On 10:07 AM 13/11/2001 -0800, Michael Elliott said: >Hi all, ><..snip..> >However, I do have the occasional small low-speed digital board I need to >do and was wondering if Protel ever offered any kind of supplemental >shape-based or more advanced type of router for PCB3. I know that they did >for 2.5 and 2.8, but can't find any mention of such in the online manuals >for PCB3. > >If they did, it might be useful to me. If anyone has a copy to sell (and if >it is within the terms of the Protel license agreement to do so), or knows >where I might buy one, please drop me a note at [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Best regards, > >Mike Elliott
Mike, They did offer Adv Route3. I bought it. It was not worth the price. The router did a reasonable job on some boards and a shocker on others. It had very poor copper sharing, so it would run a stringer from virtually every SM to gnd and a separate pad even if they were right next to each other. Then at other times it would run massive great power nets across the board even though it was a multi-layer board (with internal planes). These would block routing channels and it would choke. I found in one design that was moderately complex that it achieved good completion but required masses of manual clean-up to look any good at all and to allow a few changes. I have no idea whether I have already upgraded against this license (Protel would be able to tell me). If I have it is not for sale. If not I can upgrade to the a full current suite on this license. So the price for the router alone would be the discount between a full current version Protel and the upgrade price. This is quite a few thousand. You can do a fair bit of simple manual routing for that esp when you consider that you will have to spend a lot of time cleaning up anyway. You may find that some of the very cheap PCB packages have better routers these days, anyway, that could be integrated into your design flow. You may also find that someone with a copy of Specctra will run the job for you (for a price) - there are companies offering this service. This saves you the considerable learning curve and iteration I found necessary to get AdvRoute3 working. Or just lay them out manually. Ian Wilson * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
