From MCAD to PCB - a Video Overview

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Modified by Admin on Nov 25, 2013
Summary
Presented below is a series of steps representing a typical design flow of a PCB layout project initiated from MCAD data. One of the big advantages of initiating PCB layout from mechanical design is the fact that the physical relationship between the board and other mechanical elements has already been defined negating the need for any complex positioning. Individual requirements will vary greatly so naturally the system provides the flexibility for you to enter this at any stage, or simply utilize individual steps as required.

Exporting the Mechanical Design from an MCAD package

Reference Videos

The STEP file format provides a convenient, standard and widely supported way of transporting data into and out of various CAD packages. Naturally your MCAD designer will not want to work in STEP format all of the time as he will inevetibly lose the ability to utilize the product specific features of his particular package. This is ok, great in fact. Like any development effort we would not want to make every stage and every little change accesible to the rest of the world. More naturally there are specific points in time when we are happy to share our efforts with others. It is at this stage that the MCAD engineer should initiate this sharing by exporting the geometry of his design to the STEP format. This will make accessible to the ECAD engineer and the PCB editing environment in within Altium designer.

Making the Mechanical Design Accessible within the PCB Environment

Reference Videos

Further Reading

Now that the mechanical data has been made available we will want to link this into our board layout editor. This allows us to re-create the environment in which our board will ultimately live and then design within these constraints. Altium Designer provides two ways of accessing the mechanical design.

The mechanical design may be imported and embedded with a PCB document. This can be convenient if you are confident that your mechanical design is static or if you need the convenience of simply transporting a single file around which can display your entire product concept.

For development environments the preferred approach is linking the mechanical design file. This allows for dynamic updates of the mechanical design to occur in real time. We will explore this further in the section on Accepting updates to the mechanical design dynamically.

Utilizing the Mechanical Data to Define the Board Outline

Reference Video

Creating the board outline from the mechanical design data

Further Reading

Board Shape

We can utilize the mechanical data to expedite processes within our design. The most obvious of these is the board shape itself. Due to the nature of enclosure design the MCAD engineer will almost certainly have a representation of at least the bare board an all its mechanical mounting points (holes) within the mechanical data. We do this via the Design » Board Shape » Define from 3D Body command. At this point you effectively have two copies of the bare board within you design. This is not particularly desirable so Altium designer provides the ability to both Hide the mechanical element representing the bare board and exclude it from consideration in any DRC checks.

The bare board should be a separate part in your mechanical design to utilize this system to maximum effect.

Accepting Updates to the Mechanical Design Dynamically

Reference Videos

Inevitably requirements will change, oversights will be made etc which will necessitate changes in the mechanical design and which we will want to reflect within the board editing environment. This is no problem, particularly if we have linked our mechanical design rather than embedding it. Once the mechanical engineer is happy with his changes he simply exports a new revision of the step file. If your PCB file happens to be open, you will immediately be notified that the mechanical design has changed and the old data will be replaced by the new. If you had used the origninal data to create the board shape you will also be prompted to re-create the board shape based on the new data.

If we have embedded rather than linked our mechanical design we will need to initiate these actions manually.

Place and Route within the Mechanical Environment

This is the normal/traditional part of the PCB layout process, but we should make a few important points.

  1. We can have a high level of confidence that our board shape, mounting holes and cutouts are all correctly positioned minimizing the chance of re-work becoming necessary later in the design.
  2. Gone is the need to create complex, yet often only approximate, height restriction rules. The board editor environment is fully aware of you mechanical design elements and will use this to preform clearance checking as defined in your rules via the normal DRC process.

Reference Videos

Export the board and components to give the MCAD engineer a complete view of the design

As the design settles and begins to approach what will be it's final state we will want to provide out mechanical engineer with board layout so that he has a complete representation of the design and can perform his own checks etc.

 

Utilize the visualization system in you product demos and assembly documents

Reference Videos

One of the great features of Altium Designer's 3D support is being able to generate printouts of your design.

 

 

 

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