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What is Altium Dashboard on new release winter09

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What is Altium Dashboard on new release "winter09"?
 

Re: Altium's Dashboard

It's an FPGA instumentation interface. See the PDF.
 

    J

    Johnson

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@ltium's Dashboard

Is this support restricted to specific Altium boards, or it is general? Can I develop a custome board with nanoboard interface and use this interface? If Yes, it is great progress!

Altium claim that it is free, but I can not find download link at Altium site!
 

Re: Altium's Dashboard

Here's what Altium says about the dashboard:

"The new instrument dashboard can be downloaded and installed on any PC, without having to run a full license of Altium Designer. The remote dashboard interacts with the instruments programmed inside the FPGA by the designer, so that users can now test or service the device, or look to add advanced services to the product once it's in the field."

It uses the soft devices JTAG chain.

As far as I know, they haven't made it available for download yet.
 

    J

    Johnson

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@ltium's Dashboard

Is new release of AD compatibile with Vista 64? I remember that previous version was not!
 

Re: Altium's Dashboard

The problem is Vista64, not Alium Designer. Altium software is 32bit. Vista64 runs 32bit programs in a shell that Microsoft calls WOW64. Some programs don't respond well in that environment.

Having said that, several folks are successfully running AD under Vista64. You ablity to do so depends heavily on your hardware and drivers.
 

    J

    Johnson

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@ltium's Dashboard

I was checking release notes to find out what is major change for designers. It looks that some change in routing, link to manufacturer data base, and dashboard are majors changes. Any opinion? They need to release software for bug fix or financial reasons, but main question for us, "Should I switch to new release?"
 

Re: Altium's Dashboard

It depends on how valuable the new features are to you. If via stacks, multiple track routing, 3D/MCAD interface, Cadstar PCB import, and manufacturing checks like net antennas, mask slivers, and silkscreen clearances, are important to you - it's worth the upgrade. If none of those things are important, then sit it out until Summer 09 comes out.
 

    J

    Johnson

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@ltium's Dashboard

In addition to import, sometimes we need exporting! Suppose that for any reason we want to do the routing in Allegro, or PADS. How we can do it?

Another issue with AD is versioning and version control. Last time that I tried it, it was not real version controlling. Do you have any experience?

As a direct result of that issue, team working is not implemented in AD. Indeed AD is improving by reusable blocks, but it is still single engineer tool!

However it is my favorite PCB design tool, and I hope it will improve and cover very important issue like signal integrity as well as the above issue.
 

@ltium's Dashboard

Last time (AD summer 08) I tried to use 3D, but it was really slow. But now with same GC it is smooth and fast. Looks that they are doing well in this issue.

- I was looking for possibility of controlling 3D view per component. I mean how we can let one component to be viewed while other one not. Possible use of this feature is when you want to place one small components(line res and caps) under other big and tall components like LCDs.
 

Re: Altium's Dashboard

From the PCB Panel, you can turn off components in the 3D view. Set the PCB Panel to 3D Models. All you need do is click on the blue cone in the right column of the panel.
 

    J

    Johnson

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Re: @ltium's Dashboard

Yes, thanks I got it. By disabling 3D view DRC rules are still active, yes?

Regarding dashboard, I suggest that as a next step programmers will ask for avaliable functions and maybe dll to use dashboard instruments in their own software, is anything avaliable now?

In demo boards of AD and on silkscreen layer a box containing 4-digit in Crystal Font appeared, it is for putting year or somthing like that. It is 8888 now! I was wondering how we can control it or change it?

Last question, is TTF font and barcode on PCB accetable for manufacturers?

Added after 2 minutes:

Would you take a look at these questions, thanks in advance.

Johnson said:
In addition to import, sometimes we need exporting! Suppose that for any reason we want to do the routing in Allegro, or PADS. How we can do it?

Another issue with AD is versioning and version control. Last time that I tried it, it was not real version controlling. Do you have any experience?

As a direct result of that issue, team working is not implemented in AD. Indeed AD is improving by reusable blocks, but it is still single engineer tool!

However it is my favorite PCB design tool, and I hope it will improve and cover very important issue like signal integrity as well as the above issue.
Click to expand...
 

Re: @ltium's Dashboard

Yes.. DRC is still available even when 3D bodies are hidden.

I don't know if user tools can be used to change the dashboard instruments - they're intended to be programmed into the FPGA from W09.

Tell me what demo board you mean - I don't know what Crystal Font object you are talking about.

TTF and barcode have been available in AD since version 6.3. Nobody has complained about them. Manufacturers seem to find them useful.

AD doesn't export to any other PCB formats. If you want to do a layout in Allegro, or PADS you have to use their import tools to import the AD documents. None of the EDA software exports file formats to a competitors product. You can export netlists to other formats, and you can export to Orcad Capture, Specctra Design files, and PCAD from AD, but you can't export PCB files to Allegro or PADS.

There is extensive version control support in AD/W09. It links to CVS and SVN. Read the tutorial "TU0114 Working with a Version Control System.pdf".
 

    J

    Johnson

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Re: @ltium's Dashboard

House_Cat said:
Tell me what demo board you mean - I don't know what Crystal Font object you are talking about.
Click to expand...

In ...\Examples\Reference Designs\NanoBoard-NB2DSK-SPK01, at x, y=1500, 700 on bottom silkscreen. above the "Manufactring Date" string.
 

Re: Altium's Dashboard

That particular block is an import from a Gerber file or a graphic - it consists of 991 line segments, and cannot be edited on the PCB. It is a simple cut and paste.

If you look up and to the right a bit, you'll see another inverted text box that says "MINUS". If you use that string technique, you can edit the text. Double click on it to see how it's done. You specify "Inverted Text", and select any font you wish.
 

    J

    Johnson

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@ltium's Dashboard

How to convert image file to PCB element?

Looking at top left of NB2DSK PCB, there are two type of mounting hole:
- The reason of putting via around hole is EMC/EMI related issue or just mechanical?
- How we can manage it, as a single library component or other way?
- Do we need to take special care for planes around mounting holes?
 

Re: Altium's Dashboard

You'll need to be more specific about "How to convert image to PCB element" - what kind of image do you want to make into a PCB component?

The ring around the mounting hole is a layer specific keepout - it is not copper. Notice the pink outline around it. That means it won't show up in the Gerber output. It's only there to keep out tracks, and polygons on the top layer. There's another keepout ring on the bottom layer for the same purpose on that layer.

You can make a mounting hole as a library component, or you can just place a pad with an annulus smaller than the hole as a free object on the PCB.

The anti-pad on the plane is set with a Plane Clearance Design Rule for anti-pad size based on the hole size, the component the hole is in, etc. For mounting holes going through a plane, you have to take into consideration possible voltage creep, mechanical wear, and ESD.
 

    J

    Johnson

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@ltium's Dashboard

Company logo in bitmap, for example! I suggest that it does not matter which image, does it?
 

Re: Altium's Dashboard

To convert a BMP file to a PCB image, you would use the script in the Examples folder "... \Altium Designer Winter 09\Examples\Scripts\Delphiscript Scripts\Pcb\PCB Logo Creator".

You can also copy a BMP or WMF image to the windows clipboard and paste it into a PCB as a union that can be resized.
 

    J

    Johnson

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@ltium's Dashboard

It looks that those scripts are useful, I was thinking that those are just programming examples. Is there any document or list regarding those scripts?

Do you have any news about availibility of dashboard?
 

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