCad does Apps Too'. and most of them are 'paying' apps.Now, this 'simulator is pretty much junk'. I don't see any difference between what i run through Eldo (now that's a simulator !) or Altium.. OK altium is slower and there's things it doesn't know how to do. If you feed it the right models it does as good a job as any other spice simulator. Besides... simulator output should not be trusted until the design is actually built and has been verified on bench. Tuning an opamp filter works just as well in altium as it does in any other simulator. And i don;t have to redraw the schematic in a foreign tool and then draw it again in the pcb tool. Saves me time.Then again , 80% of what i do is digital. I have only used the sim to tune analog filters. Anything beyond that is done on bench.

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 06:34:40 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 07, 2012, 05:21:04 pmXilinx accounts for less that 1% of the semiconductor market by value. Altera is smaller.Quote from: free_electron on April 07, 2012, 05:21:04 pmThat isn't the point, we know it does that (with limitations) the point is how many people are doing end-to-end design (schematic , analog , pcb , fpga ,cpu ) and especially how many of the Altium users who are currently paying for it. Like Dave says it is probably around 1 in 20.Quote from: free_electron on April 07, 2012, 05:21:04 pmAnd you can't design in a part without a back end compiler (etc) and Altium lags behind vendors providing that compiler (etc) for new parts so if you want to use Altium for your FPGA flow you have to settle for being a generation out of date. It isn't as you claimed a just a matter of keeping your vendor tools up to date, doing that doesn't help and potentially breaks Altium. It currently only officially supports ISE 12.1 not the current ISE 13.3 for example.Quote from: free_electron on April 07, 2012, 05:21:04 pmCall them apps, call them plugins who cares.Quote from: free_electron on April 07, 2012, 05:21:04 pmThen you can't have used it much. It failed to simulate about half the circuits I ever tried. At times I dragged and dropped the .nsx netlist onto LTSpice to let it (instantly) converge on a operating point then plaster the Altium schematic with .ICs and values copied from LTSpice just to get it to start a transient simulation. I don't know if it is actually bugged or just lacks engine tweaks and optimisations which even free packages like LTSpice have. I don't bother any more and just use LTSpice in the first place now.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 09:43:57 pm
content: [quote ]Xilinx accounts for less that 1% of the semiconductor market by value. Altera is smaller.By value is a wrong metric. Intel tops that market because they sell chips that cost 300$ a pop... and 1% of the semiconductor market is STILL a huge amount of money. I'd happily have that deposited in my bank account, you can keep the remaining 99%.QuoteMy original point (when comparing altium vs 'pen-and-paper' tools) was : what other tools allows you end-to-end ... VERY few , not to say none apart from altium.QuoteNO! Altium NEVER has provided the back end compiler ! They rely on the FPGA vendor tools for that work. All they do is provide the magic glue between the FGPA vendor provided back-end and their front-end.If the vendor tools update then sometimes altium needs to update as well. That said : do you always use the latest and greates blistering hot new FPGA ? I don't . real development is typically a year or so behind the curve. By that time Altium will have updated. I've never ran into this limit. Last project i did with xilinx (about a year ago) had two Virtex-6's on them ... and those are 3K$ a pop ...As for the simulator , that is food for thought : Same spice netlist, same models, different sims produces different results .. what does that tell you ... I wouldn't trust any of them ( i don't trust altium's sim either )!I made a simple current sink circuit with two opamps and a power mosfet in LTspice. According to the sim it would ring and even oscillate like hell when applying a step voltage at the input (using LT1061 opamps and the exact mosfet from the LTspice library). I built it on bench. Works perfectly fine. According to the simulator it couldn't be done.Simulators should never claim something can't be done , and leave the people already doing it alone.My simulator is a soldering iron.ANyway. Each has his own point of view. From what i do i think Altium is a wonderful tool that has let my productivity soar and removed a whole list of recurring problems and time-wasters. Whenever i have to use tools like PADS , Allegro or CB5000 i get frustrated because of lack of simple ways to do certain things. Maybe i'm not proficient enough in those other tools. who knows. I've played with Eagle as well... that's bass-ackwards. Typical product of programmers that have never made a board themselves.And yes, Altium has its problems too but i'll happily live with them. It still beats the others out there, at least for what i do.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 10:54:28 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 07, 2012, 05:21:04 pmFor sure.The problem for Altium is that it didn't take off like they expected. They had the vision that the majority of electronics would use an FPGA, and that they would get cheaper and more plentiful, and eventually replace microcontrollers. It didn't happen of course, and indeed the industry even went in the other direction, with even the FPGA industry returning to "hard" solutions inside FPGA's.Altium now reailise that a $2 ARM chip can do a heck of a lot more than an FPGA costing 10 times that. Which is why I suspect we haven't seen too much promotion on the FPGA front recently.Altium spent almost all of their IPO fortune taking the company in the "soft" embedded FPGA direction, and it has provided almost zero return on investment.Just think what the tool would be like now if they spend that hundreds of millions of dollars on the core PCB/SCH tool...And as I think Rufus said, the only reason the FPGA/embedded part of Altium designer "sells", is because they forced bundled it with the PCB/SCH tool with their famous slogan "turning the world or electronics design upside down". And they did just that, making the basic PCB tool optional extra! You had to buy the FPGA/embedded tool to get basic PCB layout. It was the craziest decision in the history of EDA.But from a company perspective it was probably clever, because if it was modular and the shareholders saw that the FPGA part wasn't selling, I suspect "the dream" would have lost support very quickly indeed.Dave.

author: Rufus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 11:10:44 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 07, 2012, 09:43:57 pmWhile high end Vitex-7s are over $100,000 a pop....

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 07, 2012, 11:12:14 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 07, 2012, 09:43:57 pmTrue. But Altium must have internal support for the device in order to know how to use it, and work with the back-end vendor tools.If Altium doesn't support the device you want, then you are left pretty much high and dry. And there is much complaint on the forum about this.Many people have asked for the ability to somehow add device support themselves, but device support is unfortunately effectively "hard coded" into the product, and they have said that this would be hard to open up.Dave.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2012, 12:00:09 am
content: Quote from: Rufus on April 07, 2012, 11:10:44 pmAnd what is the virtex-7 vs Intel I-7 ratio ? 1 to 1 million ? 1 to 100 million ? ( besides, they're not 100K. More like 9K if you get the fastest speed grade, and if you're a preferred partner you can shave 50% off that price. )Xilinx isn't making their bulk money off the 3 companies that buy a couple of those a year. Those chip's are the odd ones out anyway. They are lucky if they find one in a whole batch of wafers.

author: johndoe1395
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 16, 2012, 08:54:15 pm
content: Quote from: westfw on April 04, 2012, 07:15:12 amNope, its synonymous with "I want to work faster and the GUI slows me down". I always work with one hand on the keyboard and the other on the mouse. Don't know what would do without keyboard shortcuts on apps like e.g Photoshop.I've tried almost every EDA tool around, but I've mostly been using Proteus (ares + isis) and Eagle because some projects required me to do so. I can't describe how much I hate to use it, it seems their GUI designers are a bunch of 10year olds with no GUI design experience. I absolutely loathe it. I can't say many good words about the other PCB packages either. Seriously, none of them have any GUI design skills?However recently I started using/learning Altium designer, I can say I really like it so far. There are a few small things here and there that could be fixed (the menus are MESS) but other than that it is by far the best I've used.Quote from: free_electron on April 04, 2012, 03:58:39 amBy the way I found this topic through google and I joined the forum because of this post. free_electron if you can provide me with a link for your library I would be forever grateful. That would save me lots of time since I started using Altium not too long ago and just started populating my library.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2012, 10:38:49 pm
content: i will try to upload that tonight to my server. it slipped my mind. too many pots on the stove you know ...it will put a link on my webpage on the frontpage :www.siliconvalleygarage.comgive it until tomorrow . ( i am in california... so depending on your time zone : you do the math )

author: sunsocool
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 19, 2012, 07:37:09 am
content: You are luckly than me ,I have used Altium Designer about 4 years.But recently I have to turn into cadence. I have learned about a month. What a painful day!

author: johndoe1395
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 28, 2012, 10:19:56 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 16, 2012, 10:38:49 pmAt the rist of sounding annoying.... Any chance you have uploaded it yet?

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2012, 04:56:58 am
content: it's there ! too many pots on the stove ....www.siliconvalleygarage.com/downloads/vh_altium_library.intLib22.456 Megabyte.The file will get updated from time to time. ( my library gets new parts every week)

author: M. András
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2012, 07:37:50 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 30, 2012, 04:56:58 amhmm nice collection, how did you do those 3/5mm led models? i mean the 3d models looks niceim too lazy to do a footprint for some phoenix contact pcb plug terminals, and due to that my little led driver board only exist in my mind (no im not working in electronics)

author: johndoe1395
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 30, 2012, 08:02:41 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on April 30, 2012, 04:56:58 amThanks!!! <3 Those 3d models look great!

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2012, 10:45:32 pm
content: i grab the step models (in AP214 format) from 3dcontentcentral.if they don't exist i make them from primitives in altium. it only takes a few minuts to build one after that it's copy and paste.Lately i have been using Rhino to create true 3d parts. I just bought a license to that program. fantastic software. easy to use , intuitive and i can work both ways.I just did a heatsink assembly a couple hours ago. ( tunnel with fan , to220 transistors with clips. The manufacturer (Fisher ) sent me the iges file for the aluminum profile, i loaded it in rhino , extruded it to the right length , exported step and plunked it on the board.I do the same for mulitboard assemblies. From within altium i export a step file of each and every board and then i 'mate' them up in altium. This gives me confidence that all the connectors and holes will line up properly. I can't mess it up. these are 12 layer boards with mulitple daughter cards that mesh around this cooling tunnel. the whole assembly goes in a rack. They are burn-in boards for chips. total cost of the project is about half a million $ ... I don't have to muck about with prototypes. Model it out in Rhino , imprt in altium and export to the board house. for the connectors i grab the modesl from 3dcontentcentral or i go to molex ,amp or tyco website. they provide the step models for free.

author: grimmjaw
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2013, 10:46:55 am
content: I know this is an old thread, but just want to thank free_electron for the library.

author: analognoise
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: July 14, 2013, 12:16:15 am
content: Wow, free_electron, great library. Do you publish any of your designs?

author: AlfBaz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2013, 03:34:22 am
content: It's been over a year now. I wonder what the OP's thoughts are now with respect to AD and how worthwhile, if at all, its been learning AD

author: gbyleveldt
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2013, 04:59:04 am
content: ^^^ I'm also waiting to hear with bated breath. I've been using Eagle for about 8 years now and have managed to get good enough results, even with its clunky interface. I wouldn't mind going over to a better tool, but the thought of learning a new toolset (especially something as intimidating as Altium) is not very appealing if I'm not convinced it would be worth it.

author: envisionelec
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2013, 11:23:37 pm
content: I used Eagle since 2001 and switched to AD in 2009 when I started doing commercial work (rather than as a hobby) because Eagle couldn't reliably import/export industry standard file types. My last Pro license upgrade was for 5.11 although I've used a more recent, free version of 6-something.Altium was terribly frustrating at first, but became second nature within a few months. I even bought one of those Logitech gaming pads to macro the most used functions on my left hand. Altium always has ways to do exactly what I want whereas Eagle needed some weird algorithim or workaround.Will I ever go back to Eagle for serious work? No. I enjoy maybe the simplest things: the ability to change a pad of any footprint on the fly without changing the library part. The portability of embedded libraries. 3D flyovers catch placement mistakes (think component height). Variants (variable stuffing). Rooms. Sheet symbols. Powerful CAM editor. The list is longer than my arm, but I enjoy all of these things over and above Eagle for any serious work.

author: Mi_ka
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 30, 2014, 01:31:30 pm
content: Quote from: grimmjaw on July 12, 2013, 10:46:55 am+1 !!Kudos to Free_electron for this kind gesture even if I may never use AD!Quote from: free_electron on April 30, 2012, 10:45:32 pmWhoa!If life didn't have different plans for me I was heading your way of expertise - I really like to read how people achieved the goals I had in mind 20 years ago!The fact that you share hard experienced work this way to anybody makes me want to exclaim loudly: KUDOS to you Sir!Quote from: johndoe1395 on April 16, 2012, 08:54:15 pm+1Really like the constructive dialogues and found them really educating!Whatever happened to the OP, I only wonder...

author: Gandalf_Sr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2014, 11:17:57 am
content: I know this is an old thread but, I tried to use Altium in 2012 on a Windows 7 64 bit PC with TONS of RAM; it crashed all the time - several times a day, I lost work, it didn't support buses as objects that contained nets - just graphics to pretend they were there. I tried to contact Altium to see if an in-version update would fix the issues but they told me that the license I was using was not up to date on support (despite my employer having paid $10,000 to Altium) and they wanted $2,500 for 1 year's support just so I could see if the in-version update would fix my problems.Long story short; $795 later I had an unlimited version of Diptrace and I've been using it ever since. Diptrace never crashes, it supports buses intelligently - when you drag a net to a bus, it offers a list of all the nets already on the bus and gives you the option to create a new net. It now has excellent 3D modeling capability, 3D preview with export to step file, an awesome footprint creator - how awesome you ask? A 325 pin 0.5 pitch FPGA footprint in 5 minutes.As Dave says (I agree), 95% of users either aren't interested in or don't trust the built in compilers. So why then why does annual maintenance of Altium cost more than double an unlimited version of Diptrace which also gives you free in-version upgrades?Altium should be kissing its devoted users when it's doing what it's doing to them.

author: DerekG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2014, 12:31:11 pm
content: Quote from: Gandalf_Sr on August 12, 2014, 11:17:57 amI actually believe this was a problem with an incompatible video card. I'm assuming you were using an Intel processor as Altium does not support/does no testing of AMD chips?QuoteYes, I'm using DipTrace more & more too. Going from a schematic to a PCB is much faster. The last upgrade a month or so ago was a BIG improvement - a giant leap actually.QuoteAltium has many public shareholders that demand a return. They also have too many directors that demand high wages/high directors fees.DipTrace is a private company that operates out of the low cost country of Ukraine (where coincidentally some of Altium's programmers are also based).QuoteMy experience is that Altium does not give a sh*t. If you read back through my posts you will see that I often say "I dislike Altium the software & dislike even more Altium the company".Anyway, glad that there is someone else out there that has also seen the light (in using DipTrace).

author: Gandalf_Sr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2014, 04:11:43 pm
content: Derek,Yes, the last upgrade was really good. Library redone and the ability to create step files from the 3D viewer, now I can give my board designs to our CAD engineers and see what it looks like in the housing.I LOL'd when I read your tag line although I have seen a UFO.

author: marshallh
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 12, 2014, 11:52:55 pm
content: I'm using Altium for 2 years with AMD and ATI (phenom II x4) with 16gb ram under Windows 7 x64 and rarely ever have crashes. They do happen, but maybe once every couple weeks.

author: DerekG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 13, 2014, 12:07:30 am
content: Quote from: marshallh on August 12, 2014, 11:52:55 pmI use Altium on an Intel i5 2.5GHz with 4GB RAM using Windows 7 Professional 32 bit (so only 3GB RAM is accessible).I can't say that I remember it crashing once in the past 6 or so years.I mention AMD as Altium is quite specific - they do lots of testing with Intel processors but no testing with AMD & so do not recommend any processors except Intel.I believe most reported crashes are due to conflicts occurring due to the video card being used.I would call a crash "once very couple weeks" to be pretty regular.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 13, 2014, 12:32:56 am
content: Quote from: chimera_786 on April 02, 2012, 09:50:22 amTell him your dog ate the Altium CD.

author: marshallh
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 13, 2014, 02:05:04 am
content: Quote from: DerekG on August 13, 2014, 12:07:30 amTry running kicad...

author: Gandalf_Sr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 13, 2014, 09:22:47 am
content: Quote from: DerekG on August 13, 2014, 12:07:30 amFor a product that costs $1,000s, I would call a crash every couple of weeks unacceptable; especially when there are products like Diptrace around.I never worry that Diptrace is going to lose all my stuff, that is why I made the change.By the way Derek, does Altium now handle buses intelligently?

author: DerekG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 13, 2014, 11:54:15 am
content: Quote from: Gandalf_Sr on August 13, 2014, 09:22:47 amTo be honest, I've not had a problem with Altium 14 with buses. I was/am suspecting the problem seen on your monitor was due to the video card ie an error in how you see it, not an error in how Altium handles it.But having said that I have found that Altium does not always display the truth. It is important to view each layer in single layer mode before generating the gerbers (or sending the Altium file away for manufacturing) to ensure one layer does not hide something untoward below. Even though you can change the layer order, Altium does not always display the layer precedence as you would expect.I first noticed this fault in Ver 6.9 it appears to be carried over to the current version. I was told in 2008 that it was my video card but I transferred the design to another computer (a laptop) & it was displayed with exactly the same error.Protel 2.5 (1996 version) suffered a scrolling problem in full screen mode (in one direction only). This was still present in Altium 6.7 (2006 version) which is 10 years later! I was promised this was fixed in ver 6.7 so I paid AUD$3600 for the upgrade only to find that a "proper" full screen mode was no longer selectable. So, instead of Altium properly fixing the bug, they did away with the full screen mode (yes, I know it's still selectable in version 6.9 & ver 14 but you can no longer maximise your screen by removing all the toolbars & the Windows scroll bars like you can in ver 6.7).So, what have I learnt?1/ With Altium, what you see it not always what you will get;2/ Altium sales people do not always tell you the truth;3/ Altium can carry bugs through many versions (in my case 10 years).