Pick and Place Setup

Old Content - visit altium.com/documentation

Modified by Admin on Aug 8, 2014

Parent page: WorkspaceManager Dialogs

The Pick and Place Setup Dialog.

Summary

This dialog enables you to define the format and units for Pick and place component location files.

Access

This dialog is accessed by clicking File » Assembly Outputs » Generate Pick and Place Files .

Options/Controls

Formats

Choose file format for Pick and place component location files. Details for each component include: designator, footprint, location, side of board, rotation and comment. The component location information is expressed in 3 formats: by geometric center, component reference point, and pad 1 location.

CSV - Enable this option to generate CSV files.
Text - Enable this option to generate Text files.

Units

Choose unit for Pick and place component location files, Imperial or Metric.

Generated Files

Pick and Place output can be generated in one of two ways:

using an appropriately configured output generator defined in an Output Job Configuration file (*.OutJob). Output will be generated upon running the configured output generator
directly from within the active PCB document using the File » Assembly Outputs » Generates pick and place files menu command. Output will be generated immediately upon clicking OK in the Pick and Place Setup dialog.

Note : The settings defined in the Pick and Place Setup dialog when generating output directly from the PCB are distinct and separate to those defined for the same output type in an Output Job Configuration file. In the case of the former, the settings are stored in the project file, whereas for the latter they are stored in the Output Job Configuration file.

When the output is generated, the resulting files use the name of the PCB design, PCBDesignName.csv or PCBDesignName.txt.

The generated files contain the following information for each component used in the design:

Designator
Footprint
Location
Layer (in the text version of the file this is referred to as TB Top/Bottom)
Rotation
Comment

The location information is expressed in three ways, corresponding to the three methods by which a component footprint's reference point can be specified in the source PCB library:

Mid X , Mid Y - coordinates for the component's center point
Ref X , Ref Y - coordinates for the component's user-defined reference point
Pad X , Pad Y - coordinates for Pad 1 of the component.

When generated, the output will be added to the project and appear in the Projects panel under the Generated folder, in an appropriately-named sub-folder. If you have used a separate folder for each output type, then corresponding (separate) Generated folders will be added to the Projects panel (e.g. Generated (Pick Place Output)).

Location of Generated Files

The output path for generated files depends on how the output was generated:

From an OutputJob file - the generated files are stored in a folder within the project folder, the naming and folder structure is defined in the Output Container that the Pick and Place file output is targeting.
Directly from the PCB -the output path is specified in the Options tab of the Options for Project dialog. By default, the output path is set to a sub-folder under the folder that contains the Project file and has the name: Project Outputs for ProjectName. The output path can be changed as required. If the option to use a separate folder for each output type has been enabled in the Options tab, then the Pick and Place files will be written to a further sub-folder, named: Pick and Place Output.

Custom Pick and Place File Generation

Should you wish to generate a Pick and Place file in a format other than csv or text, you can do so by using the Report Manager. This can be defined as part of an Output Job Configuration file. Add an additional Bill of Materials output generator to the Report Outputs category and give it a meaningful name so as to distinguish it as relating to Pick and Place information. In the Data Source field for the Output Job entry, select the PCB document from which you wish to generate the information.

Double-click on the entry in the Output Job Configuration file. The dialog that appears will be named in accordance with the entry you specified for the output generator's Name field so if you named the generator Pick and Place, the dialog would appear with the header Pick and Place for PCB Document [PCBName]. Then enable and configure the information columns for the report as required.