Keep IN/OUT regions on PCBs?

[Borisw37]

Is there any easy / recommended way of modeling keep in/out regions when modeling printed circuit boards so that they can be easily shown when creating a drawing of a PCB?


Thank you,


Boris.

 

[mcgowanp]

When doing PCB I usually use a cosmetic sketch with hatching to show In/Out areas for components. You can manage them in layers so displpaying in the drawing is handy.

 

[Tobyk]

I use the Cosmetic ECAD areas with the 3D volume option checked if there are several component keepouts/height restrictions on the pcb.


If you change the colour of the 3d volume (it's a quilt)to a transparent one then you get a good visualation for the pcb designer to look at.


Ifyour pcb designer can import IDF (*.emn) files then this information can be passed without a drawing if you use the ECAD cosmetics. If the keepout areas are numerous then a few isometric views on a drawing are always welcomed.


When I'm not exporting as IDF then I cross hatch everything.When


I am exporting then I only xhatch the zero-height areas and provide the isometric views as a guide.


TK
Edited by: Tobyk

 

[Zestje]

The easiest way is as said by using cosmetic ECAD areas. If you put all top side cosmetics on one layer and all bottom side cosmetics on another layer you can easily blend each side in/out. Because ProE displays the cosmetics through the entire part it's hardly possible to recognise anything if you have cosmetics on both sides displayed at once.

Furthermore avoid having routing features like placement keepout which have contours inside other contours (like a rectangle inside a rectangle), because when you export these as IDF and a layouter imports these into a layout program these are likely to be imported as 2 separate regions on top of each other, which is not allowed, of course.

Also some programs import ECAD regions different from what is set in ProE (e.g. a routing keepout in ProE gets imported as a routing keepin). The only way to solve these problems is trial and error...
I have made a list to use with one of our customers. I'll see if I can put it up here.

 

[Tobyk]

. Because ProE displays the cosmetics through the entire part it's hardly possible to recognise anything if you have cosmetics on both sides displayed at once.

In the drawing view properties if you turn on "hidden line removal for quilts" under "view display" then the cosmetics won't display through the entire part.

TK

 

[Zestje]

@Tobyk
Cool, I didn't know that

Anyway, I have uploaded a document that helps me transfer data with one of our customers.

I export the PCB as IDF v3.0 (.emn) for our customer. The document explains how my defined ECAD areas get imported into our customers ECAD system.

Note that a 'placement keepout' region -with- height setting gets imported as 'placement region'! It took us a day of trial and error before we found out that this caused import errors at our customer... So I hope that if someone runs into the same problem they will have an easier job solving it with this document.

EDIT: Re-uploaded file for new forum software

 

[kwillo]

If you download the Help Topic Collections from thePTC website (Support section, download reference documents etc) there's a lot of info on how ECAD works. I found it quite helpful although most of it remains amystery.


I've found adding ecad features to layers to be the best way to handle the drawing. You can then show or hide them on particular drawing views as necessary plus be able to turn them off in the model.


Useful tip from Tobyk. I'll try that.
Edited by: kwillo

 

[Borisw37]

Thanks for all your help. This will definitely save me a lot of time.

 

[kwillo]

Zestje,


Is a place keep-out with a height effectively a keep-in... ie.all components must be within the 3D volume thereby giving a limitation on component height (= keep-out anything over the specified height)? Am I reading your document correctly?


KW

 

[Zestje]

@Kwillo
Yes, when I send our customer a place keep-out with height and he imports this data, he'll see a placement region with the specified height... weird isn't it?

Just to make myself 100% clear:
Please note that this document describes the settings I must use for data exchange with this specific customer. It's defenitely NOT information provided by PTC in some way that accounts as a general rule for ECAD data exchange.

In each separate case, dependant on which program the data are imported into, the required settings to get a decent import may just be very different...
I hope that because of these post people realise that some data exchange problems might be easily solved by using the settings in my document. In case they are not, the only way to get the data exchange going is by trial and error...

 

[kwillo]

Are you importing into Allegro with this? I think it helps to explain some anomolies I've been seeing.

 

[Zestje]

Hello,

1) I updated the link on the previous page.
2) Recently I have exchanged data with Allegro and made an updated document, but it's in German language. I'll translate it into English and upload it as well sometime this week.

 

[Zestje]

Hello,

Here are the updated files. Have fun...