Ken,
I had this problem myself a while back. Mechanical Layer 1-4 work fine, but 5-16 disappear when refreshed using View -> Refresh. When I was investigating this I had to flip though each layer using the + key to refresh the board, because view -> refresh was not setup correctly. The problem is that the layer drawing order does not contain the mechanical layers beyond layer 4. (When Protel increased to 16 mechancial layers they forgot to add them to the layer drawing order in the INI file). Check under TOOLS -> PREFERENCES -> DISPLAY -> LAYER DRAWING ORDER and see if all of your (mechanical) layers are listed there. I had to manually edit the ADVPCB99SE.INI file and change some of the LayerDrawingOrderxx=xx because there is no add button beacuse all of the layers SHOULD be listed. It represents the list of the layers in the board and the order they are to be drawn. Below is a copy of the layer drawing order from my modified INI file: LayerDrawingOrder0=76 LayerDrawingOrder1=33 LayerDrawingOrder2=74 LayerDrawingOrder3=34 LayerDrawingOrder4=75 LayerDrawingOrder5=0 LayerDrawingOrder6=1 LayerDrawingOrder7=2 LayerDrawingOrder8=3 LayerDrawingOrder9=4 LayerDrawingOrder10=5 LayerDrawingOrder11=6 LayerDrawingOrder12=7 LayerDrawingOrder13=8 LayerDrawingOrder14=9 LayerDrawingOrder15=10 LayerDrawingOrder16=11 LayerDrawingOrder17=12 LayerDrawingOrder18=13 LayerDrawingOrder19=14 LayerDrawingOrder20=15 LayerDrawingOrder21=32 LayerDrawingOrder22=35 LayerDrawingOrder23=36 LayerDrawingOrder24=37 LayerDrawingOrder25=38 LayerDrawingOrder26=39 LayerDrawingOrder27=40 LayerDrawingOrder28=41 LayerDrawingOrder29=42 LayerDrawingOrder30=55 LayerDrawingOrder31=56 LayerDrawingOrder32=57 LayerDrawingOrder33=58 LayerDrawingOrder34=59 LayerDrawingOrder35=60 LayerDrawingOrder36=73 LayerDrawingOrder37=79 LayerDrawingOrder38=61 LayerDrawingOrder39=62 LayerDrawingOrder40=63 LayerDrawingOrder41=64 LayerDrawingOrder42=65 LayerDrawingOrder43=66 LayerDrawingOrder44=67 LayerDrawingOrder45=68 LayerDrawingOrder46=69 LayerDrawingOrder47=70 LayerDrawingOrder48=71 LayerDrawingOrder49=72 LayerDrawingOrder50=76 LayerDrawingOrder51=76 LayerDrawingOrder52=76 LayerDrawingOrder53=76 LayerDrawingOrder54=76 LayerDrawingOrder55=76 LayerDrawingOrder56=76 LayerDrawingOrder57=76 LayerDrawingOrder58=76 LayerDrawingOrder59=76 LayerDrawingOrder60=76 LayerDrawingOrder61=76 LayerDrawingOrder62=76 LayerDrawingOrder63=76 LayerDrawingOrder64=76 LayerDrawingOrder65=76 LayerDrawingOrder66=76 LayerDrawingOrder67=76 LayerDrawingOrder68=76 LayerDrawingOrder69=76 LayerDrawingOrder70=76 LayerDrawingOrder71=76 LayerDrawingOrder72=76 LayerDrawingOrder73=76 LayerDrawingOrder74=76 LayerDrawingOrder75=76 LayerDrawingOrder76=76 LayerDrawingOrder77=76 LayerDrawingOrder78=76 LayerDrawingOrder79=76 LayerDrawingOrder80=76 LayerDrawingOrder81=76 LayerDrawingOrder82=76 The trouble should lie in LayerDrawingOrder number 38 to 49. Originally mine were equal to 76 (no layer?) I changed them to 61 to 72 (Mechanical Layers 5 to 16). I found that Layer 60 is Mechanical Layer 4, then it skipped to 73 (Drill Drawing Layer). I added 61 to 72 (Mechanical Layers 5 to 16) and all is well now. Good Luck. Anthony Whitesell Sunrise Labs -----Original Message----- From: Ken Henrich [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 3:56 PM To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] need help with Setup Mechanical Layers, please Bran, Abdulrahman, After reading your replies, some of my confusion has been dispelled. I agree with you that if the mechanical layer set-up is greyed out, that there are primitives on that layer. I only have two mechanical layers with nothing on them. These are indeed selectable. Back to my display problem. I have used the mechanical layers to create drawings. For instance, one layer is the drawing template, another is text with board specifications, others are titles with page numbers and so on. When I go into preview, I combine the layers that I need to generate the desired drawing. In preview, I have no problem getting the data to appear. However, in the PCB edit mode, I cannot get every layer to display at once. If I could, I would get everything that I have placed on every layer. I do have all mechanical layers visible in the mechanical layers setup dialog. In the design/options dialog I set use all layers. Now even though all the layers do not display, if I scan with the mouse, an area known to have a primitive I will see it pop up in the status display. I can then click the mouse and edit its properties normally. When I close the properties box, the primitive displays. When I hit view/refresh, it disappears. This board is a simple 2 layer board. Layers directly associated with the board always show. (top bottom, silkscreen ....) I'm using sp6 on a win2k box. Thanks for your help. Ken -----Original Message----- From: Brad Velander [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 2:46 PM To: 'Protel EDA Forum' Subject: Re: [PEDA] need help with Setup Mechanical Layers, please Ken, Abd-ulRahman, The description of the issue does not make a lot of sense to me. I note that if I have any primitives on a mechanical layer, the layer name in the mechanical layer set-up is greyed out. I have always interpreted this as the layer is in use and cannot be disabled. When a layer name is not greyed, then there are no primitives on that layer and it can be disabled or unchecked. Possibly Ken has mechanical layers color set to the same color as his background making them essential invisible? This would not let them be seen visually in the display but they would still be visible in a preview print. Other then this, I don't know! Sincerely, Brad Velander. Lead PCB Designer Norsat International Inc. Microwave Products Tel (604) 292-9089 (direct line) Fax (604) 292-9010 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.norsat.com See us at Booth 323 at Satellite 2002 in Washington, DC March 6-8. -----Original Message----- From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 9:08 AM To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] need help with Setup Mechanical Layers, please At 10:26 AM 2/13/2002 -0500, Ken Henrich wrote: >Hi, >When I open the Setup Mechanical Layers dialog box, many of the >"Mechanical xx" titles are greyed as is the associated checkbox which is >checked. Only two of these layers appear ungreyed and are displayable. All >of the other greyed layers cannot be viewed in the pcb view though they >can be used in a preview. > Weird. The checkbox is greyed if primitives exist. What version Protel? 99SE? SP6? The reported behavior is not normal for SP6. What is the setting for the mech layers involved in Design/Options/Layers? The reported behavior would occur if those layers were not enabled there, except for the greying of the title, so I suspect that Mr. Henrich may have erred about that, or he does not have SP6, or his installation is trashed and he needs a reinstall. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Abdulrahman Lomax Easthampton, Massachusetts USA * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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/proteledaforum@techservinc.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
