Cannot apply PCB decal to a symbol in PADs Decal Brower

[flypeyton]

I am quite new to Mentor tools. I chose DxDesigner to create the schematic instead of PADs Logic. But it seems the procedure to create a part in DxDesigner's flow. In the Symbol Editor, I called up PADS Decal Brower, chose one decal, and clicked "Apply to Symbol". But it seemed nothing happened to the symbol's properties as shown in the picture below. Should
the "PKG_TYPE" property change to the decal I chose?

Later I found out by typing in the decal name to the "PKG_TYPE", it worked. But this really looks ackward. View attachment 83920

 

[barry]

Welcome to the mystical world of Mentor tools.

I've never actually done it the way you are doing (I didn't even know that method existed-another manifestation of Mentor's dreadful documentation). Anyway, the DEVICE field in DxDesigner should be the PART TYPE in Pads; the PKG TYPE in DxDesigner should be the DECAL in Pads. Notice how Mentor makes this easy by using the same nomenclature in both tools? Oh, wait, they don't. Soon, you too, will lose the will to live.

And wait until you start dealing with heterogeneous parts...

 

[flypeyton]

Hi Barry,

Thanks for the answer. So how did you do it? Just input the Decal name to PKG_TYPE property's blank space? So the method is similar to Allegro's. In the layout tool, just prepare the decals in the right folder path. Correct?

I'm almost scared away by your mentioning of "heterogeneous parts". After this project, I'll evaluate whether to cease back to Cadence Allegro. Mentor offers PADS Logic + PADS Layout and DxDesigner + PADS Layout. The way of creating parts are quite different. They are really good at confusing beginners.

 

[barry]

I think some people love Mentor tools because they are extremely flexible, but with this flexibility comes a lot of (IMO) unnecessary details. There are definitely some good features, though.

To be honest, I'm STILL confused by a lot of this. Components have a NAME property and a DEVICE property and a PKG_TYPE property. The DEVICE property maps to the PART TYPE in Layout; PKG_TYPE maps to DECAL in Layout. I can't even remember whether it's NAME or DEVICE that gets used by the Parts Lister (BOM generator). And I can't figure out whether to display the NAME or the DEVICE on the schematic.

There are a number of user's groups out there, Mentor has one and there's one on Yahoo; these can be a big help.

As far as heterogeneous parts, there's plenty of documentation, and none of it makes sense. I was ultimately able to get it to work, but I'll be damned if I can tell you how to do it. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I don't think so. I suggest you take a whack at it and see if you can figure it out.

I will be beta-testing a new package that Mentor is bringing out that lies somewhere between Pads (somewhat expensive) and Expedition (really, really expensive). Their selling point is that it will be 'easy to learn' and 'easy to use'. We'll see.