Manufacturing Documentation with Duane Benson

The Altium 365 Workspace project view provides design data comparison features that allow you to compare data changes that have occurred between different project releases and/or commits. Particularly valuable for performing final checks prior to sending your product data to the manufacturing side, the features allow you to determine exactly what changes have occurred in your Gerber (or ODB++),…

The standalone Altium 365 Gerber Comparison viewer provides free access to graphically view the differences between Gerber fabrication files through your web browser. This offers a quick and easy solution for checking a design's fabrication output between release iterations or prior to sending your board production data out to manufacture. As a free service developed and provided by Altium, the…

When BOM.CoDesign is in the Released state - update the blue box below with the source code of the 'Public Feature Moves to Released' snippet. The BOM CoDesign functionality is available when the BOM.CoDesign option is enabled in the Advanced Settings dialog. The BOM CoDesign functionality facilitates collaborative BOM design between the ECAD and Procurement domains. This functionality enables…

When a product needs to be designed and produced as a number of variations of that product, say where each has different options or capabilities, the ability to implement Design Variants avoids the need to create a unique version of the design for each variation. In practice, a Design Variant uses the same base design, but the PCB assembly is loaded with the set of components specified by the…

A large variety of outputs can be generated for and from a PCB design, and each output type has its own settings. The best way to manage this multitude of outputs in Altium Designer is to use an Output Job file, or 'OutJob' as it is more commonly known. An OutJob is simply a pre-configured set of outputs. Each output is configured with its own settings and its own output format, for example…

The final phase of the board design cycle is to generate the output files needed to fabricate, assemble and test the printed circuit board. To do this, you need to generate a variety of output files, in a variety of formats. The ultimate objective is to fabricate and assemble the board. As the designer you have the choice of individually configuring and generating the outputs via the schematic…

Print-based output for your PCB project in Altium Designer is available through creating a output job configuration file (*.OutJob). When you create a job output there is a range of manufacturing documentation available for output including common two-dimensional PCB printouts, such as a composite drawings and schematic drawings. 2D print output is configured in the PCB Printout Properties dialog…

Parent page: More about Outputs In Altium Designer, the ability to take a snapshot of your PCB as a 3D printout provides a quick and easy way to share the look of the finished product with others, prior to physical production of the board. However, there's always something lacking when it comes to a single 3D print. You inevitably want to tilt the board, rotate it, or flip it between component…

Altium Designer users have long enjoyed the ability to interactively view PCB designs in fully rendered 3D, which provides a unique insight into the real structure of the board design, its components and associated mechanical parts. There are significant advantages in being able to bring this 3D capability to those outside the immediate design team, such as fabrication and assembly houses, and…

PCB layers are created from photographic film that has been exposed to light. Apertures are the physical openings through which the light shines on the film. CAM data includes aperture definitions (size and shape), plus instructions about where to flash the light through apertures, and where to draw lines on the film by moving between locations with the light beam still on. Different pad sizes…