Re: [PEDA] Antwort: Antwort: Autorouter
Steve, same here. Even medium designs won't route and end up with an unable to initialise. Does anyone know a reason and workaround for this effect? Regards, Gisbert Auge N.A.T. GmbH Steve Wiseman steve@steves-houAn: Protel EDA Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] se.org.uk Kopie: Gesendet von:Thema: Re: [PEDA] Antwort: Autorouter Steve Wiseman,SJC,57852 4 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 16.11.2001 19:44 Bitte antworten an Protel EDA Forum On Fri, 16 Nov 2001, Tim Fifield wrote: Ivan, I'm also interested in what button you push. Same here. I've got Specctra, so I don't care so much about the ARs inability, but I've just convinced a customer of mine to buy Protel so they can do their own maintenance of the board I've just done for them - it doesn't require Specctra, but to hand-route it would be very very dull. I suspect I'll need to know answers pretty soon. (My experiences with the autorouter normally end up with an unable to initialise, or a design where the router seems to paint itself into a complete no-hope situation, and gives up / stops trying. All very depressing). Specctra, of course, may not be available as a standalone product - I have little love for Cadence. Steve * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Antwort: Protel usage
Hi, my use of Protel is - Schematic yes - PCB yes - Powerprint no - CAM Manager yes - Simulator no - Autorouter seldom - 3D Viewer no - PLD no - Arrange Components no - Autoplacer no, much worse than AR - PCB Miter no - Signal Integrity no - Database Linkno Regards, Gisbert Auge N.A.T. GmbH * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Autorouter
The new router coming, we are told, might be a more serious competitor to Specctra. If this is true, then the price increases Protel might be well worth it. Even if the router was not as good as Specctra but was substantially better than the current router, it might still be worth it. So we are waiting It's slightly off topic, but why have Specctra withdrawn all their OEM licenses. Last time I contacted them they went to great lengths to tell me that I wouldn't be able to get it from any other source but them. Has the thought of a good autorouter from Altium rattled them. Have they seen what's coming? Doug _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Autorouter
On 10:30 PM 18/11/2001 -1100, Douglas McDonald said: The new router coming, we are told, might be a more serious competitor to Specctra. If this is true, then the price increases Protel might be well worth it. Even if the router was not as good as Specctra but was substantially better than the current router, it might still be worth it. So we are waiting It's slightly off topic, but why have Specctra withdrawn all their OEM licenses. Last time I contacted them they went to great lengths to tell me that I wouldn't be able to get it from any other source but them. Has the thought of a good autorouter from Altium rattled them. Have they seen what's coming? Doug I would doubt that Spectra (Cadence) would see a discussed, hoped-for, never-seen, alluded-to, vapour-ware router from a company with a less than glittering reputation for V1.0 releases as an input to a business decision matrix. My feeling is that Protel is pretty much disregarded as a serious competitor by the big names in the US. This can be an advantage if your competitors disregard you but their clients don't, of course. PCAD has some visibility but does Protel? Ian * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
- Schematic - PCB - Powerprint - CAM Manager - Autorouter - CamTastic (if it counts as part of Protel...) Regards Andy Gulliver -Original Message- From: Edi Im Hof [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 16 November 2001 18:17 To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: [PEDA] Protel usage Hi all Regarding the questions about 3D and autorouter, what parts of Protel do you actually use? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Antwort: Using 3D
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
I'm using : - Schematicyes - PCB yes - Powerprint yes - printing my prototypes onto a transparent - CAM Manager yes - Simulatorno - never tried - Autorouter no - toy stuff - 3D Viewerno - never tried - PLD no - doesn't support Altera Max Acex - Arrange Components no - never tried - Autoplacer no - toy stuff - PCB Miterno - what is this ? - Signal Integrity yes - Database Linkno - what is this, I'm using the file system Rene Edi Im Hof wrote: Hi all Regarding the questions about 3D and autorouter, what parts of Protel do you actually use? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] dual-sided connector footprint ??
thanks to all who posted on this. when i had tried this before, i had set up multiple pads on the top and then tried to group move them to the bottom. i'm sure there is a way to do this, but with a minimum of messing with it, i couldn't get it to work. HOWEVER, i found that individually i could easily move each pad to the bottom and i believe i've got my connector footprint made. thanks again, miker -Original Message- From: Jon Elson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 4:50 PM To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] dual-sided connector footprint ?? Robison Michael R CNIN wrote: hello, i just finished a board that had an connector with little smt-type feet, some that contacted with the top, some that contacted with the bottom of the board. i played with getting a footprint with top and bottom pads, but it didn't seem to want to cooperate, so i ended up hacking it and splitting the connector into two separate connectors in the schematic and assigning separate footprints to them and merely displacing the bottom one to the bottom side on the pcb itself. i've now got another board to do with the same type of connector, only smaller, and i'd like to footprint the thing properly so that it is only one connector and has top and bottom surface pads. is this possible? could someone give me a hint on how to do it. I'd look in the library for card edge connectors. These have essentially the same sort of pad layout as you are talking about. See how those are done. The one problem is that these don't really have a physical presence on the board, but the pads are there. Side of the board doesn't make as much sense as for a physical component, bu it will swap the even and odd pads if you flip the part. Jon * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
SNIP A LOT Michael, First lets get something straight, I take offence at your questioning my competence with Protel, I've been using it for a very long time and am familiar with all of its usual weird behaviours (even though they are still unacceptable) The only reason we are using it at all, and not the latest Orcad (which we also have and use) is down to my experience with Protel. Protel crashes, its protel's fault (even you admit that). As for not using the bits that crash, I find the inability to print, save or load a file a bit of an inconvenience. And as for missing and misplaced entities on plots, well that's to be expected these days nothings perfect. Ok, yes I admit its got much better (so far as features go) since P98, but at the expense of repeatable stability. -(A bit of background - you don't need to read this bit) Our first dedicated cad machine was a 1GHz P4 with 1G RAM, it *ONLY* runs Protel and win2K. We bought this as protel was pausing for more than 30 seconds per pin as a result of an edit of through hole components, it was also crashing many times a day. EDA UK confirmed both these bugs and passed our design to Protel for investigation. It seems that the crashing is usually down to known problems when you have a very large design 1000 components, many polys (these are the killer) and many tracks on a mixed through hole / smt design. The other problem is down to a bug with the on-line poly repour it seems to take ages when you have a large number of polys. All we do know is that an 1 hours lost work of one of our engineers costs more than an extra gig of ram. A newer machine was bought for a 2nd engineer. This is a dual processor 1.7GHz P4 with 1.5G RAM (at the time the fastest we could sensibly afford) Initially on the new machine all printing activity from within Protel would cause a crash, from experience we know that protel is very sensitive to graphics cards (surely not the fault of protel), so changing it sorted some of the crashes (its now the same as the first machine) Protel still crashes, so what's going on? Probably a fault of the IT guy who (despite my advice) wants lots of patches installed under windows, even if there is no visible problem, anyway that's his problem. So where am I going? Ah yes, Michael, as you machine seems to be so stable, perhaps you could tell everyone its build as its seems you've got it right. J. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
Jason, I figured you might be offended, I will be glad to look at or help you in any way I can by examining your file. Seriously, I am not trying to defend Protel, some of you will recall I was one of the first to use some very harsh language when 99 was released with lots of bugs. I even returned it to Protel and they gave me a full refund! 99SE with SP6 is a solid (very rarely crashes) program loaded with features found in more expensive programs. (Again, I speak for the PCB package only) Polygon pours should take seconds at most. You have to be doing something wrong, please take no offense. I will extend my olive branch and ask you to send me any file so I can take a look at off the forum. I will be glad to offer you my assistance, as I look for the challenge. Regards Mike Reagan EDSI Frederick [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Jason Morgan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 8:03 AM To: 'Protel EDA Forum' Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D) SNIP A LOT Michael, First lets get something straight, I take offence at your questioning my competence with Protel, I've been using it for a very long time and am familiar with all of its usual weird behaviours (even though they are still unacceptable) The only reason we are using it at all, and not the latest Orcad (which we also have and use) is down to my experience with Protel. Protel crashes, its protel's fault (even you admit that). As for not using the bits that crash, I find the inability to print, save or load a file a bit of an inconvenience. And as for missing and misplaced entities on plots, well that's to be expected these days nothings perfect. Ok, yes I admit its got much better (so far as features go) since P98, but at the expense of repeatable stability. -(A bit of background - you don't need to read this bit) Our first dedicated cad machine was a 1GHz P4 with 1G RAM, it *ONLY* runs Protel and win2K. We bought this as protel was pausing for more than 30 seconds per pin as a result of an edit of through hole components, it was also crashing many times a day. EDA UK confirmed both these bugs and passed our design to Protel for investigation. It seems that the crashing is usually down to known problems when you have a very large design 1000 components, many polys (these are the killer) and many tracks on a mixed through hole / smt design. The other problem is down to a bug with the on-line poly repour it seems to take ages when you have a large number of polys. All we do know is that an 1 hours lost work of one of our engineers costs more than an extra gig of ram. A newer machine was bought for a 2nd engineer. This is a dual processor 1.7GHz P4 with 1.5G RAM (at the time the fastest we could sensibly afford) Initially on the new machine all printing activity from within Protel would cause a crash, from experience we know that protel is very sensitive to graphics cards (surely not the fault of protel), so changing it sorted some of the crashes (its now the same as the first machine) Protel still crashes, so what's going on? Probably a fault of the IT guy who (despite my advice) wants lots of patches installed under windows, even if there is no visible problem, anyway that's his problem. So where am I going? Ah yes, Michael, as you machine seems to be so stable, perhaps you could tell everyone its build as its seems you've got it right. J. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
The files in question were returned to Protel under NDA, they confirmed the problems as reported and indicated that at present there was no fix. Sorry, but I can't transmit designs to the public, at least without NDA, thanks for the offer anyway. I can say that there are about:- 1100 components spread across two sides 1000 nets 1 track segments (last time I talked to the guy doing the layout) 2450 vias 450 holes 6 layers Several silk and mech keepout layers etc. 5000 SMT pads 15 Polys on two layers .DDB runs at about 20-70Mb and lives on the same HDD as the program. All in a 10 x 8 board area In any case, Protel works on at least one machine here (if with some deficiencies) without crashing (too often). That eliminates user error and bad files (incidentally neither of which should EVER affect a well written program, I know, as well a hardware engineer I'm also a programmer). So far as the poly problem goes, the fix in that case it to set 'Auto Repour' to 'Never' and then use my 'Repour All Poly' server, available on the yahoo group, failing to do this results in some long waits!! Explain why a fresh re-install of 2000 + sp2, then Protel +sp6 crashes on several operations, even on first run. Explain why printing on one machine with exactly the same graphics card, graphics drivers, print drivers etc. works fine. On the new one it does not, if it prints at all, many entities are missing, especially outline boxes. (Note I've seen the latter on several past Protel installs with certain graphics cards, notably ATI) So we've got the same files on the same everything, what's left? Protel is sensitive to PC hardware, surely not.. J. Jason Morgan - Senior Development Engineer CITEL Technologies Ltd. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
I'm curious. How many upgraded to Protel 99 SE and thus do not have the Protel 99 SE Designer's Handbook, and how many people do have it? How many of the people with the Designer's Handbook feel the simulator, signal integrity and PLD are poorly documented? The reason I ask is that at the last job we upgraded to 99Se and the help files sucked for figuring out how to use the new features, but at this job we bought Protel new and the Designer's Manual is actually quite a bit of help. I just wish they had put the Designer's Handbook into the help files, so I don't have to go get the manual back from the other engineer everytime I can't remember something. Rob * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
Initially on the new machine all printing activity from within Protel would cause a crash, from experience we know that protel is very sensitive to graphics cards (surely not the fault of protel), so changing it sorted some of the crashes (its now the same as the first machine) Actually the crash when printing issue is a Protel bug. It seems they have poor (or no) error recovery from an open printer call to a non-existant printer driver. This is especially in the PCB print preview. The revocery method that seems to work best was to remove all printers from thesystem then add the printers back. Most of the bugs I have found in Protel have been lack of good error recovery more than logic errors, although if I want to get picky I could go into all the dialog boxes with useless tab orders. Rob * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
So we've got the same files on the same everything, what's left? Protel is sensitive to PC hardware, surely not.. It's possible even though it gets less likely with newer versions of Windows. On the other hand Protel and most windows programs are sensitive to DLLs. Protel is more sensitive to DLL Hell than some programs. And Yes I agree that a well written and QA'd program does not have the poor error recovery that Protel can experience, but I would rather have poor error recovery than logic errors that lead to things like gerber files being 1% small. Rob * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
[PEDA] Antwort
At 09:15 AM 11/19/01 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Antwort is filled in automatically by the mail tool and means reply in German language. For English speakers to remember this, Ant = back, as in anterior, and wort, I would guess, not knowing German, would be the same as English ward. So, backward. [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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
Explain why a fresh re-install of 2000 + sp2, then Protel +sp6 crashes on several operations, even on first run. Explain why printing on one machine with exactly the same graphics card, graphics drivers, print drivers etc. works fine. On the new one it does not, if it prints at all, many entities are missing, especially outline boxes. So we've got the same files on the same everything, what's left? Protel is sensitive to PC hardware, surely not.. It's possible. PC hardware can exhibit problems. In all those MB of RAM, if a few bits flake out, it can crash a program. New PCs are on the absolute bleeding edge, which means some blood (and sweat and tears) is bound to be spilt somewhere. If Protel is the largest app (with your design file loaded) you run on that PC, it could be using an area of RAM that is not fit for use. Instead of running the latest 2 GHz P++, maybe you should try it on an older, slower PC. The most advanced PC I have right now is a W2K/SP2 dual-PIII 1.0 GHz with 512MB PC133 and a Matrox G450 video card. Rock stable - but then I haven't done any Protel jobs as huge as the one you are doing. Protel 99SE has plenty of bugs and quirks. But no program, no matter how good, can overcome a marginal, overclocked, metastable, negative-timing-margin PC. Best regards, Ivan Baggett Bagotronix Inc. website: www.bagotronix.com - Original Message - From: Jason Morgan [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Protel EDA Forum' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 11:29 AM Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D) The files in question were returned to Protel under NDA, they confirmed the problems as reported and indicated that at present there was no fix. Sorry, but I can't transmit designs to the public, at least without NDA, thanks for the offer anyway. I can say that there are about:- 1100 components spread across two sides 1000 nets 1 track segments (last time I talked to the guy doing the layout) 2450 vias 450 holes 6 layers Several silk and mech keepout layers etc. 5000 SMT pads 15 Polys on two layers .DDB runs at about 20-70Mb and lives on the same HDD as the program. All in a 10 x 8 board area In any case, Protel works on at least one machine here (if with some deficiencies) without crashing (too often). That eliminates user error and bad files (incidentally neither of which should EVER affect a well written program, I know, as well a hardware engineer I'm also a programmer). So far as the poly problem goes, the fix in that case it to set 'Auto Repour' to 'Never' and then use my 'Repour All Poly' server, available on the yahoo group, failing to do this results in some long waits!! Explain why a fresh re-install of 2000 + sp2, then Protel +sp6 crashes on several operations, even on first run. Explain why printing on one machine with exactly the same graphics card, graphics drivers, print drivers etc. works fine. On the new one it does not, if it prints at all, many entities are missing, especially outline boxes. (Note I've seen the latter on several past Protel installs with certain graphics cards, notably ATI) So we've got the same files on the same everything, what's left? Protel is sensitive to PC hardware, surely not.. J. Jason Morgan - Senior Development Engineer CITEL Technologies Ltd. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] dual-sided connector footprint ??
At 07:04 AM 11/19/01 -0500, Robison Michael R CNIN wrote: thanks to all who posted on this. when i had tried this before, i had set up multiple pads on the top and then tried to group move them to the bottom. i'm sure there is a way to do this, but with a minimum of messing with it, i couldn't get it to work. HOWEVER, i found that individually i could easily move each pad to the bottom and i believe i've got my connector footprint made. Select the pads you want to move and then use a global edit on Selection = same to move them all to the bottom. Fast and easy. [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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
Rob, You can download the 99SE handbook as well as a handbook supplement from the Protel website in PDF format. I agree, they are quite useful. Tim Fifield * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Antwort
From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax [EMAIL PROTECTED] For English speakers to remember this, Ant = back, as in anterior, and wort, I would guess, not knowing German, would be the same as English ward. So, backward. Not *completely* correct, though near to it. The german wort is the same as the english word, so the meaning is back-word, or, the older form ans-wer ;-) Cheers, Ralf * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
At 01:03 PM 11/19/01 +, Jason Morgan wrote: [...] Michael, First lets get something straight, I take offence at your questioning my competence with Protel, I've been using it for a very long time and am familiar with all of its usual weird behaviours (even though they are still unacceptable) I reread Michael's post and it did not make any personal criticism of Mr. Morgan's competence. Michael did note that, in his experience, many designers who have problems with Protel don't know how to use it, apparently Mr. Morgan took this personally. My comment on this is that all of us have ways in which we can learn more about how to effectively use the program. Sometimes we have tolerated irritations for years without realizing that there was a simple way around them. This can include crashes. When I was first running Protel, I had crashes all the time. They are now quite rare. What is different? Well, service packs, a Matrox Millenium G200 card with acceleration turned off, and I run a resource meter and don't allow Windows 98 to run out of resources, probably the number one cause of crashes on W98 systems. That's a W98 problem, really, but Protel particularly exercises the operating system. This, however, should not be a problem with Mr. Morgan's Windows 2000 machine, which does not have the severe resource limitations of Windows 98. The only reason we are using it at all, and not the latest Orcad (which we also have and use) is down to my experience with Protel. Protel crashes, its protel's fault (even you admit that). I see a Protel crash once every few months. There seems to be some problem with the spreadsheet server or its interrelation with the other tools. Aside from that, crashes are very rare. Of course, Mr. Morgan may be exercising parts of the program that I'm not. As for not using the bits that crash, I find the inability to print, save or load a file a bit of an inconvenience. To be sure. But that is not the experience of the vast majority of us. There are a number of possibilities: (1) something is trashed in Mr. Morgan's Protel installation, (2) something is awry with his system, or with the interaction of Protel and his system, or (3) he is using the program in a non-standard way, which will cause defects in the less-tested aspects of the system to be exposed. The fourth possibility, that Protel is intrinsically buggy, we can rule out because it is working so well for most of us. And as for missing and misplaced entities on plots, well that's to be expected these days nothings perfect. It is not to be expected. Missing entities on *photoplots* should be *very* rare. Each one of these items deserves to be studied in detail. If a file consistently produces an error, it is extremely valuable information for Protel, and there are those of us on the user group who are ready and willing to receive files and test them on our systems to confirm a bug or to lead us to suspect that it is a system-related problem. Ok, yes I admit its got much better (so far as features go) since P98, but at the expense of repeatable stability. For Mr. Morgan, not for most of us. Protel 98 crashed more frequently for me. -(A bit of background - you don't need to read this bit) Our first dedicated cad machine was a 1GHz P4 with 1G RAM, it *ONLY* runs Protel and win2K. We bought this as protel was pausing for more than 30 seconds per pin as a result of an edit of through hole components, it was also crashing many times a day. EDA UK confirmed both these bugs and passed our design to Protel for investigation. Which could mean that it went into a black hole. Obviously, we can hope otherwise, but the reality is that Protel has a limited staff and when a problem appears that is difficult to reproduce, it may get set aside in favor of more satisfying problems. One may say that this should not happen, but as long as we have human beings in charge, it will happen from time to time. For this reason, I do recommend communicating regarding suspected bugs with the user group. If others confirm it, then we know we have a bug and we can bring it to Protel's notice with our collective weight. If we cannot confirm it, then we may put more effort into identifying system problems. Often one of us will take a file that produces a crash and reduce it in size by cutting out primitives, each time saving it and testing it for continued manifestation of the problem. Sometimes this process, just by itself, identifies the problem. A bad file can feed Protel data that is outside the expectations of the programmers, and it is impossible to test all the possible configurations of data that can take place in the real world. It seems that the crashing is usually down to known problems when you have a very large design 1000 components, many polys (these are the killer) and many tracks on a mixed through hole / smt design. The other problem is down to a bug with the on-line
Re: [PEDA] Antwort
Ralf, I think what Mr Lomax was doing was trying to find a way for our unilingual cousins to the South to remember what antwort means, not it's literal translation. Auf wiedersehen, -Original Message- From: Ralf Gütlein [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 10:12 AM To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] Antwort From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax [EMAIL PROTECTED] For English speakers to remember this, Ant = back, as in anterior, and wort, I would guess, not knowing German, would be the same as English ward. So, backward. Not *completely* correct, though near to it. The german wort is the same as the english word, so the meaning is back-word, or, the older form ans-wer ;-) Cheers, Ralf * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
- Original Message - From: Edi Im Hof [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Protel EDA Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 1:17 PM Subject: [PEDA] Protel usage Regarding the questions about 3D and autorouter, what parts of Protel do you actually use? This is a constructive and informative thread. I've added some comments and I'm forwarding a copy to Altium. Other responders may also consider sending their comments to Altium. I wish I had time to be more thorough. - SchematicYESSome editing refinements would help. Cutting out wire sections to insert components saves work and reduces errors over deleting the whole wire and rewiring. Clicking on unused area to deselect all (maybe right mouse) would reduce unintended operations. - Global EditingYESThis feature doesn't do what I expect. It is too involved and confusing for rapid, productive editing. In some cases it is necessary to revise a library component to edit a repeated schematic or sheet component. - ReportBOMYESThis should allow complete user control over format. It is irritating to some of my clients not having ITEM NUMBER in the leftmost column. - PCBYESSee other PEDA threads for a wealth of user comments on PCB issues. - PowerprintNOPlain old print only. Never generated a PPC file. - CAM ManagerYES - SimulatorYESNeeds some improvement. Node numbers, titles and captions for response plots, separate power and signal connector menus, clearer error messages. - AutoRouterYESA simple but dense crosspatch pattern worked under SE 99 SP5, but would not complete under SP6. Altium's response: We improved performance in other areas. I did not appreciate that. See other PEDA threads for a wealth of user comments on AutoRouting. - 3D ViewerYESVirtually useless. Protel needs a 3D component editor. A 3D form factor checker would also be useful. Eliminate bugs. - PLDNO - Arrange ComponentsYESI am not yet proficient using Component Classes and Rooms. I wonder if schematic based attributes (eg, pre-assigning selected components to pre-defined Rooms plus adapting the hierarchical capabilities to define a floor plan) could make the AutoPlacer work better. - AutoPlacerYESNeither Cluster nor Global ever provides what I intend. Usually lots of manual re-positioning. A third option is needed: SCHEMATIC BASED MAPPING. Experienced, competent engineers and designers often draw their schematics according to function and signal flow. They then arrange their PCBs to follow the same flow. Doing this 'automatically' is easier and faster than using Rooms. It is simple to have the AutoPlacer arrange the hierarchical blocks and the components in the same relative position as on the schematic sheets. A tiling algorithm could be used to save real estate. Only a little pushing and shoving would be needed. - PCB MiterYESOccasionally during final adjustments. - Signal IntegrityNOT YETBut I see potential value in it. - Database LinkNO What else do we have? - LibraryThis is haphazard and difficult to organize; a methodical housekeeping procedure is sorely needed. Technique for adding vendor and user components is esoteric and clumsy. Simulation MODELS in 'Misc SPICE/PSPICE part LIB' don't work, nor is there any clue how to make them work. Except for not disclosing the installation procedure prior to the actual task, the recent library additions are very useful. But I've seen no new activity in about eight months. (The TMS320VC5402 is a hot part and I could use a symbol and footprint today.) - Send By MailDoesn't work. Crashes my system and looses files. - CamtasticYESFor final checks in my case. - Intuitive InterfaceThis is debatable. Protel 99SE is one of a suite of tools I use, and about 3/4 of them are easier for me to use than Protel. Since I can't hone my Protel skills every day, this is an important issue for me. - ProductivityThe promise is there..but it has yet to be fulfilled. The two biggest problems are bugs and a comprehensive users' manual. The technical support response is only about 40% effective in terms of problem resolution and closure. Fred A Rupinski * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
Nice idea, but I don't think errant dram bits hunt and seek just Protel, if the dram were faulty, I'd expect 2K (or any component of it) to dump at least some of the time, also the bist would be likely to fail... The majority of PC's though running at GHz frequencies still use either a 200 or 266MHz local bus and a 100/133Mhz memory bus, and thats tried and tested. Before I get flamed, I know there are some 400 FSB boards out there with 600 or even 800MHz memory (no idea how it works though), but we aint got one - have you seen the memory prices for it J. -Original Message- From: Bagotronix Tech Support [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 19 November 2001 16:41 To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D) Explain why a fresh re-install of 2000 + sp2, then Protel +sp6 crashes on several operations, even on first run. Explain why printing on one machine with exactly the same graphics card, graphics drivers, print drivers etc. works fine. On the new one it does not, if it prints at all, many entities are missing, especially outline boxes. So we've got the same files on the same everything, what's left? Protel is sensitive to PC hardware, surely not.. It's possible. PC hardware can exhibit problems. In all those MB of RAM, if a few bits flake out, it can crash a program. New PCs are on the absolute bleeding edge, which means some blood (and sweat and tears) is bound to be spilt somewhere. If Protel is the largest app (with your design file loaded) you run on that PC, it could be using an area of RAM that is not fit for use. Instead of running the latest 2 GHz P++, maybe you should try it on an older, slower PC. The most advanced PC I have right now is a W2K/SP2 dual-PIII 1.0 GHz with 512MB PC133 and a Matrox G450 video card. Rock stable - but then I haven't done any Protel jobs as huge as the one you are doing. Protel 99SE has plenty of bugs and quirks. But no program, no matter how good, can overcome a marginal, overclocked, metastable, negative-timing-margin PC. Best regards, Ivan Baggett Bagotronix Inc. website: www.bagotronix.com - Original Message - From: Jason Morgan [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Protel EDA Forum' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 11:29 AM Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D) The files in question were returned to Protel under NDA, they confirmed the problems as reported and indicated that at present there was no fix. Sorry, but I can't transmit designs to the public, at least without NDA, thanks for the offer anyway. I can say that there are about:- 1100 components spread across two sides 1000 nets 1 track segments (last time I talked to the guy doing the layout) 2450 vias 450 holes 6 layers Several silk and mech keepout layers etc. 5000 SMT pads 15 Polys on two layers .DDB runs at about 20-70Mb and lives on the same HDD as the program. All in a 10 x 8 board area In any case, Protel works on at least one machine here (if with some deficiencies) without crashing (too often). That eliminates user error and bad files (incidentally neither of which should EVER affect a well written program, I know, as well a hardware engineer I'm also a programmer). So far as the poly problem goes, the fix in that case it to set 'Auto Repour' to 'Never' and then use my 'Repour All Poly' server, available on the yahoo group, failing to do this results in some long waits!! Explain why a fresh re-install of 2000 + sp2, then Protel +sp6 crashes on several operations, even on first run. Explain why printing on one machine with exactly the same graphics card, graphics drivers, print drivers etc. works fine. On the new one it does not, if it prints at all, many entities are missing, especially outline boxes. (Note I've seen the latter on several past Protel installs with certain graphics cards, notably ATI) So we've got the same files on the same everything, what's left? Protel is sensitive to PC hardware, surely not.. J. Jason Morgan - Senior Development Engineer CITEL Technologies Ltd. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
most of this memory stuff also has ECC (error correction code) of some sort that should be fault tolerant on the board/chip/asic level (not the software/application level)... I don't know much more about it, but if in the software, you assign a memory pointer incorrectly and then try to use it, you would very likely crash on the software/os level I doubt it is the memory... (I am running PC800 RDRAM on a 2GHz with no problems) -chris * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
It's possible. PC hardware can exhibit problems. In all those MB of RAM, if a few bits flake out, it can crash a program. New PCs are on the absolute bleeding edge, which means some blood (and sweat and tears) is bound to be spilt somewhere. If Protel is the largest app (with your design file loaded) you run on that PC, it could be using an area of RAM that is not fit for use. Instead of running the latest 2 GHz P++, maybe you should try it on an older, slower PC. The most advanced PC I have right now is a W2K/SP2 dual-PIII 1.0 GHz with 512MB PC133 and a Matrox G450 video card. Rock stable - but then I haven't done any Protel jobs as huge as the one you are doing. Protel 99SE has plenty of bugs and quirks. But no program, no matter how good, can overcome a marginal, overclocked, metastable, negative-timing-margin PC. Please note that the older, slower PC that a lot of people have sitting around was a bleeding edge machine when it was new. For this recommendation to work, it seems that one would have to try the software on a slow system built out of more modern fast components. I seem to recall recommendations against overclocking 286 systems because it could lead to flaky results. The contents of this E-mail may contain information that is legally privileged and/or confidential to the named recipient. This information is not to be used by any other person and/or organisation. The views expressed in this document do not necessarily reflect those of the company. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
What might be interesting would be a survey in which we describe what we have in our systems, in terms of hardware and configuration, plus our experience with crashes. It might be possible to analyze such data to identify graphics cards, for example, that work, and those that don't. Right now, pretty much all that is collected, as data, is what systems have problems, not what systems do *not* have problems. Without the controls, it is hard to analyze the problems, one might be led down many blind alleys. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Abdulrahman Lomax Easthampton, Massachusetts USA Jason, I am using the worst of all hardware/software configurations, ATI Cards with windows 98. 5-600 MHZ machines with 256- 512 meg of RAM. My piers are using the same configuration with different results. Their machines crash often. Differences in my machine and theirs: I disable all power saving schemes, theirs is running Screensavers disabled, theirs is running McAfee completely disabled and removed on mine, theirs is installed and running Norton disabled and removed on mine Norton is running on (some) of theirs Mijeniz FIX IT UTILITIES installed on mine but not running in the background. I run the FIX IT Wizard and clean and repair the registry EVERY week. I also will run it anytime after I run a piece of crap called AutoCad. Autocad can cause Protel to hang up, so I try never to use it on the same machine. Also drivers for my external zip drive have been known to cause my system to hang up, but that is not a Protel problem. Any other crashes I have had in the past year, which I can relate to protel occurred after I was handed a file from another designer. One file had a via outside of the work area which caused both Protel and Spectra to crash. The only other software I run on my PROTEL machines are: Windows explorer, Outlook, Lotus approach, Camtastic, Wordpad,winzip, that's it. All other software gets installed on one of my other machines so that I don't contaminate my working and delicate configuration. Remember this is my workstation that I rely on feeding my family with, so I don't take the risk of just adding any software to this machine. I run ACAD, PADS, Spectra, Orcad, accounting software and anything else I buy on a other machines. Hope this gives you an idea of type of configuration I use. Mike Reagan EDSI * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
Jason, you crack me up. First you complain about bugs in Protel, then you say it's your IT guy's problem because he wants to patch the OS even when there is no visible problem. Patches == Bug fixes. You think all bugs are visible? Think again buddy. There are security holes, reliability issues, etc that may be hiding for months or years before the right set of conditions expose them. You don't want those fixed?? My P99 is also quite stable. I've said before on this list that I can't remember the last time it crashed. I don't do boards quite as large as you it seems, but I've done some pretty big ones before. Why don't you rip up some key aspects of your design and post it somewhere for download so other's could see if they get the same crash with your board. (providing the part you ripped up didn't have an effect). Take off a dozen components and a dozen nets and see if you still get the crash. If you do, would you feel confident that we could see your board without actually having anything of IP value? Tony -Original Message- From: Jason Morgan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 5:03 AM To: 'Protel EDA Forum' Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D) SNIP A LOT Michael, First lets get something straight, I take offence at your questioning my competence with Protel, I've been using it for a very long time and am familiar with all of its usual weird behaviours (even though they are still unacceptable) The only reason we are using it at all, and not the latest Orcad (which we also have and use) is down to my experience with Protel. Protel crashes, its protel's fault (even you admit that). As for not using the bits that crash, I find the inability to print, save or load a file a bit of an inconvenience. And as for missing and misplaced entities on plots, well that's to be expected these days nothings perfect. Ok, yes I admit its got much better (so far as features go) since P98, but at the expense of repeatable stability. -(A bit of background - you don't need to read this bit) Our first dedicated cad machine was a 1GHz P4 with 1G RAM, it *ONLY* runs Protel and win2K. We bought this as protel was pausing for more than 30 seconds per pin as a result of an edit of through hole components, it was also crashing many times a day. EDA UK confirmed both these bugs and passed our design to Protel for investigation. It seems that the crashing is usually down to known problems when you have a very large design 1000 components, many polys (these are the killer) and many tracks on a mixed through hole / smt design. The other problem is down to a bug with the on-line poly repour it seems to take ages when you have a large number of polys. All we do know is that an 1 hours lost work of one of our engineers costs more than an extra gig of ram. A newer machine was bought for a 2nd engineer. This is a dual processor 1.7GHz P4 with 1.5G RAM (at the time the fastest we could sensibly afford) Initially on the new machine all printing activity from within Protel would cause a crash, from experience we know that protel is very sensitive to graphics cards (surely not the fault of protel), so changing it sorted some of the crashes (its now the same as the first machine) Protel still crashes, so what's going on? Probably a fault of the IT guy who (despite my advice) wants lots of patches installed under windows, even if there is no visible problem, anyway that's his problem. So where am I going? Ah yes, Michael, as you machine seems to be so stable, perhaps you could tell everyone its build as its seems you've got it right. J. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
- Original Message - From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Protel EDA Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 12:34 PM Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D) What might be interesting would be a survey in which we describe what we have in our systems, in terms of hardware and configuration, plus our experience with crashes. It might be possible to analyze such data to identify graphics cards, for example, that work, and those that don't. Right now, pretty much all that is collected, as data, is what systems have problems, not what systems do *not* have problems. Without the controls, it is hard to analyze the problems, one might be led down many blind alleys. I discussed this issue with Altium during a phone inquiry. I asked Altium to identify a standard test PC platform on which Protel demonstrably runs without incident, and to specify the proper environment settings. At today's prices, this platform should be readily reproducible, and would resolve the crash issue. The response I got was that the software is tested on a variety of different platforms in order to maximize compatibility with the greatest number of platforms possible. But the idea of controls is valid. My personal choice is a (publicized) formal certification procedure which Protel would follow. Concerned users could run the same procedure on their own PCs and report the results to Altium. Regards, Fred A Rupinski * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
At 04:29 PM 11/19/01 +, Jason Morgan wrote: The files in question were returned to Protel under NDA, they confirmed the problems as reported and indicated that at present there was no fix. (1) They have said that before when there was an easy fix. Not always, of course, but it is highly unlikely that there is no workaround for a problem. Maybe I have seen that once. (2) Obviously we do not expect proprietary data to be transmitted to the public. In fact, we don't want attached files to go to the list. Speaking for myself, I'll sign an NDA; but it should really not be necessary. A printed circuit design with no comment fields, even if everything else is there, is completely inadequate to reproduce a design. Further, it is likely that some of the rest of the data could be eliminated and still the file would display the problem. But just the comments and a PCB file with no schematic is little more than a pile of primitives, I cannot conceive of how it would be used except possibly by someone who already had a lot of inside information. I can say that there are about:- 1100 components spread across two sides 1000 nets 1 track segments (last time I talked to the guy doing the layout) 2450 vias 450 holes 6 layers Several silk and mech keepout layers etc. 5000 SMT pads 15 Polys on two layers That's a large number of components, but not terribly unusual. The rest is not even truly large. The Board Information Report includes polygon fill track in its report so perhaps those polygons were not filled for the report. I just looked at a moderately large design that I did a year ago, it had 568 components 961 nets 91,168 tracks 2398 vias 9431 pads (mostly SMT) 10 polygons. The track count includes the pour track. This design had no problems. .DDB runs at about 20-70Mb and lives on the same HDD as the program. That is a huge ddb. If it has not been done, I suggest emptying the recycle bin and compacting the file. The file I described had a 6.1 MB ddb file. I have automatic compact on exit set. If I were getting crashes all the time, I might be nervous about that. All in a 10 x 8 board area In any case, Protel works on at least one machine here (if with some deficiencies) without crashing (too often). That eliminates user error and bad files (incidentally neither of which should EVER affect a well written program, I know, as well a hardware engineer I'm also a programmer). Sure. Now, to real life. A program like Protel is *inordinately* complex, and the market is relatively small and market pressure high, so beta testing is limited in what will practically be tested. We are still discovering, occasionally, bugs that apparently escaped the notice of all of us for two years. Obviously, these bugs do not affect routine operations, or they would have been much more easily identified. Sure, every bit of data should be checked for integrity, but there is also another constraint: many Protel operations must be completed quickly. As I am sure is obvious, complex checking can greatly lengthen the time it takes to process data. If you have to draw 100,000 tracks, how much checking are you going to do? Or are you going to trust that what was written with error checking remains good? So far as the poly problem goes, the fix in that case it to set 'Auto Repour' to 'Never' and then use my 'Repour All Poly' server, available on the yahoo group, failing to do this results in some long waits!! And there are other workarounds. The problem here is truly one of a massive amount of data. Perhaps Protel could be much more efficient in processing the data, perhaps not, I really don't know. I do know that it is much faster than other CAD programs I have used, perhaps it is slower than others Explain why a fresh re-install of 2000 + sp2, then Protel +sp6 crashes on several operations, even on first run. I'd ask what operations and using what data? But given that this is *not* general experience, there remain not too many possibilities. First of all, uninstall and reinstall does not remove all initialization files, and these files can sometimes cause crashes. It is necessary to remove those files. They live, as I recall, in Windows\system and have obvious Protel names with 99SE in them. Explain why printing on one machine with exactly the same graphics card, graphics drivers, print drivers etc. works fine. On the new one it does not, if it prints at all, many entities are missing, especially outline boxes. (Note I've seen the latter on several past Protel installs with certain graphics cards, notably ATI) So we've got the same files on the same everything, what's left? Protel is sensitive to PC hardware, surely not.. I think the answer is pretty obvious. There are, quite likely, some hardware problems on that new system. There might also be system settings that would affect this, such as video acceleration. The bottom line is that most of us find Protel 99SE quite
Re: [PEDA] Antwort
At 12:36 PM 11/19/01 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think what Mr Lomax was doing was trying to find a way for our unilingual cousins to the South to remember what antwort means, not it's literal translation. No, I was speculating on what was cognate to what. wort = word is actually better than what I imagined so a return email is back word. Just as easy to remember as backward. I fact, I doubt that any who have followed this will be likely to forget it [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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
my P99 is very stable 1.4G P4 1G ram W2k no anti virus, no norton, lots of other programs Dennis Saputelli Tony Karavidas wrote: Jason, you crack me up. First you complain about bugs in Protel, then you say it's your IT guy's problem because he wants to patch the OS even when there is no visible problem. Patches == Bug fixes. You think all bugs are visible? Think again buddy. There are security holes, reliability issues, etc that may be hiding for months or years before the right set of conditions expose them. You don't want those fixed?? My P99 is also quite stable. I've said before on this list that I can't remember the last time it crashed. I don't do boards quite as large as you it seems, but I've done some pretty big ones before. Why don't you rip up some key aspects of your design and post it somewhere for download so other's could see if they get the same crash with your board. (providing the part you ripped up didn't have an effect). Take off a dozen components and a dozen nets and see if you still get the crash. If you do, would you feel confident that we could see your board without actually having anything of IP value? Tony -Original Message- From: Jason Morgan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 5:03 AM To: 'Protel EDA Forum' Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D) SNIP A LOT Michael, First lets get something straight, I take offence at your questioning my competence with Protel, I've been using it for a very long time and am familiar with all of its usual weird behaviours (even though they are still unacceptable) The only reason we are using it at all, and not the latest Orcad (which we also have and use) is down to my experience with Protel. Protel crashes, its protel's fault (even you admit that). As for not using the bits that crash, I find the inability to print, save or load a file a bit of an inconvenience. And as for missing and misplaced entities on plots, well that's to be expected these days nothings perfect. Ok, yes I admit its got much better (so far as features go) since P98, but at the expense of repeatable stability. -(A bit of background - you don't need to read this bit) Our first dedicated cad machine was a 1GHz P4 with 1G RAM, it *ONLY* runs Protel and win2K. We bought this as protel was pausing for more than 30 seconds per pin as a result of an edit of through hole components, it was also crashing many times a day. EDA UK confirmed both these bugs and passed our design to Protel for investigation. It seems that the crashing is usually down to known problems when you have a very large design 1000 components, many polys (these are the killer) and many tracks on a mixed through hole / smt design. The other problem is down to a bug with the on-line poly repour it seems to take ages when you have a large number of polys. All we do know is that an 1 hours lost work of one of our engineers costs more than an extra gig of ram. A newer machine was bought for a 2nd engineer. This is a dual processor 1.7GHz P4 with 1.5G RAM (at the time the fastest we could sensibly afford) Initially on the new machine all printing activity from within Protel would cause a crash, from experience we know that protel is very sensitive to graphics cards (surely not the fault of protel), so changing it sorted some of the crashes (its now the same as the first machine) Protel still crashes, so what's going on? Probably a fault of the IT guy who (despite my advice) wants lots of patches installed under windows, even if there is no visible problem, anyway that's his problem. So where am I going? Ah yes, Michael, as you machine seems to be so stable, perhaps you could tell everyone its build as its seems you've got it right. J. -- ___ www.integratedcontrolsinc.comIntegrated Controls, Inc. tel: 415-647-04802851 21st Street fax: 415-647-3003San Francisco, CA 94110 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Copper Calculations
This unit 'ounces of copper', does it apply to 1)square foot ? 2)square yard ? 3)square meter ? European thicknesses are 35, 70, 105, 150, 200 and 300 micrometer. I just wondered how they relate. One ounce is 28 grams, isn't it ? Rene Stephen Smith wrote: Does anyone know a simple way of calculating copper track size (in, mm), when you know the amount of copper (in, ounces), and the current flow (in, Amps)?? I've never had to do any high current circuits before, so any help much appreciated. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
[PEDA] Short Circuit: Pad/Fill
I've created an odd footprint for a SMT Current Sense Resistor. Each L shaped pad on the footprint consists of a pad and a copper fill attached to it because I want the solder mask on the fill. Anyways, when I run DRC I get a short circuit error between the fill of the pad and the pad of the pad. Is there any way to resolve this? Tim Fifield * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
Dwight Harm wrote: Schematic, PCB, Powerprint, CAM Mgr, Autorouter, Camtastic (a bit). PLD I used a bit, but it was easier to switch to Xilinx's tools than to figure out how to get intermediate files from one to the other. (But it's a pain using Xilinx's schematic capture.) I put serious time in on this over a year ago, and came up with nothing. Every attempt I made to take a standard file format and get it to produce a Xilinx-usable bit stream for FPGAs or configuration map for CPLDs ended in failure. I sent the offending files and error message information to Protel and never heard a word back. They obviously had no interest in making PLD work for Xilinx. I also tried to get .xnf and .edif files to go into Xilinx's placeroute software, but they didn't like the file's format. The Xilinx tools from back then were abominable. They have improved it considerably since then, but I still prefer the Protel environment by a good margin. Jon * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Antwort: Antwort: Autorouter
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve, same here. Even medium designs won't route and end up with an unable to initialise. Does anyone know a reason and workaround for this effect? A couple well-known, but not well documented things. The most important is to have a keepout border around all the components that is made up entirely of lines. No arcs, and no fills. The software needs this to set up a boundary to its search space. (You can have fills in the interior of the keepout, but the border should not contain any.) I think arcs anywhere on the keepout may cause problems. You need to assign nets to all split planes, and make sure the split plane interior regions don't overlap. (The lines which delimit the split plane regions can overlap.) Jon * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
[PEDA] Complex to simple
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The following is my usage of Protel - Schematicyes - PCB yes - Powerprint yes - CAM Manageryes - Simulatorsometimes - still have great difficulty providing models for many components. - Autorouter yes - usually try it on every board, and usually take the best result from a few trials and finish/clean-up by hand. I trick myself into thinking I'm saving time this way, but I can't say for sure. - 3D Viewerno - PLD tried it some, simulation works to test out designs, but couldn't implement any Xilinx chips with it. - Arrange Components no - Autoplacer no - PCB Miterno - Signal Integrity no - Database Link no Jon * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
Believe it or not I have seen a hardware memory problem crash Protel. It was the only thing that needed enough memory to actually cause that SIMM to be used. Of course this a few years ago running something like Windows 95 on a pentium 133, but the point is that it can happen since most low to mid level PCs do not have ECC, and windows starts allocating from one end of memory. Of course while I won't rule it out without more evidence I think it unlikely that his printing problem is RAM, but rather a combination of DLL hell and poor error recovery. Rob Jason Morgan [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 11/19/2001 01:09:00 PM Please respond to Protel EDA Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Protel EDA Forum' [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc:(bcc: Rob LaMoreaux/DSPT) Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D) Nice idea, but I don't think errant dram bits hunt and seek just Protel, if the dram were faulty, I'd expect 2K (or any component of it) to dump at least some of the time, also the bist would be likely to fail... The majority of PC's though running at GHz frequencies still use either a 200 or 266MHz local bus and a 100/133Mhz memory bus, and thats tried and tested. Before I get flamed, I know there are some 400 FSB boards out there with 600 or even 800MHz memory (no idea how it works though), but we aint got one - have you seen the memory prices for it J. -Original Message- From: Bagotronix Tech Support [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 19 November 2001 16:41 To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D) Explain why a fresh re-install of 2000 + sp2, then Protel +sp6 crashes on several operations, even on first run. Explain why printing on one machine with exactly the same graphics card, graphics drivers, print drivers etc. works fine. On the new one it does not, if it prints at all, many entities are missing, especially outline boxes. So we've got the same files on the same everything, what's left? Protel is sensitive to PC hardware, surely not.. It's possible. PC hardware can exhibit problems. In all those MB of RAM, if a few bits flake out, it can crash a program. New PCs are on the absolute bleeding edge, which means some blood (and sweat and tears) is bound to be spilt somewhere. If Protel is the largest app (with your design file loaded) you run on that PC, it could be using an area of RAM that is not fit for use. Instead of running the latest 2 GHz P++, maybe you should try it on an older, slower PC. The most advanced PC I have right now is a W2K/SP2 dual-PIII 1.0 GHz with 512MB PC133 and a Matrox G450 video card. Rock stable - but then I haven't done any Protel jobs as huge as the one you are doing. Protel 99SE has plenty of bugs and quirks. But no program, no matter how good, can overcome a marginal, overclocked, metastable, negative-timing-margin PC. Best regards, Ivan Baggett Bagotronix Inc. website: www.bagotronix.com - Original Message - From: Jason Morgan [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Protel EDA Forum' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 11:29 AM Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D) The files in question were returned to Protel under NDA, they confirmed the problems as reported and indicated that at present there was no fix. Sorry, but I can't transmit designs to the public, at least without NDA, thanks for the offer anyway. I can say that there are about:- 1100 components spread across two sides 1000 nets 1 track segments (last time I talked to the guy doing the layout) 2450 vias 450 holes 6 layers Several silk and mech keepout layers etc. 5000 SMT pads 15 Polys on two layers .DDB runs at about 20-70Mb and lives on the same HDD as the program. All in a 10 x 8 board area In any case, Protel works on at least one machine here (if with some deficiencies) without crashing (too often). That eliminates user error and bad files (incidentally neither of which should EVER affect a well written program, I know, as well a hardware engineer I'm also a programmer). So far as the poly problem goes, the fix in that case it to set 'Auto Repour' to 'Never' and then use my 'Repour All Poly' server, available on the yahoo group, failing to do this results in some long waits!! Explain why a fresh re-install of 2000 + sp2, then Protel +sp6 crashes on several operations, even on first run. Explain why printing on one machine with exactly the same graphics card, graphics drivers, print drivers etc. works fine. On the new one it does not, if it prints at all, many entities are missing, especially outline boxes. (Note I've seen the latter on several past Protel installs with certain graphics cards, notably ATI) So we've got the same files on the same everything, what's left? Protel is sensitive to PC hardware, surely not.. J. Jason Morgan - Senior Development Engineer CITEL Technologies Ltd. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Copper Calculations
Re: [PEDA] Copper Calculations
At 09:04 PM 11/19/01 +0100, you wrote: This unit 'ounces of copper', does it apply to 1)square foot ? 2)square yard ? 3)square meter ? square foot. European thicknesses are 35, 70, 105, 150, 200 and 300 micrometer. I just wondered how they relate. One ounce of copper is about 1.4 mils thick. That is 35 micrometers. I'm surprised that half-ounce copper, 17.5 micrometers, was not in that list. One ounce is 28 grams, isn't it ? close enough. as I recall, 1 pound is 453.59 grams, one pound is 16 ounces, so 1 ounce is 28.3 grams. [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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
Jason Morgan wrote: Protel crashes, its protel's fault (even you admit that). Protel still crashes on a machine running Win 95, which is strongly NOT recommended. I also have it on a machine running Win 2000, and it is much more reliable. Can't clearly say this is Protel's fault! As for not using the bits that crash, I find the inability to print, save or load a file a bit of an inconvenience. And as for missing and misplaced entities on plots, well that's to be expected these days nothings perfect. I don't see any of this. Some print drivers have trouble letting you change colors for multilayer color plots. That seems to be a real bug. I print on both black/white laser printers, color inket printers, and old pen plotters. I save and load files VERY often, never had ANY trouble at all with this. Even when Protel crashes with illegal oparation (on Win 95) I can STILL save the file, and it is OK! A newer machine was bought for a 2nd engineer. This is a dual processor 1.7GHz P4 with 1.5G RAM (at the time the fastest we could sensibly afford) Initially on the new machine all printing activity from within Protel would cause a crash, from experience we know that protel is very sensitive to graphics cards (surely not the fault of protel), so changing it sorted some of the crashes (its now the same as the first machine) Protel still crashes, so what's going on? Probably a fault of the IT guy who (despite my advice) wants lots of patches installed under windows, even if there is no visible problem, anyway that's his problem. So where am I going? Ah yes, Michael, as you machine seems to be so stable, perhaps you could tell everyone its build as its seems you've got it right. Well, our IT guy downloaded all current revs to Win 2K, ands we are running SP5 on Protel, and it seems very stable, as stable as anything I've seen on a Microsoft OS. (I also use Linux, and it runs 70 days between power failures.) Jon * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
Regarding the questions about 3D and autorouter, what parts of Protel do you actually use? I have made my own comments to Mr. Rupinski's disection. Hope you don't mind my plagerism. - SchematicYES My only concern is that I wish the ERC checking was a little more comprehensive. - Global Editing YES This works just fine. Once you learn the nuances, its effective and easy. - ReportBOMYESThis should allow complete user control (Absolutely!!) - PCBYESCompared to others I've used in the past 15 years, it's intuitive and easy to use. - PowerprintYes, at first I hated it, now I love this way to print, makes making single PDF files from pcb layers so much easier. - CAM ManagerYES - SimulatorYESOnly used once, wish this was covered better by the documentation. - AutoRouterNEVER, and have serious concerns about layout people who do. (Unless using Spectra) - 3D ViewerYESCompletely useless! As I have said previously, Protel should buy the export applications from Desktop-EDA. 3D export to IDF/STEP/IGES or Solidworks is a necessity for real and efficient product integration. I can't even begin to tell you how this has improved the relationship between PCB and Mechanical design. - PLDI would if I had the time to learn this part. - Arrange ComponentsNo, - AutoPlacerNo, - PCB MiterNo - Signal IntegrityUsed once, will definitely keep trying it. - Database LinkYES, but this used to work in Client 3.x, it has since been totally screwed up!! Takes way to long to be useful, and our company NEEDs it to work properly. ARE YOU LISTENING PROTEL! - LibraryNo, Protel libraries have never been reliable or adequate. I lost all confidence when the QFP-100 only had 80 pins. - Send By MailNever tried. - CamtasticYESI have used it to convert old gerbers into something Protel can load. - Intuitive InterfaceIf you have ever used PADS, you'll think Protel is one the MOST intuitive programs out there. I have never seen a more User hostile interface than PADS. - SDK EDA server - YES, but not myself. I have had some servers built for me by others, again not covered particularly well but the documentation. - ProductivityThis is a function of the User, I have used Protel since the DOS Autotrax days and have seen the rise and fall of productivity. The worst version of Protel ever produced in my opinion was Protel 98, and a tie for the best is Protel for Windows 2.8 PCB and DE99SE given that you have to judge each one at it's time of deployment. Obviously 99SE is more powerful, but can you imagine trying to run it on a 1991 top-of-the-line PC. I think not. No software is perfect or free from bugs, just look at Windoze, however you can either work around it and make the best of it or sit there and complain. Yes I would like some things fixed, but considering what else is out there, I am making the best of the current situation. Regards, Lloyd Good * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Copper Calculations
Hi Rene, I believe the way the story (legend) goes is: The British housing industry used to make copper shingles for roofing... they were 1 foot by 1 foot square and had a weight 1 oz. ... I'm told that's where the measurement technique was invented... This of course, yields the familiar 1.4 mils thick copper we all know and love That copper sheet material was then laminated or applied to an insulator backing and the PCB was born.. :) (don't ya love legends) Can't remember where I heard it... but it made sense... Might as well retell it... - Bill Brooks -Original Message- From: Rene Tschaggelar [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 12:05 PM To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] Copper Calculations This unit 'ounces of copper', does it apply to 1)square foot ? 2)square yard ? 3)square meter ? European thicknesses are 35, 70, 105, 150, 200 and 300 micrometer. I just wondered how they relate. One ounce is 28 grams, isn't it ? Rene Stephen Smith wrote: Does anyone know a simple way of calculating copper track size (in, mm), when you know the amount of copper (in, ounces), and the current flow (in, Amps)?? I've never had to do any high current circuits before, so any help much appreciated. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Short Circuit: Pad/Fill
At 04:16 PM 11/19/01 -0400, Tim Fifield wrote: I've created an odd footprint for a SMT Current Sense Resistor. Each L shaped pad on the footprint consists of a pad and a copper fill attached to it because I want the solder mask on the fill. Anyways, when I run DRC I get a short circuit error between the fill of the pad and the pad of the pad. Is there any way to resolve this? This is standard Protel question #1. In Protel 99SE, you can have multiple pads in a footprint with the same name, and they will be assigned the same net, *if* you are using the synchronizer. The netlist load process has a bug that can cause problems. (It was not designed to be used with multiple identical pads; Protel tried to fix it so that it would, but did not quite get it right, the next load will *unload* the nets from all the pads. But the synchronizer works fine.) So you can use an additional pad instead of the fill. That pad can be tented so that no mask is applied. The other method of dealing with this is to assign the appropriate net to the fill. You can do this by unlocking primitives on the component, then double-click on the fill to edit it, then, presumably, relock the primitives on the component. Or you can run Design/NetlistManager/Menu/Update Free Primitives from Component Pads. In spite of the name, it will also update component non-pad primitives. I just discovered another option. I used Tools/Convert/Add Selected Primitives to add a fill to a footprint. I unlocked the primitives and moved the fill into contact with a pad. It automatically took on the pad net. (To use the Add command, select the primitives to be added, run the command, then click on the component and answer the confirmation dialog. This is a new command with Protel 99 if I recall correctly.) But if the fill is part of the footprint already, and especially if there exist more than one of these footprints, running Update is the best procedure. [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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
I'm curious. How many upgraded to Protel 99 SE and thus do not have the Protel 99 SE Designer's Handbook, and how many people do have it? How many of the people with the Designer's Handbook feel the simulator, signal integrity and PLD are poorly documented? To the extreme... futzing about trying to figure out a feature burns man-hours which costs money. I have enjoyed using Sim on some simple jobs but have failed to use it on larger jobs due to the lack of adequate supporting docos and consequent difficulty in setting up models. The relevance of this to the current discussion is that if Prottle are going to charge exorbitant maint fees for all of the fluff that is in the package then they should SUPPLY a fully functional package, NOT just PROMISE some abstract user nirvana. We have been living on the promise since Autotrax. Functional in this case consists of: 1. Suited to task 2. Reliable stable 3. Documented Cheers Don * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
Fred A Rupinski wrote: - Global EditingYESThis feature doesn't do what I expect. It is too involved and confusing for rapid, productive editing. In some cases it is necessary to revise a library component to edit a repeated schematic or sheet component. I use global edit, in both Sch and PCB very often. If an hour goes by that I don't use it, I am just looking at a design, not editing it. You DO have to understand the full implications of it, and therefore you have to understand the database behind the things on the screen. By that, I mean you have to understand what comes from the library, and what comes from the instantiation of that library component on the screen. In Schematic, most of a displayed component other than part number for (multipart components), symbol (DeMorgan, IEEE, etc), orientation, hidden pins and designator come from the library, and you need to edit in the library editor to change it. (If you can't select it separate from the whole component, you can't change it seems to be the rule. In PCB, you have much more flexibility, as you can change an individual pad, hole or whatever on a component. You can't MOVE a pad or hole with reference to the part, however. But, global edit is REALLY powerful, and can save an enormous amount of time when you learn to use it well. I admit, I had to make a few mistakes when I learned it the first time, and fouled up a board or schematic by changing more than I wanted to. I still have to carefully think about which match parameters I want set to 'same' and which to 'any' to have the right scope of action. But, I can't imagine Protel without global change! It would be like a car with a clutch but no gearshift, or something! Jon * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Short Circuit: Pad/Fill
At 09:53 PM 11/19/01 +0100, Rene Tschaggelar wrote: It is a short. The resistance doesn't matter. Ignore it. Same happens for scratchable connections. One way is to have two connectors with the same number, then a short is allowed. But then the nets are equalized. I do not advise ignoring any DRC errors or warnings except the one about primitives on inner planes because there is no workaround that is practical, as far as I know. (It is good practice to place primitives to clear the edges of inner planes. This could conceivably be done Leaving false errors greatly improves the chance of overlooking real ones. Further, every time one works on the design, one will have to make a decision to ignore that error. Not good. There are better ways. In the matter at hand, one was given. As to scratchable connections, virtual shorts may be used (this is a pair of primitives that are short of contacting each other by a couple of micro-inches. The gap will not survive photoplotting, film, or fabrication (unless some intrepid soul edits the gerber). Another method is to assign a mech layer to such shorts; this mech layer is then merged through special gerber setups in the CAM Manager. Both of these are set-and-forget. (the virtual short involves a special design rule that allows those two primitives to be extremely close to each other.) both of these methods leave DRC in place to check that each branch of the shorted nets are properly routed and distinct. [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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
Chris Mackensen wrote: most of this memory stuff also has ECC (error correction code) of some sort that should be fault tolerant on the board/chip/asic level (not the software/application level)... I don't know much more about it, but if in the software, you assign a memory pointer incorrectly and then try to use it, you would very likely crash on the software/os level I doubt it is the memory... (I am running PC800 RDRAM on a 2GHz with no problems) No, most machines sold today do NOT have ECC, or even parity! Note, most memories are 32 bit, 64 bit, 128-bit widths, not 36-bit, 72-bit, etc., and do not have the extra bits to even carry the parity check bits, no less ECC. Jon * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
At 04:01 PM 11/19/01 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - AutoRouterNEVER, and have serious concerns about layout people who do. (Unless using Spectra) Ahem. I've been known to use the autorouter where it would save the client money. Not for every job, definitely, but it remains a valuable tool. Obviously, it can stand to be improved, many of its shortcomings are irritating because they should be so simple to fix, like the little tracks that meander all over the place before settling down to connect. I mean with no obstructing primitives! -- so cleanup should fix these. [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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
Actually most memory does NOT have ECC. Tony -Original Message- From: Chris Mackensen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 10:25 AM To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D) most of this memory stuff also has ECC (error correction code) of some sort that should be fault tolerant on the board/chip/asic level (not the software/application level)... I don't know much more about it, but if in the software, you assign a memory pointer incorrectly and then try to use it, you would very likely crash on the software/os level I doubt it is the memory... (I am running PC800 RDRAM on a 2GHz with no problems) -chris * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
This examination of the Protel package usage is a good exercise... Protel should pay attention to this. rant mode on My pet peeve with the Protel Explorer concept is that I have to open everything, in a specific place, without any changes in the windows environment, in order to get the design up and running to edit it... I can't keep my users from being confused about the stupid thing... I just want it to go away. I want the option to disable the stupid thing and use the program like it was in the 98 version... without all the bugs.. At least it made sense to everyone back then. Archiving files, Rev Control, argh... must be done manually anyways... with or without it. They have added a layer of complexity that was not wanted or needed... I presume that it simplifies the desire to do their paranoid licensing checks over the network... but it provides me with nothing but trouble... no net value to the company... I prefer a KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) approach... One program one function... Windows explorer does ALL that is needed to handle organization of files... PCB should read PCB's. Schematic should read Schematics, PLD should do PLD's... SIM should simulate.. this things do not need to be hidden inside an extra layer of hierarchy.. I archive just the .pcb and .sch and throw away the ddb file... the backups... the superfluous junk files... This is in order to capture the important files for archiving... I do not use the 1 file for all files approach to Protel, I use the Windows file system to keep the files out where we can see them... where we don't get confused about which file is which.. and what rev is what...etc... The ability to do IPC-356 Netlist out or ODB++ file output, or the GENCAM format might be useful... If it doesn't make our lives more complex than it has too.. I dislike what the Autorouter does, It breaks the DRC rules and creates more cleanup for the designer... I'm sure it makes sales though... looks awesome in the demo... If they ever did make it do what it was advertised to do it would be worth the extra cash I don't do sim, signal integ, pld, 3D, The print manager is sucky... and buggy... and makes me repeat the setup steps over and over with every edit session I set up...the 3D implementation is a... not too funny joke... A good translator to solidworks would be way more useful... The CAM manger is ... well could be better... still have to set it up every time... And the 'Microsoft' approach to releasing software before there is good beta testing and debug... is just poor customer relations... Protel has a reputation of being the 'Jack of all Trades' and Master of none... and when do we get to put our feet up on the desk like that guy who's in the picture on the box? Rant mode off As a caveat, I still like Protel better than PADS... (which truly sucks with terrific force...) all things are relative...after all :) Still wish they had not used the Explorer concept as a required option.. it sucks. - Bill Brooks (don't quote me...I use sarcasm as a tool... lol) -Original Message- From: Jon Elson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 12:34 PM To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel usage [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The following is my usage of Protel - Schematicyes - PCB yes - Powerprint yes - CAM Manageryes - Simulatorsometimes - still have great difficulty providing models for many components. - Autorouter yes - usually try it on every board, and usually take the best result from a few trials and finish/clean-up by hand. I trick myself into thinking I'm saving time this way, but I can't say for sure. - 3D Viewerno - PLD tried it some, simulation works to test out designs, but couldn't implement any Xilinx chips with it. - Arrange Components no - Autoplacer no - PCB Miterno - Signal Integrity no - Database Link no Jon * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Copper Calculations
Rene Tschaggelar wrote: This unit 'ounces of copper', does it apply to 1)square foot ? 2)square yard ? 3)square meter ? It is ounces Avoirdupois per square foot, and is about .0014 thick, which should equal about 55 uM, if I did the conversion right. Jon * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
[PEDA] Removing IP from PCB (Ex: Protel's Good/Bad points ...)
On 04:29 PM 19/11/2001 +, Jason Morgan said: The files in question were returned to Protel under NDA, they confirmed the problems as reported and indicated that at present there was no fix. Sorry, but I can't transmit designs to the public, at least without NDA, thanks for the offer anyway. What I have done with this sort of confidential data (even when sending the file to Protel) is to do a global search and destroy on all PCB parts and change their values to 10k (You see a 10k 256-ball BGA does not contain a lot if IP). I then clear the netlist. If the board is incomplete, and the netlist from the sch is required, then it is a little more complex, but still do-able. I create some dummy schematics and PCB by copying the correct ones, immediately synchronise to make the following processes simpler. I then, globally remove every netlabel of all sheets, rename all the power supplies to meaningless names and change all the component designators to R? or A? or something meaningless. Re-annotate. Then change all the part types to 10k or some other silly value (including all ICs, caps, R's, connectors etc) and synch to the PCB. The resulting netlist and refdesignators convey almost no useful info - just point-to-point connectivity. All identifying text on the PCB is then removed, and all mech layers removed - apart from maybe the outline and the keepout. I then try to remove as many rules and classes as possible to reduce the chance of there being some useful IP embodied in these. However, it is likely that mucking about with the rules is very likely to change the suspect behavior, so this has to be done with some care. I may also rejig the mech outline to mask the target application a little. Possibly remove a few mech holes as well. Then confirm the problem still exists. I then only send it to people who I think I can trust. Not to the public in general. So Jason, if you would like others to try to see if you have hit a limit on the capacity of Protel, this may be one option. I would also be prepared to look at it. So I think you have three long-term members of this forum (at least) who are prepared to see what your file does to their machine. I would be very interested in the results of such a test. (I run Win2K, SP2, 256MB, PIII-450). I for one do not discount the troubles that Jason has reported over some time on this forum. However as others have said, quite a few of us see very very few Protel crashes these days, and there must be significant differences in the hardware we run. 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/proteledaforum@techservinc.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
I'm with you, Tony. You couldn't pay me to go backwards into the old separated file method. Our designs use a numbering scheme which in the past meant having to look up on paper records which version of schematic matched what version of pcb. The ddb file system makes it fast and idiot proof. -Original Message- From: Tony Karavidas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 4:00 PM To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel usage I love the design explorer. When I revisit a design from a year or more ago, I can see everything I was up to at the time. Oh, I did 2 protos...Oh, here was production gerber set 2, etc... I just got a call to change some hole sizes on a board so I called up and 'old' design, globally changed some hole sizes, went to the CAM manager and pressed F9 - voila! New gerbers were ready to go. I didn't have to remember squat! I'm glad the old scattered-on-your-harddrive approach is gone. You can still have it that way, just don't use the integrated DDB file. Tony -Original Message- From: Brooks,Bill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 1:54 PM To: 'Protel EDA Forum' Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel usage This examination of the Protel package usage is a good exercise... Protel should pay attention to this. rant mode on My pet peeve with the Protel Explorer concept is that I have to open everything, in a specific place, without any changes in the windows environment, in order to get the design up and running to edit it... I can't keep my users from being confused about the stupid thing... I just want it to go away. I want the option to disable the stupid thing and use the program like it was in the 98 version... without all the bugs.. At least it made sense to everyone back then. Archiving files, Rev Control, argh... must be done manually anyways... with or without it. They have added a layer of complexity that was not wanted or needed... I presume that it simplifies the desire to do their paranoid licensing checks over the network... but it provides me with nothing but trouble... no net value to the company... I prefer a KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) approach... One program one function... Windows explorer does ALL that is needed to handle organization of files... PCB should read PCB's. Schematic should read Schematics, PLD should do PLD's... SIM should simulate.. this things do not need to be hidden inside an extra layer of hierarchy.. I archive just the .pcb and .sch and throw away the ddb file... the backups... the superfluous junk files... This is in order to capture the important files for archiving... I do not use the 1 file for all files approach to Protel, I use the Windows file system to keep the files out where we can see them... where we don't get confused about which file is which.. and what rev is what...etc... The ability to do IPC-356 Netlist out or ODB++ file output, or the GENCAM format might be useful... If it doesn't make our lives more complex than it has too.. I dislike what the Autorouter does, It breaks the DRC rules and creates more cleanup for the designer... I'm sure it makes sales though... looks awesome in the demo... If they ever did make it do what it was advertised to do it would be worth the extra cash I don't do sim, signal integ, pld, 3D, The print manager is sucky... and buggy... and makes me repeat the setup steps over and over with every edit session I set up...the 3D implementation is a... not too funny joke... A good translator to solidworks would be way more useful... The CAM manger is ... well could be better... still have to set it up every time... And the 'Microsoft' approach to releasing software before there is good beta testing and debug... is just poor customer relations... Protel has a reputation of being the 'Jack of all Trades' and Master of none... and when do we get to put our feet up on the desk like that guy who's in the picture on the box? Rant mode off As a caveat, I still like Protel better than PADS... (which truly sucks with terrific force...) all things are relative...after all :) Still wish they had not used the Explorer concept as a required option.. it sucks. - Bill Brooks (don't quote me...I use sarcasm as a tool... lol) -Original Message- From: Jon Elson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 12:34 PM To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel usage [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The following is my usage of Protel - Schematicyes - PCB yes - Powerprint yes - CAM Manageryes - Simulatorsometimes - still have great difficulty providing models for many components. - Autorouter yes - usually try it on every board, and usually take the best result from a few trials and finish/clean-up by hand. I trick myself into
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
Actually, the high speed digital testers employed by the memory manufacturers FULLY test memory modules over their rated speed and voltage ranges. Usually any problems that occur after the module leaves the factory are due to handling, installation or motherboard related issues (timing, voltage, noise, etc.) Memory chips themselves are 100% parametrically tested after they are packaged since the manufacturer is in the business of selling specified, functional chips. Yes, but that's not the same as when they are on the motherboard. All kinds of variables come into play: the memory chip timing, the front-side bus (chipset) timing margins, how well the impedances are matched and terminated, the supply voltage stability, how well the memory bus is shielded from interference from other sources, etc. Cheap PC motherboards have been known to exhibit problems before. I seem to recall some years ago during the tantalum and ceramic capacitor shortage that some cheap motherboards cut down on the recommended bypass caps. The result is that the PC would work for about 3-6 months and then start flaking out, as the caps dried out. Then there were the reports of some Cyrix-based motherboards burning a hole in the PCB because of inadequate cooling at high clock speeds. Your (original poster) problem may not be memory. But I thought it might be a possibility. As a hardware designer, I have to debug my own and other's designs. It's like a Sherlock Holmes mystery to be solved sometimes. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the culprit (paraphrased). I have always been able to find the causes of problems using this philosophy. Well, causes of electronics problems anyway. The world's problems still elude me ;-) Best regards, Ivan Baggett Bagotronix Inc. website: www.bagotronix.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Copper Calculations
Steve and the Forum, There appears to be some confusion in several of the posts in response to your original question, and I believe that I can clear up some of that confusion. Most of the tables or calculators available today have their basis in the old MIL STD 275 tables which plotted current in amps against rise in temperature above ambient in degrees C for a given thickness or weight of copper on a PC Board. These tables can be found today in IPC-2221 on page 38 as Figure 6-4. There are numerous other versions of these tables and also many calculators available today which offer basically the same information. What appears to be the basic misunderstanding in the posts in reply to your question is that they seem to be talking about a given amount of current through a given conductor size of a given layer thickness at a given temperature. This is not the correct application of the charts or calculators. The results are not to be viewed at a specific temperature, but rather viewed as generating additional heat and adding a certain amount of heat to the ambient or normal temperature. That means that if the normal temperature in a given area of the PCB is 25 degrees C, and you can tolerate an additional 10 degrees C temperature rise in the copper conductors in that area due to current being passed thru them, then such and such a current can be passed thru such and such a width of such and such thickness of copper in that area. In other words, passing X amount of current through a conductor of Y width and Z thickness will cause the conductor to rise so much in temperature. Please remember that only the thickness of the copper counts in these current calculations, since solder is only about 16% as conductive as copper. There have been a number of recent related posts to the PCDList listserver forum lately, and much useful related information may be gleened by looking at some of those archives. The list can be accessed via the PCDMag site at: == http://lyris.mfi.com/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=pcdlist Hopefully this clears up some of the confusion. JaMi Smith Optical Crossing Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Stephen Smith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 6:07 AM To: Protel EDA Forum (E-mail) Subject: [PEDA] Copper Calculations Does anyone know a simple way of calculating copper track size (in, mm), when you know the amount of copper (in, ounces), and the current flow (in, Amps)?? I've never had to do any high current circuits before, so any help much appreciated. Steve * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
No not currently. I'm a one man shop. PCB is between 5 and 10% of my workload. However before this year, I worked in a small company with 5 engineers and we all shared 2 seats of Protel. (not at the same time) We checked all regular source code into SourceSafe and also checked in Xilinx source and project files, Protel files, Cadkey files, and any other files that pertain to building an assembly or product. It worked great. One IT guy backed up the server every day, and our data was backed up period. We did have to screw around with collecting data from everyone's drives or worry about a tape backup that partially failed because one person turned off his computer. What does your configuration management group provide to you? Tony -Original Message- From: Brooks,Bill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 3:19 PM To: 'Protel EDA Forum' Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel usage Hi Tony, Got one question... please... Do you have a configuration management group where you work?... - Bill Brooks -Original Message- From: Tony Karavidas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 3:00 PM To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel usage I love the design explorer. When I revisit a design from a year or more ago, I can see everything I was up to at the time. Oh, I did 2 protos...Oh, here was production gerber set 2, etc... I just got a call to change some hole sizes on a board so I called up and 'old' design, globally changed some hole sizes, went to the CAM manager and pressed F9 - voila! New gerbers were ready to go. I didn't have to remember squat! I'm glad the old scattered-on-your-harddrive approach is gone. You can still have it that way, just don't use the integrated DDB file. Tony -Original Message- From: Brooks,Bill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 1:54 PM To: 'Protel EDA Forum' Subject: Re: [PEDA] Protel usage This examination of the Protel package usage is a good exercise... Protel should pay attention to this. rant mode on My pet peeve with the Protel Explorer concept is that I have to open everything, in a specific place, without any changes in the windows environment, in order to get the design up and running to edit it... I can't keep my users from being confused about the stupid thing... I just want it to go away. I want the option to disable the stupid thing and use the program like it was in the 98 version... without all the bugs.. At least it made sense to everyone back then. Archiving files, Rev Control, argh... must be done manually anyways... with or without it. They have added a layer of complexity that was not wanted or needed... I presume that it simplifies the desire to do their paranoid licensing checks over the network... but it provides me with nothing but trouble... no net value to the company... I prefer a KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) approach... One program one function... Windows explorer does ALL that is needed to handle organization of files... PCB should read PCB's. Schematic should read Schematics, PLD should do PLD's... SIM should simulate.. this things do not need to be hidden inside an extra layer of hierarchy.. I archive just the .pcb and .sch and throw away the ddb file... the backups... the superfluous junk files... This is in order to capture the important files for archiving... I do not use the 1 file for all files approach to Protel, I use the Windows file system to keep the files out where we can see them... where we don't get confused about which file is which.. and what rev is what...etc... The ability to do IPC-356 Netlist out or ODB++ file output, or the GENCAM format might be useful... If it doesn't make our lives more complex than it has too.. I dislike what the Autorouter does, It breaks the DRC rules and creates more cleanup for the designer... I'm sure it makes sales though... looks awesome in the demo... If they ever did make it do what it was advertised to do it would be worth the extra cash I don't do sim, signal integ, pld, 3D, The print manager is sucky... and buggy... and makes me repeat the setup steps over and over with every edit session I set up...the 3D implementation is a... not too funny joke... A good translator to solidworks would be way more useful... The CAM manger is ... well could be better... still have to set it up every time... And the 'Microsoft' approach to releasing software before there is good beta testing and debug... is just poor customer relations... Protel has a reputation of being the 'Jack of all Trades' and Master of none... and when do we get to put our feet up on the desk like that guy who's in the picture on the box? Rant mode off As a caveat, I still like Protel better than PADS... (which truly sucks with terrific force...) all
Re: [PEDA] Protel's Good/Bad points (WAS:Using 3D)
At 04:53 PM 11/19/01 -0600, Matt Pobursky wrote: Actually, the high speed digital testers employed by the memory manufacturers FULLY test memory modules over their rated speed and voltage ranges. Usually any problems that occur after the module leaves the factory are due to handling, installation or motherboard related issues (timing, voltage, noise, etc.) Memory chips themselves are 100% parametrically tested after they are packaged since the manufacturer is in the business of selling specified, functional chips. It is practically impossible to *fully* test a large memory chip because there can be data-sensitive errors. I.e., when this cell is 1 and that cell is 0 and this row over here is all 1s, and then one writes such and such to a cell, there is an error. Especially dynamic memory can be vulnerable to this. Last time I remember running memory tests, there were options to test them six ways until Sunday. It was very time-consuming. On the one hand, the computers were slow by today's standards; on the other hand, the memory chips were much smaller (i.e., fewer cells). At any rate... if anyone is interested in FULLY testing your system memory, you can get a great FREE memory test program at: http://www.teresaudio.com/memtest86/ Thanks for the URL! [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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Removing IP from PCB (Ex: Protel's Good/Bad points ...)
At 09:46 PM 19/11/01 -0500, you wrote: At 08:49 AM 11/20/01 +1100, Ian Wilson wrote: If the board is incomplete, and the netlist from the sch is required, then it is a little more complex, but still do-able. If the board has all the footprints, i.e., there is a pad for every node in the net list, it is simple to load the netlist, globally edit all the comments to something innocuous, then dump the net list. It will not contain any of the original part type information, just reference designators, footprints, and nets. (This is Design/NetlistManager/Menu/ I forget the exact name, but it is *not* the command that generates a net list from connected copper. It is the other one, that just dumps what is loaded into all the pads.) Design/NetlistManager/Menu/Create Netlist from Connected Copper But this will include the names of the nets. My detailed instructions were largely based on the requirement that the net names needed to be obfuscated as, is common with a clear schematic, the net names themselves may carry significant IP. To mask all the possible IP from the PCB it is necessary to remove the net names and substitute generic netlister/synchroniser allocated names. The netlist is necessary in some circumstances as the bug/problem/issue/feature being demonstrated may require a netlist. In the case of a completed board the netlist can be generated from the copper as per the above command sequence. This is not the case in an incomplete board - to be more specific - in a board that is not fully routed. Bye for now, 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/proteledaforum@techservinc.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Complex to simple
Peder, I asked Protel Support about this about a month ago. Below is an extract of my email their response. It apparently wasn't important enough to have been fixed yet! = Thank you for emailing Technical Support. I have forwarded this link to our web development team to fix. For future reference for creating a hierarchical schematic please refer to page 131 in the Protel 99 SE manual. snip - Original Message - From: Dwight Harm [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: protel support [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 8:42 PM Subject: kb item 1893, where's article? Knowledgebase item 1893, re complex to simple hierarchy, has a bad link to the article that is supposed to answer the question -- http://www.protel.com/earticles/complex_hier_P99.htm = -Original Message- From: Peder K. Hellegaard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 12:34 PM An article that describes how the complex hierarchy works, used to be located at: www.protel.com/earticles/complex_hier_P99.htm but it has obviously moved. Does anybody know where I can find it now ??? Peder * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
[PEDA] AW: Copper Calculations
From this point, look how easy physics can be, if you are using the metric system. Georg -Urspr ngliche Nachricht- Von: Brooks,Bill [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Gesendet: Montag, 19. November 2001 21:58 An: 'Protel EDA Forum' Betreff: Re: [PEDA] Copper Calculations Hi Rene, I believe the way the story (legend) goes is: The British housing industry used to make copper shingles for roofing... they were 1 foot by 1 foot square and had a weight 1 oz. ... I'm told that's where the measurement technique was invented... This of course, yields the familiar 1.4 mils thick copper we all know and love That copper sheet material was then laminated or applied to an insulator backing and the PCB was born.. :) (don't ya love legends) Can't remember where I heard it... but it made sense... Might as well retell it... - Bill Brooks -Original Message- From: Rene Tschaggelar [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 12:05 PM To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: Re: [PEDA] Copper Calculations This unit 'ounces of copper', does it apply to 1)square foot ? 2)square yard ? 3)square meter ? European thicknesses are 35, 70, 105, 150, 200 and 300 micrometer. I just wondered how they relate. One ounce is 28 grams, isn't it ? Rene Stephen Smith wrote: Does anyone know a simple way of calculating copper track size (in, mm), when you know the amount of copper (in, ounces), and the current flow (in, Amps)?? I've never had to do any high current circuits before, so any help much appreciated. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Re: [PEDA] Protel usage
Hi I have the designer handbook of Protel99SE. I submit that simulator, signal integrity and PLD is poorly documented. Wolfgang Geier JUMPtec AG [EMAIL PROTECTED] 19.11.2001 17:26 Please respond to Protel EDA Forum To: Protel EDA Forum [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject:Re: [PEDA] Protel usage I'm curious. How many upgraded to Protel 99 SE and thus do not have the Protel 99 SE Designer's Handbook, and how many people do have it? How many of the people with the Designer's Handbook feel the simulator, signal integrity and PLD are poorly documented? The reason I ask is that at the last job we upgraded to 99Se and the help files sucked for figuring out how to use the new features, but at this job we bought Protel new and the Designer's Manual is actually quite a bit of help. I just wish they had put the Designer's Handbook into the help files, so I don't have to go get the manual back from the other engineer everytime I can't remember something. Rob * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
