Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Altium Designer 17.0

Altium Designer 17.0

Released: 16 November 2016 - Version: 17.0.6 (build 354)

This new Altium Designer release continues to deliver new features as well as enhancements to the software's core technologies, while also addressing many issues raised by customers through the AltiumLive Community's BugCrunch system. Along with delivering a range of new and exciting features that develop and mature the existing technologies, it also incorporates a large number of fixes and enhancements across the software as a whole, helping designers continue to create cutting-edge e lectronics technology.

Release Notes for Altium Designer Version 17.0

It is not possible to update to Altium Designer 17 from an earlier version, a new installation is required. You have the choice to continue with your current version, or to install Altium Designer 17.0 to access the latest features. Alternatively, have both installed side-by-side, and use the version that best suits your needs.

 

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

See It First - New ActiveRoute™ in Altium Designer 17

 

To view this email as a web page, click here

 

Altium Designer

 

Altium Designer 17

Altium Subscription Exclusive

 

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Altium Designer 16.1.12 Update (18 August 2016)

Altium Designer 16.1 is now available for download. You can install version 16.1.12 (build 290) from the Download section of the site and update system in Altium Designer (DXP > Extensions and Updates).

Please note that Clean installation is required if your current version of Altium Designer is 16.0 or below.

Release Notes

#12431    Draftsman - Fixed bug where access violation happens in particular cases when placing a layer Stack legend for Rigid-Flex PCB.    
#13365    Draftsman - Fixed bug where access violation has occurred when trying to create Draftsman document from the Default Fabrication Drawing template with Rigid-Flex on PCB.    
#12409    Draftsman - Fixed bug where new document's "Modified Status" remains unchanged after placing any objects (BC:6781).    
#12325    Draftsman - Fixed bug where only the pad that is inside the custom pad generates Solder Mask/Paste Mask.    
#12583    Draftsman - Fixed bug where PCB was not shown in board assembly front view.    
#12320    Draftsman - Fixed bug where solder mask expansion is absent for Vias on Fab view (BC:6697).    
#12303    Draftsman - Fixed crash on complex 3D designs while placing assembly view.    
#12118    Draftsman - Fixed massive memory leak during switching between Draftsman and PC (BC:6633).    
#10295    Fixed - All Suppliers now connect correctly when there is a proxy server in use.    
#13364    Fixed - bug where board fabrication view goes black after Update from PCB.    
#12888    Fixed - bug where special string in quotes are not interpreted in output for a particular designs.    
#13326    Fixed - regression bug where some tracks disappeared after routing (BC:6843).    
#12760    Importers - Fixed bug in Allegro Importer where pads of rotated components have pad-shaped regions added.    
#12959    Importers - Fixed bug in Allegro Importer where board shapes are defined incorrectly.    
#13181    Importers - Fixed bug in xDx Designer Importer where pins are missing after the library import.    
#12703    Importers - Fixed bug where pads of bottom components appear on top layer after the import from Eagle file in 16.1.8.    
#13024    Restored - column Average Length for Differential pairs in PCB panel.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Altium Designer 16.1.11 (20 July 2016)

Altium Designer 16.1 is now available for download. You can install version 16.1.11 (build 255) from the Download section of the site and update system in Altium Designer (DXP >> Extensions and Updates).

This update dedicated to an unpleasant  bug with arc duplication during routing. Besides that, it includes support for the latest version of the SOLIDWORKS format that might help with the performance of the big BGA STEP models.

Please note than Clean installation is required if your current version of Altium Designer is 16.0 or below.

Release Notes

#11409    Added support for the SOLIDWORKS 2016 parasolid file format.
#12701    Fixed a critical issue in the PCB Editor where arcs were being multiplied during interactive routing, or track modification (BC:6843).
#12625    Fixed an issue in the PCB Editor where the 3D Lock option was not being taken into account properly for rigid flex designs.
#12708    Fixed an issue of duplicated leasing of on-demand licenses, which was otherwise possible when the software startup time took more than 20 seconds.
#12525    Fixed an issue where 3D Body Height Rule checking was not considering the real height of a STEP model.
#12628    Fixed an issue where pads of components - with Alternate Parts in a defined Variant - were being incorrectly displayed in Draft mode on the generated assembly drawing.
#12522    Fixed an issue where special strings in footprints were not being correctly displayed as converted, after generating a footprint comparison report.
#11988    Fixed an issue where special symbols - in the User Name or PC Name - were causing a constant exception during PCB Collaboration (after connecting to an Altium Vault and opening a PCB file).
#12513    Fixed an issue with the incorrect rotation of the QFN and PQFN STEP models in the IPC Wizard (BC:6692).

 

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Draftsman 1.0.0.114 Update (23 May 2016)

We would like to announce the maintenance update of Draftsman. You can get  new version of Draftsman 1.0.0.114 via the Altium Designer update system (DXP > Extensions and Updates).​

Release Notes

#12120    Draftsman - Fixed issue where Altium Designer crashed if font missing from the computer (BC:6636).
#12053    Draftsman - Placing parameters into text boxes will apply after choice parameter from the list.
#12119    Draftsman - Fixed issue where typing caps insert the new line (BC:6634).
#12107    Draftsman - Was added an option for replacement header to Top/Bottom for BOM table.
#12143    Draftsman - Fixed bug with the wrong order of component display in Section View.
#12149    Draftsman - Fixed issue where dimension line overlapped dimension text.
#12186    Draftsman - Fixed issue where panning with RMB clear selection.
#12188    Draftsman - Added display of document statuses (like Unsaved) in document tabs and Project panel.

Monday, May 16, 2016

Version 16.1.8

Version 16.1.8

Build: 203 Date: 16 May 2016 

11935

Fixed a bug in which polygon pours with the same-net clearances had violations with the via.

12049

Draftsman - Added support letter for Drill Symbols representation was added.

11938

Draftsman - Added support Mechanical Layers as geometry source in Assembly Drawings.

11945

Fixed crash while generation IDF output via PCB Release (caused by the new file added to the project).

11968

Fixed error while loading pcb files, that contain more than 64kb per section (in rare cases caused by big number of xSignals).

11918

Fixed issue when both alternative parts was presented in Assembly Drawing. Now Assembly Drawing contains only one part from current variant if component has alternatives for different variants.

11980

Fixed issue when was not possible to drag track ends on Mechanical layers (BC:6531).

12048

Fixed issue when was not possible to place Assembly view if PCB has components with empty Designator (Draftsman).

11981

Fixed issue with random crashes of Altium Designer during updating (Extension Manager crash).

11942

Fixed regression​ issue with parameter list performance, when defining "Visibility on Add" property for the Vault folder.

11951

Restored the order of print for layers and not-fitted graphics as in Altium Designer 16.0.6.

 

Friday, May 13, 2016

PDN Analyzer powered by CST® version 1.0.0.43 now available

PDN Analyzer powered by CST® version 1.0.0.43 Release Notes

 

(Previously released version 1.0.0.42)
Jeff Loyer
5/13/16
 
Altium has updated the PDN Analyzer extension to resolve an existing issue with designs which have spaces in their component names.  In previous versions of PDN Analyzer, component names with spaces would cause the simulation to fail with the following (or similar) error messages:
[Error]    Flex_6946.PcbDoc    PDN Analyzer    solver stopped due to exception:
[Error]    Flex_6946.PcbDoc    PDN Analyzer    Traceback (most recent call last):
[Error]    Flex_6946.PcbDoc    PDN Analyzer      File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
[Error]    Flex_6946.PcbDoc    PDN Analyzer      File "altium_plugin\pidc.py", line 507, in create_plb_file
[Error]    Flex_6946.PcbDoc    PDN Analyzer      File "altium_plugin\pidc.py", line 494, in create_ICs
[Error]    Flex_6946.PcbDoc    PDN Analyzer      File "altium_plugin\pidc.py", line 360, in __init__
[Error]    Flex_6946.PcbDoc    PDN Analyzer    AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'n_pins'

The current version (1.0.0.43) resolves the problem, simulations will complete successfully if net names have spaces in them.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

PDN Analyzer powered by CST® version 1.0.0.42 available

PDN Analyzer powered by CST® version 1.0.0.42 Release Notes
(Previously released version 1.0.0.37)
Jeff Loyer
5/11/16
 
Altium has updated the PDN Analyzer extension to resolve existing issues and preclude analysis with invalid setup parameters.   Altium's PDN Analyzer is working to eliminate the possibility of initiating a simulation only to find it was invalid due to an erroneous setup parameter. Below is a list of the issues addressed and changes made to the current release of the extension.
 

  1. Check that load has non-zero amperage: entering 0A as a current sink isn't allowed.
  2. Ensure valid stackup before enabling simulation: checks stackup parameters and disables simulation if any are not valid:
  • Invalid dielectric constant (<1)
  • 0 thickness for dielectric or conductor
  1. Ensure a maximum of 2 nets in the path between the source and load power nets.  If there are more than 2 nets between the source and load power nets, the user will be asked "Many nets between source and loads, proceed with simulation?" (Yes, No).  This warns the user that they may have built an erroneous path (see Source to Load path section in the PDN Analyzer Guide).
  2. Collect data on errors: if the user has agreed to participate in the Altium Product Improvement Program, collect the following data:
  • If simulation run was successful or not
  • Error codes and messages
  • Net count in the path, load count, source count, ODB file size, ODB++ generation time, and simulation run server time.
  1. Need to print cause of any red !'s, tell user what failed. If a red exclamation mark is shown, we will print the failure in the messages dialogue:
  • "Error: Source <U#> exceeded max allowed PWR supply DC current magnitude. Allowed: x.xxxA, Actual: x.xxxA"
  • "Error: Source <U#> exceeded max allowed PWR pin current magnitude. Allowed: x.xxxA, Actual: x.xxxA"
  • "Error: Source <U#> exceeded max allowed GND pin current magnitude. Allowed: x.xxxA, Actual: x.xxxA"
  • "Error: Load <U#> did not meet minimum required DC Voltage magnitude. Minimum: x.xxxV, Actual: x.xxxV"
  1. Difference in current densities reported as maximum (from auto-scale) and when probed.  Auto-scaling showed maximum current density as 1.2GA/m^2, but when probing the largest current density observed was 0.2GA/m^2.  Reading the .json file verified that there were current 1.2GA/m^2 densities.  Software has been fixed – now probing agrees w/ that reported by auto-scaling.
  2. PDN Analyzer was not interpreting strings correctly: converting the string "0Rab", if a is zero, the zero is discarded.  This was fixed.

Older pcbdoc's don't have SimulationDummy.PcbDoc.htm file, so simulation fails. This was fixed.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Altium Designer 16.1 version 16.1.7 (build 188)

Altium Designer 16.1 version 16.1.7 (build 188). This release is all about putting the power of productivity back into your design workflow. Here’s what’s inside:

Draftsman™

Your complete documentation workflow is now available exclusively in Altium Designer. Easily communicate design intent right the first time without ever leaving your design workspace. View more details about Draftsman™ here.

Precise 3D Measurements

Precisely measure your board layout in Native 3D and clearly communicate design intent to manufacturing right the first time. View more details about 3D measurement here.

Design Environment Enhancements

Stay at your most efficient in your design process with a variety of UI optimizations and stability enhancements including over 70 bug fixes.

You can read about all of the new features and enhancements for this release in the Altium Designer 16.1 Release Notes.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Altium Designer 16.0. Version 16.0.9 (build 368) is now available

Altium Designer 16.0. Version 16.0.9 (build 368) is now available on Download section of the site and update system in Altium Designer (DXP>>Extensions and Updates).
 

Release Notes

#8665    Fixed bug with incorrect displaying non-fitted components in Assembly Drawing (BC:6424)
#9604    Fixed issue when incorrect Designators used in BOM for replaced components in multichannel project in Variants
#10237    Restored previous (15.1) behavior of same net clearance check validation for Via-Pad and Via-Via combinations (BC:6321)
#10602    Fixed an issue when size of the multi-line text string was changed during footprint release to Vault
#10680    Fixed an issue when STEP model changes to the extruded 3D Body after model file replacement (BC:6310)
#10974    Fixed bug with Part Request list display in Vault Explorer, after request creation via web UI
#11118    Fixed bug when Altium Designer freezes after creating or adding a BomDoc to the project that contains component with modified grouping parameters
#11385    Vault component template in folder properties is no longer erased after new revision of the template is created
#11557    Fixed critical issue with missing polygons during Gerber generation of the board with embedded arrays

Friday, April 8, 2016

Altium Designer 16.1, a major update scheduled to be released on May 2

Altium is scheduled to release a new documentation workflow available exclusively in their flagship PCB design platform, Altium Designer 16.1. Draftsman™ provides PCB designers with a unified documentation solution with customizable drawing views, documentation templates, and a fully complete design to documentation workflow in Altium Designer 16.1. 

“Engineers have long relied on tools for documentation that are cumbersome and limited in functionality,” said Alexey Sabunin, Altium Designer Product Manager. “Draftsman™ eliminates the tedium of having to import and export design files to 3rd party tools and integrates the PCB design and documentation workflows in the Altium Designer interface. That’s one less interface for engineers to have to navigate and one centralized location for all PCB design and documentation data.”

Streamlining Documentation Workflows

Documentation is a critical element of every post-design process, and designers frequently struggle with limited, 3rd-party documentation tools that lack a connection to their original design. Draftsman™ links directly to a designer’s PCB data, making it easy to create and update assembly documentation directly within a design workspace without ever having to import or export files between third party solutions. With Draftsman™, PCB designers can: 

  • Avoid third-party tools - Create and update assembly documentation without having to waste time importing and exporting design files among multiple tools.
  • Communicate better - Quickly communicate design intent to manufacturing with easy-to-use design markup and drawing object tools.
  • Define their details - Provide detailed perspectives on design intent with flexible board views with expressive call-outs.

All of these features and more are available directly within a PCB designer’s workspace in the unified environment of Altium Designer 16.1. With a fully unified solution for both design and documentation, engineers can stay efficient without having to add another software package and interface to their existing electronics design workflow.

Availability Details

Draftsman is one of the several new features in Altium Designer 16.1, a major update to the company’s flagship PCB design tool. Altium Designer 16.1 is scheduled to be released on May 2, and designers can register now for a free webinar and learn more about Draftsman by clicking here. Altium will also be in attendance at the annual Embedded Systems Conference in Boston at booth 865 to show off all the new improvements being added to Altium Designer 16.1.

 

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Altium Bugs And Things To Watch Out For

Altium Bugs And Things To Watch Out For

Contents

1.        Overview

2.        Custom Soldermask Expansions

3.        Please Wait A Moment

4.        Closing Altium When It Crashes

5.        Vias Disappearing While Routing Tracks

6.        Almost Full-Circle Arcs Disappearing At Certain Zoom Levels On Schematics

7.        Copy/Pasting Images Into Altium

8.        Holes/Vias In Step Files

9.        Variants With Multi-part Components

10.      Removing Soldermask From Pads

11.      Searching Altium Libraries

12.       Timestamping Output Files

13.      Scripting Will Remove The Ability To Undo

14.      Polygon Clearance Rule Not Working

15.      Clearance Rules On The Keep-out Layer Are Not Working Properly With Polygons

16.      Altium And It's Geometrical Limitations

17.      Printing Scaled Altium Documents

18.      Altium Detecting Acute Angles Inside Pads

19.      Layer Stack-Up Manager Calculating Wrong Height

20.      Combo Boxes In Script Form Forgetting Their Items

21.      Screen Artifacts

22.      Clearing Cells In Parameter Manger Takes Ages

23.      Undo/Redo Issues When Editing Component Primitives On PCB

24.      PCB Objects Going Out Side Of The Editor Boundary

25.      Schematic Parameters Un-removable After Script Modifications

26.      No Multi-line PCB Strings

27.      Split-planes Don't Avoid On-Layer Keep-Out Objects

28.      Issues With Vaults

1.        There Is No Option To Set Default Parameters

2.        The Personal Vault Looses Track Of Who Is Logged In

3.        No Way To Re-arrange Groups In Component Libraries

29.      A Component Cannot Have Sub-Components

30.      Altium Does Not Support Co-Planar Waveguides

31.      Keep-out Regions On Split-Plane Layers Do Not Work As Expected

32.      Hidden Pins On Schematics Can't Be Attached To Visible Pins

33.      Table: Field name Missing Error On BOM Open

34.      PCB Editor Can't Handle Unicode Characters In Component Descriptions

35.      BomDoc Gets Modified When You Don't Want It To

Overview

There's no denying Altium has it's quirks. If you are getting annoyed with one of Altium's bugs, submit it to BugCrunch, their bug tracking and fixing sub-site (you can vote on what you want fixed first). Here a some of the things you should keep an eye out for…

Sigh. Altium.

Custom Soldermask Expansions

Custom soldermask expansions added to tracks on a PCB file won't carry across when you go and panelize (an embedded board array) it. They way to get around this (albeit slightly annoying) is to use polygon's instead of tracks, the soldermask expansions carry across for these.

Please Wait A Moment

Applicable Versions: 14, 15, 16

Altium crashing with a 'Information' title box that says 'Please wait a moment', and a forever scrolling progress bar. At the point, save as much work as possible (you can still operate some commands at this point), and quit.

The annoying "Please Wait A Moment" dialogue box that appears sometime while using Altium.

The error you sometimes get after the "Please Wait A Moment" box.

An access violation error message which can occur when using Altium.

UPDATE: As of Altium v14.0, running on a Windows 8 machine, I have noticed far fewer of these errors!

Ohhhh look, I was lucky enough to get two at once!

Closing Altium When It Crashes

The easiest way to close Altium when it crashes it to hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, bring up the task manager, go to the processes tab, and close DXP.exe. This is plenty faster than closing the program Altium.exe from the same task manager (almost instant, rather than 30+ seconds).

Quickly closing Altium when it crashes.

Vias Disappearing While Routing Tracks

UPDATE, March 2016: This does seem to occur anymore with at least either AD15 or AD16.

Vias disappearing when you route tracks to them. This is a weird one which has been around for a while. It only happens in certain situations…

Almost Full-Circle Arcs Disappearing At Certain Zoom Levels On Schematics

If you draw an arc with the intention of drawing a full-circle but don't close it completely, you may notice that it will disappear at certain zoom levels (or just disappear entirely). This seems to happen when the start and end angle of the arc are very closer together (for example start angle = 0, end angle = 359.9). A way to fix is to edit the properties of the arc and make the start and angle the same.

Altium will make arcs disappear on certain zoom levels if the arc is almost fully circular.

Copy/Pasting Images Into Altium

You can put images into Altium schematics, but don't do it via the copy-paste way from a program that has an unsaved image (like Snip). In my experience, this causes Altium to crash with the infamous "Please Wait A Moment…" message.

Holes/Vias In Step Files

UPDATE, March 2016: This does not seem to be happening anymore with AD15 or AD15.

Altium decides whether or not it wants to export holes/vias in step files. Upon importing these step files into a 3D CAD program, more often than not you will find that some of the holes have been covered (or partially covered) up by a very thin solid on the top and/or bottom. I have tried removing copper, silkscreen, soldermask and solderpaste layers to see if these were causing the trouble, but have had no luck in finding out why Altium does this. It is very annoying when it doesn't create the mounting holes, and you can't check that the PCB will work with the rest of the mechanical design (which is normally one of the reasons why you'd be exporting a 3D model).

Hole in PCB.

Hole covered over in step file output.

Variants With Multi-part Components

Multi-part components do not work well with schematic and PCB 'variants'. The multi-part components do not become 'not fitted', even when selected to do so, and will still appear on both the BOM and 3D views of the PCB.

Removing Soldermask From Pads

To remove soldermask/solder paste from pads, the only way to do it is to go into the pads properties (double-click it), and then change the "Soldermask Expansions" (or Paste Mask…) option from "Expansion value from rules" to "Specify expansion value". Then you have to set it to a negative value large enough the it will shrink it away to nothing (e.g. larger than than the radius of the hole/via itself). I normally just enter -99mm or something along those lines…

How to remove a solder or paste mask completely from a pad/via.

Searching Altium Libraries

When searching through a library, Altium will only search from the first letter of the component name or the description. This normally makes you search turn up blank. To make Altium search anywhere in those fields, add the asterisk character before the word (e.g. *reg rather than reg).

Searching an Altium component library without an asterisk.Searching an Alitum component library with an asterisk.

 Timestamping Output Files

Timestamping output files is a good idea of keeping track of releases intended for pcb manufacturer's/assemblers (as well as version numbers). Timestamping can be added to the automatic file generation by selecting the option under the advanced tab of the "Output Container" properties window. However, Altium follows your system clock format when creating this timestamp, so it will likely be in a dd-mm-yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy format, which when sorted alphanumerically, does not sort in chronological order. To fix this, change your system time to the yyyy-mm-dd format.

Scripting Will Remove The Ability To Undo

Using scripts to add objects to a PCB can remove the ability to undo in any PCB during the current Altium session. This may have something to do with not calling specific undo functions from the script after the object has been added and it getting confused from that point onwards…

Polygon Clearance Rule Not Working

When setting the clearance rule in Altium. make sure that when you set the 'First Object Matches' query, you use the term 'InPolygon' rather than 'IsPolygon'. This is because Altium treats all the copper which you wish to apply the clearance rule to in the polygon as an object which is 'in' the polygon object. See the example in the picture below.

The "Polygon Clearance" rule in Alitum. Make sure you use "InPolygon" and not "IsPolygon".

Clearance Rules On The Keep-out Layer Are Not Working Properly With Polygons

If you are finding that when you draw polygons that Altium is not staying the correct distance away from zones you draw on the keep-out layer, you are probably caught by one of Altium's 'gotchas'. When deciding the clearance between a track on the keep-out layer and any polygon (or any other object for that matter), it calculated from the EDGE of the track, not the centre. When you think about it, this makes sense, since this is the behaviour you would expect if drawing solid objects on the keep-out layer as fills. However, it can be quite annoying when using tracks.

What I do to workaround this is to make the width of any tracks on the keep-out layer small in relation to the clearance you need (e.g. track width = 0.01mm). This way, the track width makes an insignificant change to the actual clearance. The picture below shows part of a PCB board along with thin-width tracks on the keep-out layer to set clearances properly. Note that the keep-out layer clearance is set to 0.5mm (a good value to keep things away from the edge of the board), while the track width is only 0.01mm resulting in an actual clearance of 0.5005mm (clearance + half the track width).

Changing the keepout layer track size.

Altium And It's Geometrical Limitations

Altium works with straight lines and circular arcs. There is no provision for higher-order shapes such as polynomials or splines. A let-down is that rooms cannot be defined with arc segments, only lines. The board shape can be defined from both (by using the "Define board from selected primitives" option.

Printing Scaled Altium Documents

In my experience, a 'scaled' Altium Document printed on a standard laser printer has a decent amount of measurement error, and cannot be relied on for things such a mechanical checking or PCB prints and defintely not for etching. This is likely not to be a bug in Altium but the printer's fault (well, even then, it's not really the printers fault, a standard laser was probably never designed to be able to print accurate drawings).

Selecting "Scaled Print" to print a 1:1 drawing of the PCB. Good for component footprint checking!

Altium Detecting Acute Angles Inside Pads

Altium will give you warnings about acute angles when the tracks are inside pads (and therefore don't actually get drawn). This normally occurs in the central pad of SMD IC packages (such as QFN). The solution to this finish tracks just as they enter pads rather then letting them snap to the centre of the pad. To do this, hold down CTRL while routing the track, this will stop it from snapping to the centre.

Altium has a bug where it reports acute angle rule violations of tracks that are under pads.

Layer Stack-Up Manager Calculating Wrong Height

The layer stack manager seems to incorrectly calculate the stack-up height by 1um (O.K., it's not that important, but still…). See the screen shot below for an example. All the copper thicknesses are 35um. It should total to 0.800mm, but Altium incorrectly reports it as 0.8001mm.

The stack-up manager in Altium reporting the wrong height.

Combo Boxes In Script Form Forgetting Their Items

The combo boxes in the script form designer forget their items if you set them using the GUI, save, and then restart. The way to get around this is to add the items at run time in the code itself (using the function comboBox.AddItem).

Altium forgets any items you assigned to a combo box through GUI after saving and restarting.

Screen Artifacts

Every so often small screen artifacts can appear. These are defintely one of the more tolerable Altium bugs. To fix, usually you have restart Altium, as refreshing the window or minimising/maximising does not remove them. The artifacts are usually sections of the 'Projects' menu on the left-hand side of the screen.

A screen artifact/glitch in Altium.

Clearing Cells In Parameter Manger Takes Ages

When clearing a large number of cells (>20) in the Parameter Manager , Altium can take plenty of time, stalling the program in the process (it looks as though Altium has locked up).

When clearing a large number of cells (>20) in the Parameter Manager , Altium can take plenty of time, stalling the program in the process (it looks as though Altium has locked up).

Undo/Redo Issues When Editing Component Primitives On PCB

When you unlock component primitives on a PCB and start editing them (say you want to edit the silkscreen of a component just for a specific PCB, and not edit the component library), you can get into weird problems in where the undo/redo functions will not work properly.

PCB Objects Going Out Side Of The Editor Boundary

When creating PCB footprints in Altium's PCB editor, you can sometimes accidentally places things outside of the editors boundary. This can happen for example by accidentally typing the wrong number in the Move by X, Y command, a buggy script, or hitting copy/paste at the wrong time.

Once this occurs, it can be ridiculously hard to delete this objects, because they cannot be selected (even with Select->Outside Rectangle). These objects then appear during the PCB design (you may not even realise they are there) at times when you want to zoom to fit, or creating PCB print outputs (in which everything will be zoomed out by way to much to accommodate these far-away objects).

Accidentally pushing objects outside of the PCB editor boundary can be a hassle to remove when designing a PCB in Altium.

Schematic Parameters Un-removable After Script Modifications

In certain cases, I have noticed that the schematic preferences become un-removable after they have been modified with a script.

This schematic parameter is un-removable!

No Multi-line PCB Strings

UPDATE, 2015-11: The Altium PCB editor now supports multi-line strings. Hurrah!

Altium does not have support for multi-line PCB strings. The work around is build up your multiline PCB string from many single line strings. This is time consuming, annoying, and seems like a waste of time.

In Altium, multi-line PCB strings have to be made from many single-line strings.

Split-planes Don't Avoid On-Layer Keep-Out Objects

The split-planes which Altium pours automatically do not ignore on-layer (i.e. on the split-plane layer itself) primitives which have been defined as "keepout" (e.g. a keepout region). This isn't such a bad thing, as knowing that it is a split-plane, you can just make the primitive non-keepout, and since split-planes are negative, it will avoid this object.

Issues With Vaults

I have used the personal vault and come across the following issues:

There Is No Option To Set Default Parameters

Remember when using schematic libraries ( .SchLib), and you were able to set "shown-by-default" component parameters which would be visible when using the component on a schematic? Well, they no longer exist (as of Jan 2014), and there is no option in the component libraries ( .CmpLib) to make any of those parameter you add shown by default. This means you have to manually go and make them visible for every component you add from the vault (e.g. resistance for resistors, capacitance and voltage for capacitors). This gets kinda annoying!

In the same vein, if you update a shcematic component with a new version from the vault via the "Properties for Schematic Component…" window, you lose all of the displayed parameters and have to tick them all over again.

The Personal Vault Looses Track Of Who Is Logged In

In the scenario where more than 3 people may access the vault (not all at the same time), I have had Altium lock me out because it believed 3 other users were currently using it, even though Altium was shutdown on their computers. The only fix I have found is to restart the server that the vault is running on.

No Way To Re-arrange Groups In Component Libraries

There is no way to re-arrange "Groups" in Component Libraries (.CmpLib). You can re-arrange components by clicking and dragging, but the groups are stuck in the same position as when you first created them. This can be annoying in the instance say, you created a component library for resistors, and you had a group called 0402, 0603 and 0805. Unless you create them in the correct order at the start, there is no way to re-arrange them from smallest to largest size in the future.

Also, the first group you create is always going to be the first group (due to the fact you cannot insert a new group above an old one, only below)!

UPDATE (2014-11-04): As of Altium Vault 2.0 (released in 2014), this is no longer an issue, as the "Group" concept in the vaults has been changed significantly.

A Component Cannot Have Sub-Components

Frequently when designing more complex boards you come across the desire to be able to create a component which creates multi-entries on the BOM. This could be thought of as a component having many sub-components. For example, if you have a particular arrangement of 2.54mm pitch header connectors which allows you to plug-in, say an Arduino, it would be nice to be able to group these all-together as a single component (i.e. an Arduino connector), yet when it comes to BOM creation, you want to be able to list the individual headers for purchase.

This would also mean that the entire component could be dragged around on both the schematic and PCB without the sub-components movings relative to each other.

Unfortunately, I do not know any feasible way of doing this (yet)! If anyone has any ideas, please let me know…

Altium Does Not Support Co-Planar Waveguides

Altium provides support for impedance-driven routing. However, in only calculates desired track widths for microstrips and striplines, and not co-planar waveguides (with or without ground).

Keep-out Regions On Split-Plane Layers Do Not Work As Expected

Keep-out regions on split-plane layers do not stop the split plane copper from being drawn over them! You have to use actual copper pours, and since the split-plane layers work as a negative, this will prevent actual copper from being poured in these areas.

Hidden Pins On Schematics Can't Be Attached To Visible Pins

On the surface, it seems like Altium gives you the option to hide pins on a schematic symbol and attach them to other, visible pins on the schematic symbol.

The "Pin Properties" window in the Altium schematic symbol library editor. The "Hide" and "Connect To" fields give the allusion you can hide a pin and connect it to another, visible pin.

This would be very useful for certain component/package combinations which use multiple pins for the same purpose. Such an example are MOSFET's in the SOIC-8N component package. The standard pinout for connecting the three MOSFET terminals to the 8-pin SOIC-8N package is source = pins 1 to 3, gate = pin 4, drain = pins 5 to 8.

The schematic symbol of a P-channel MOSFET in the Altium schematic symbol editor. The particualr MOSFET is in a SOIC-8N (8-pin) package, and I have attempted to hide the extra pins to keep the symbol looking clean.

The only solution is to ditch the "hide" ability altogether and stack the pins ontop of each other. One downside to this approach is that Altium will show a multiple connection dot on the schematics when you wire up to pins stacked ontop of each other. But then again, maybe this is not such a bad thing?

Table: Field name Missing Error On BOM Open

If you get the error "Table: Field name Missing" when opening, modifying, or saving a BOM (for me it occurs when using a .BomDoc), it is usually because your Altium project contains components which have parameters with no name.

A screenshot of the "Table: Field name Missing" error in Altium.

Parameters are allowed to have no value, but not no name. To fix this, delete all unnamed parameter in your project. The easiest way to do this is to load up the Parameter Manager and hunt down for parameter names up at the top of every column that are blank, and then delete them.

Hunting down unnamed parameters in the parameter manager to fix the "Table: Field name missing" bug in Altium.

PCB Editor Can't Handle Unicode Characters In Component Descriptions

Unicode characters (which are not ASCII), such as the Ohm symbol and the degree symbol, while supported by the schematic editor, component libraries and vault system, are not supported by the PCB editor.

Because of this, the PCB editor will continuously try and update component descriptions which contain Unicode characters on every "Update Changes From Schematics" command.

Altium's PCB editor can't handle Unicode characters such as the Ohm (Omega) and degree symbol. This image shows how Altium will continuously try and update components that contain these symbols.

This is unfortunate, as symbols like Ω  and     are great to use in component descriptions.

BomDoc Gets Modified When You Don't Want It To

Affected Versions: AD15, AD16

The .BomDoc file allows you to define the supplier of each PCB component. It is compatible with the Component libraries and the vault system.

The problem is that the .BomDoc file decides to reload in live supplier data at inconvenient times. This file modifications can clutter file change history (when Altium is used within a version control system such as Git or Mercurial).

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