How to mirror the reference designator on Proteus 8.0 - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: DiBosco
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2017, 10:12:07 am
content: I'm doing a bit of work for a company that used to use Proteus and for some staggeringly stupid reason they ditched it and moved to Crapstar.I'm modding a few older Proteus boards for them and and on the whole I find it easy to use and very intuitive.One thing that has completely stumped by though is that on one board a few components that are on the component side have their outlines on the solder side. Also, a couple that are on the solder side do not have their reference designators mirrored. I just cannot work out how to rectify these problems. I've played for four hours on this and just cannot fathom it.Can anyone explain how to mirror a reference designator so that if it's on the solder side it is correct for Gerbers please? Doing it with text is straightforward enough as is mirroring the whole component. Just mirroring the ref des...not so much! Many thanks

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 25, 2017, 10:29:51 am
content: If you change the layer for reference designator, then it is mirrored automatically. Strange to hear you have a problem with this.

author: DiBosco
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2017, 10:40:29 am
content: Yeah, there's something *really* funky going on. With other components, when you swap the layers, they automatically mirror the ref des.

author: DiBosco
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2017, 11:02:21 am
content: Actually, one even stranger thing is one component says it's on the component side when you right click and do Edit Properties, but its silkscreen is on the solder side. :-/

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 25, 2017, 11:13:52 am
content: Quote from: DiBosco on July 25, 2017, 11:02:21 amWell, you can create the components with pads and silkscreen on different sides. Now I understand what is the issue.Proteus thinks those components are placed on the different side than they actually are because the person who created those components had hands growing from his ass.Therefore what you need to do is placing the package somewhere out of PCB -> decompose tagged objects -> modify it -> select everything -> Make component. EDIT, you could first try without actually modifying anything. Old component will be replaced with updated one.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 25, 2017, 11:22:26 am
content: Now thinking about it again. Probably it does not matter what Proteus thinks about the component side. But I still think that suggestion will fix the issue.

author: DiBosco
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2017, 11:29:23 am
content: Quote from: wraper on July 25, 2017, 11:13:52 amSorry, I'm not even vaguely following what you mean here. Remember although I have heavily modified PCBs and touched up schematics, I have no experience of Proteus outside of this.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 25, 2017, 11:37:02 am
content: You decompose the component and make it again by replacing old version.

author: DiBosco
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2017, 12:30:39 pm
content: Nope, that's not it.One point of interest is that if I add an SOIC8 (which is what this is), then give it a random ref des, said ref des mirrors when I swap layers.However, if delete IC3 (the rogue component), add another SOIC8 , then call this new one IC3, it asks if I want to "Bond to unplaced component IC3". If I do that, it adds the SOIC8 to the ratsnest, but "unmirrors" the ref des. This makes me think it might be something carried through from the schematic. Quite what though I have no idea.Edit: If I add a new symbol of the same type in the schematic, name it IC6 and import it, then all is well. If I rename it to IC3 after deleting the old IC3...same problem.Edit 2: If I add a capacitor which is an example of it being on the top side but having bottom side ink, then adding a new part does not help.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 25, 2017, 09:29:08 pm
content: If you add another such component to the schematic, does it act the same as unmirrored one. If yes, try to remove the package from particular component and then add it again. Right click on component in the schematic -> Packaging tool -> Delete.