DEX eval by free_electron

[Iliya]

Decided to have a go at manual routing the board.
Took less than 15 minutes and its single sided!
See attached.

Yes I know some of you will hate it, but I'm not a PCB designer yet I did it. DEX can't be that bad.
Will do a video of this to show you.
But its very, very low frequency.

[tautech]

Decided to have a go at manual routing the board.

Yes I know some of you will hate it

Not at all.
Much design and layout does not need to be concerned with signal speed.

ALL of the PCB's I have done have been Manually routed to finish.
Autoroute is VERY valuable to "test" layouts and component placement and I use it almost exclusively for that.
I don't care how much of a mess it might make of the "whole" PCB, it's an area of interest I'm focused on till it's right, then more to the next area/block and get that right....(IMO) and so on.
I might autoroute a single net or two, but thats all.

Watch for other feedback, you might find this is also many others MO.

[elgonzo]

Will do a video of this to show you.
But its very, very low frequency.

When you do the video, perhaps flip R1 horizontally and route the trace from R2 to B1 above R2 (and not between R1 and R2). This will avoid those snaking traces around R1 and B1. You could also route the trace from U1 to DS1 in a different way to avoid it getting too close to a mounting hole (if mounting holes would be an actual concern).

Photoshopped example of the layout below.

[IconicPCB]

Ilija,

Rotate the LEDs 90 degrees clockwise.

[Mechatrommer]

i wish a video... not just i wish, i also hope the video can help other people understand your sw better... a video of how its done modification of from this...


that is iliya original board. to this (elgonzo proposed improvement)...

[rsjsouza]

Here's my take on my astable multivibrator. Despite Iliya's response was not exactly to the point, it gave me ideas to draw it in the way I wanted.

Not really a masterpiece, but instead a quick dry run. BTW, manually routed (the 45° angles work just fine).

[tautech]

Not bad but the component overlays are....
Footprint for a polarised cap?
Polarity (+) markers?
Polarised headers?
Transistor ebc?

Can you EASILY change Pad properties? (round, square, rectangle)
Add Text as copper?

[Wytnucls]

One can add text as copper or silkscreen and pad properties can be changed easily. Footprints don't seem to come with pin description from the database or part builder.

[rsjsouza]

tautech, I also noticed the polarity markers were missing on the pol cap silkscreen as well, but I went with whatever the standard footprint library was giving me.

I don't like to use EBC on the transistor silkscreens, as the shape must convey the correct mounting orientation - again, I went with the standard footprint library and I don't particularly like the silk for the TO-92s (hard to see the orientation).
(edit: I took a second look and noticed the TO-92s are ECB, which does not agree with the PN2222A - another slight mistake for blindly using the provided libs - will have to correct that)

I completely overlooked the polarity on headers...

The only remaining DRC issue is the small pin holes on the TO-92 - again the standard lib.

I may or may not correct these things on the footprint library - that depends on available time to dive into DEX appropriately. It is possible to simply wack some additional text to the silkscreen without a problem.

At this point I am working also with KiCad at work and I can tell each GUI has its quirky aspects. Kicad was not easy to navigate at first, but Chris Gammel's video tutorials were a helper. But then, I had the same impression when I started using Altium 14 after I have used Protel 99 several years ago.

My current impression is that DEX environment is harder to navigate due to the clutter of the application's viewport (ribbon menu is very dense and the items at the top toolbar give me this impression), but I am pretty sure it is just a matter of getting used to it.

[mswhin63]

Cool, did a search, same principle for my use to reduce the effect of eye dilation. Really appreciate that info 

That can now be left for another topic.

Curious what Rubylith has to do with Electronics other than covering Laptop screen for night vision. I use heaps of the stuff. Do you have any other application? 

Creating masks for PCB and chip designs in ye' olde times. Ask your parents

[tautech]

One can add text as copper or silkscreen and pad properties can be changed easily. Footprints don't seem to come with pin description from the database or part builder.

Thanks, I'm certainly no PCB expert, just done enough small boards to know some of the traps in a layout and how they can be rectified if libraries don't give you "quite" the right footprint.

rsjsouza
Good that we can "explore" DEX and give others the "heads up", but what's more important....more info for Iliya to digest. 

[4cx10000]

Good that we can "explore" DEX and give others the "heads up", but what's more important....more info for Iliya to digest. 

 

Been Eagle user for many years and it really fulfill all my needs but curiosity brought me to download DEX. Sadly it hanged after trying to import one of my Eagle project, but I will download the latest version and try again. If everything seems ok I will give it another shoot and import the Eagle libraries as well.  I might have something to contribute later on.

[Iliya]

Will upload the videos tomorrow. I apologise for the delay.

[Iliya]

I have done the video. 

Click to view the video

This video show the design of a simple LED ladder display. It takes you through the process from schematic, custom part creation and PCB manual routing with AutoTRAX DEX.

[Iliya]

I have done the video. 

Click to view the video

This video show the design of a simple LED ladder display. It takes you through the process from schematic, custom part creation and PCB manual routing with AutoTRAX DEX.

It's now on YouTube

[Wytnucls]

Thanks Iliya, great video. You should expand on the same project, demonstrating basic pad shape change, transparency, moving some traces to top copper, copper pour, silkscreen, solder mask and then finish up with BOM and Gerber files.
Users would appreciate being able to observe a complete project in real time.

[Mechatrommer]

I have done the video. 

kudos! that sure will attract some newcomers in. i'm sort of understand now some reasons why such ways are done in such ways. i can see you have attempted to make the sw powerful and customizable enough. for example to move component's pins freely in schematic editor etc. but IMHO, my statement on the other thread still holds true, which is the sw is in the wrong direction, at some aspects it tried to be powerful, but at some other aspects usually crucial in pcb design, it will not allow us to do our heart will. but thats just my humble opinion, you are free to stick with you way of thinking of doing things, please dont take it as an offense, its just free speech world here and food for thought.

1) examples can be seen in the very video. starting around 21:11 you are routing the pcb... even though the program tried to enforce 45 degree upstream, i can still see free angle autorouting downstream (to destination pad), this is not 100% 45 degree enforcement to my definition, and can produce unwanted free angle tracks afterward...

2) i dont like the way that we only able to route from net line, but that maybe just personal taste, or i dont really understand the "intelligence" of your sw. sometime i want to route from B to A and your program will not allow that and choose by its own wisdom to route from A to B.

3) i always talked about "spaghetty mess" and you accidentally did it at 22:44 when you tried to move the LM3194. you may think this is not a serious problem and put the bug/feature wishlist to the last, but imho the problem is very real. now i only did very few pcb for my hobby i know i'm not really the right person to say this, someone please backup or object this, but i think this is serious problem to think about. one of my design i did... the pcb is completed and then i want to fit in the case, not fit enough, i have to move few components around. just imagine moving hundreds of pins around how much spaghetty mess i have to fix? thats why i keen to see a video on "modifying existing tracks" rather than building "new tracks". also you did the schematic editor make it seems to be easy enough with 90degree snap wiring. but i have different problem to say otherwise where the sw produced redundant segments when wiring or moving components, i still unable to upload the video.

[Iliya]

This video shows you how to convert the LED ladder display design built with TPH PCB technology to one using SMT.
The design will be dramatically reduced in size and manufacturing costs will also be greatly reduced.
No changes are made to the schematic.

Click to view...

[Iliya]

2) i dont like the way that we only able to route from net line, but that maybe just personal taste, or i dont really understand the "intelligence" of your sw. sometime i want to route from B to A and your program will not allow that and choose by its own wisdom to route from A to B.

To route for A to B double click or start the drag near to A.
To route for B to A double click or start the drag near to B.

[Iliya]

Thanks Iliya, great video. You should expand on the same project, demonstrating basic pad shape change, transparency, moving some traces to top copper, copper pour, silkscreen, solder mask and then finish up with BOM and Gerber files.
Users would appreciate being able to observe a complete project in real time.

This video shows you how you can change things in schematics.
Click to view

I will do one for PCBs this weekend.

[aroby]

That's a handy overview video.

How do you

a) change the footprint for a part that is already on the schematic?  e.g. change your resistors from through hole to SMD?  Or from one SMD footprint to another?   I assume this can be done, since the resistors were placed via a dialog that allowed you to select the footprint.

b) find out the footprint for the resistors?   I have tried this by looking at Properties, but it doesn't show.  You end up having to go to Part Builder - is there an easier way?

Anthony

[nctnico]

I have done the video. 

Click to view the video

This video show the design of a simple LED ladder display. It takes you through the process from schematic, custom part creation and PCB manual routing with AutoTRAX DEX.

It's now on YouTube

I've watched the video. I noticed that you remove/redo entire tracks instead of just shoving the edges around a bit to make a track nicer or move it a little.

[rsjsouza]

A few days ago I had some time to improve the astable design (couldn't post earlier due to sickness), and fixed the transistor pinouts using the part builder and added the labels on the PCB silkscreen.

One thing I still could not fully understand is how the transistor pinout is actually set in the part builder. In my project I did the following: removed the existing footprint; opened the part builder; used the TO-92 template. However, the only option about pin assignment was shown at the tab Symbol --> Organize Terminals. I used the option "By Pin Number" and the pins were corrected as E(1), B(2) and C(3), but I am still not sure how I would organize the terminals if I needed a different arrangement (ECB or BCE, for example). question for Iliya: how to properly assign the terminals to their physical position on the footprint?

On the Footprint tab of the Part builder, the Prefix is shown at the top of the panel in an text edit box. However, I was going crazy as anything input to did not stick, until I found the section Reference at the bottom of this tab. question for Iliya: do you see this as well? If so, perhaps prevent the top Prefix text box to be editable, or allow editing it but making sure the change "sticks"?

Another intriguing detail is that, by rearranging the footprint terminals, the schematics were re-wired (the third picture attached). question for Iliya: do you agree this may be a bug? Schematics shouldn't be affected at all by footprints.

I then watched the video. It was very good to have a grasp on how the creator works with the tool, but a few questions remained on my end:

- what is the key combination to move around on the PCB/Schematics using the mouse? I was only able to do this using the keyboard arrows (perhaps I missed that on the video)

- When creating the LM3914 you assigned all the pins but you did not modify their electrical properties such as output, input, passive, power, etc. Is this done by the Properties Panel?

- When you were manually routing the a net/track, all the others fully disappear. Would it be possible to leave them somewhat greyed out so the manual routing would be easier? This is just an enhancement.

All in all, I now have a better understanding on how the tool is constructed and the thought process behind it.

[elgonzo]

On a few example PCB layouts posted here, i saw "NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY" on the silk screen.
Nothing against Dex giving a reminder about its usage policy, but what i wonder is what if you have small-ish, densely populated PCB where there would be no place for this label. Is it possible to delete or place the label outside the PCB boundaries?

[Iliya]

Adding a Button Battery to the LED Voltage Ladder

This shows you how I replaced the power connector with a battery on the board.

View Video...

The battery is on the opposite side to the electronics.

The next video I will show you how I tidy up the auto-routed board. Check spacing, and prepare for manufacture. (note tracks close to holes)