Welcome to our site! EDAboard.com is an international Electronics Discussion Forum focused on EDA software, circuits, schematics, books, theory, papers, asic, pld, 8051, DSP, Network, RF, Analog Design, PCB, Service Manuals... and a whole lot more! To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.
Is there a method to autoroute a pcb into a Bottom layer with a top layer jumpers (i.e., Tracks on top layer are only straight lines with no angles, so they can be assembeled as wires) ?
No - there are no autorouters that will leave parallel jumper paths on the top layer for a single layer route.
Protel99SE and DXP will do single layer routing by setting the top (or bottom) layer to unused. However, there isn't any way to instruct a router to leave parallel jumpers on the unused layer.
The autorouter can be setup to route on one particular layer by defining a Routing Layer design rule with unused layers set to 'Not Used' and the routing layer set to 'Any' (or other suitable routing direction).
For example, to assign the bottom layer as the routing layer, use the following setup.
Top - Not Used
Bottom - Any
(By default a PCB will have Top and Bottom layers and this is why you need to set the Top layer to not used to avoid routing on that layer).
Impossible routes will be left for you to finish up manually by using jumpers - but they won't be parallel unless you manually make them that way.
For NT environment (Win2000/WinXp), Dxp is better. Basically Protel98/99/99Se are designed for Win95/98, if you install for NT system, then you need to change a lot of security setting for regular user to use without error. Also, all the users share the same setting files, it could be headache when some user changes program settings. Protel Dxp improves on this point. Under NT system, all the settings are put under individual user's profile folder, and that user has full control to these setting files. Hence there is no need for administrator to change system security settings and there is no conflict on the program prefernce settings among different users.
P99SE is a pretty stable product and you will only have an issue with large files sizes if you use the Access database file storage method and do not regularly compact the database.
If you use the windows file system method a single .ddb file is created and it is only usually a 1-2k file size overhead to the project.
As for DXP, well P99SE was what was created after the lemon known as P99. A lot of people do not realise that P99 and P99SE were actually quite different major releases.
DXP when released was in a WORSE state than P99 was so it is a bigger lemon.
DXP has great potenential but new users looking at DXP should be WELL WARNED to join the DXP user groups and forums and judge its suitability for themselves by browsing the archives. You can still trash a netlist even with sp3pr2, have a board trashed due to DRC bugs especially in power planes, and common jobs that take <10 secs in 99SE take 10x that in DXP so productivity goes down for the majority of simple everyday functions.
Fully funcytional, time restricted demos are downloadable for 99SE and DXP directly from the Protel web site, if you want a fair comparison then make a very simple circuit on paper as a test project, try to build it in 99SE making note of time and design process then do exactly the same excercise in DXP.
Really strange that Altium STILL sell and ACTIVELY promote/market P99SE sales as well as DXP at the same time. If DXP was all things to all people they would have dropped promoting and marketing 99SE as soon as DXP was on the shelfs.
Orcad capture might be a clumsy tool but it gets the job done and has done so for many years.
So best answer, as you can get access to both softwares for test directly for yourself.
The DXP is more powerful , and use it easy , but need the computer high performance , it not make any *.ddn files , the output file is small. But Protel 99se can't do this.
The DXP is more powerful , and use it easy , but need the computer high performance , it not make any *.ddn files , the output file is small. But Protel 99se can't do this.
Seems they spended more effort in writing some fancy features like 3D views and the like...
though interface looks nice...but in the end...you want to have your job done (o;
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
