DEX eval by free_electron

[pickle9000]

I give them both  and hope they part on friendly terms at the end of it without too much loss of blood.

That's the problem with the internet. In the real world they would discuss it over beer and ending up buddies.

So, no dark alley and baseball bats?

Seriously though it takes massive effort to do a program like this one. You need a very specific (massive) amount of stubbornness to pull it off. As for F_E I see him as having massive stubbornness as well like so many in the field (myself included).

Iliya, the program is well worth the price you are asking. The fact that you are still moving it forward it makes it even better.

[bigmik]

Hi All,

Rather than occupying space with what DEX `can't do' I would like to see some boards that have been done with DEX small and large.

I am a hobbyist and have made several boards with DEX that are available for perusal here. http://www.dontronics.com/micks-mites/files/

I am not trying to post this as advertisement for myself or DEX but if any of these boards can help in showing what DEX can do I am happy to show either a scan of top and bottom layers or DEX screen dumps.. Note I have only recently started playing around with the 3D so I have no decent 3D images to show. I would also be interested in boards that others have made with DEX as examples of what can be done..

I sum up my experience with DEX as follows:

Was it an easy learning curve (coming from Protel99se)?  ----  NO
Have I learned how to manage using the program with relative ease? --- YES
Is it perfect? ------- NO
Can it be improved ? ---- Yes
Is the author available and contactable for suggestions? --- Yes
Have I done anything really complex? -------NO
Do I believe DEX is capable of complex boards? --- YES

I don't like a lot of the parts footprints and some have the holes too small but I have found by creating my own parts (not difficult at all) I now can do my boards fairly easy by using the parts I created, the hard part and time consuming part is the track layout as the internal router is very basic and the electra option is very expensive for a hobbyist,

The above are only my comments and come from a hobbyist point of view, although I am offering the boards for sale there has not been any huge rush to beat down my door, in fact MuP is the only board that has actually made more than it cost me. I have been doing circuit boards for 30 odd years since the old tape up double size and photographically reduce etc. but this is NOT my living and not what I put even a large proportion of my time and effort into.

OK does anyone else have any boards they can post? Is anyone interested in a closer look at any of the boards I have listed above?

Kind Regards,

Mick

[TerraHertz]

I'm very grateful to FE for the effort he's putting into this, and impressed to learn here of his professional background. I'm also grateful and impressed by Iliya's years of effort and skill in producing DEX, then making it available for free (and a low, low cost for commercial use.)

The thread is a very interesting and informative read, seeing FE going through the learning curve of software that appears to have a few quirks. I'm seeing both the kind of quirkiness and bug-levels typical of a large software project authored by one person. Also perhaps a degree of 'expert factor' from FE, in that he has strong ideas of how things should be done, which makes it hard to adapt to things that aren't done in the expected way. Though, so far I've been in virtually total agreement with FE's comments on PCB/schematic CAD principles.

As for Iliya's attitude and tone in response to FE's efforts, well, I try to imagine how I'd behave in similar circumstances, of having spent years (decades?) of work on something, all during which there'd be a stream of unhelpful abusive criticism, then encountering yet another wave of critique. It would be very hard to overcome a conditioned prickly response, and recognize the great value in the critique. Yeah, Iliya could take it better. If he was a saint.

Anyway, everyone has their idiosyncrasies.  Some of mine are:
* I won't install .NET from Microsoft. No point or space here to go into my reasons at length, but simplified:
   I've been using computers since before Microsoft and PCs existed. Over their history I've paid close attention to the internals of DOS, Windows and Microsoft's management structure. My firm conclusion is that MS and all their software are evil, originate in evil intent, and absolutely can't be trusted. Both the company and the software have been getting worse as time goes by, and by now are well beyond my vomit-limit. I still use XP (an unchained version), and refuse to be dragged further into the MS horror future-vision. .NET is part of that. Ha ha 'compile on install'? Nope!

* I'm making a determined effort to switch entirely to 'portable' utilities. Some of the criteria for portability are:
  - Utility files are simply placed in some folder (anywhere) and run in place. No install process at all.
  - Clean separation of config data categories and placement.
     All utility config info is kept in the util's placed folder (or a sub-folder.)
     All project config info is kept in the specific project folders.
  - Absolutely no interaction with the Windows Registry or 'users' structures. They are poison (some of which involves a deliberate MS strategy to cripple user capability.)
    It's no big deal to forego file type/tool registration, since with CAD tools you typicaly open the utility then point it at a project anyway. Or script its startup.
  - Simply duplicating the utility folder tree, and/or project folder trees, makes a faithful working clone. (Or backup copy that will still work in 10 years time.)
  - ZERO dependencies on external software. (Such as .NET) Avoids all version and non-cloneability problems.
  - Utilities that don't intrinsically require LAN capability, should NOT do anything on the LAN.
    There's no excuse for a CAD package to be doing anything on the LAN. (and DEX does,
    according to Iliya's comments about multiple PCs and configs available for roaming.)
  - Every single disk location the utility accesses, to be user-config'd via a set of Paths. This includes where you place project folders, temp files, backups, libraries, etc.
    And those config settings (actually all of them) should be alterable via a text-based scripting system, to allow user scripting of project setups and switching between projects. Most projects involve several different CAD and other utilities, yet the world is full of CAD programs that are written as if *they* are the only utility ever used and so the project structures should be totally managed by that utility. Bah!


Unfortunately DEX violates a few of those basics, and so I'm very reluctant to put in the learning curve effort needed to properly evaluate it.
IFF it turned out to be fantastic, I'd consider putting aside no-nos such as 'not portable, has external dependencies, uses .NET, is LAN-active'.
But it's looking as if it isn't there yet. I don't currently have a serious need to do PCBs, so can wait and watch.

A few other comments;

The presence of parts libraries isn't important to me, since I rarely found existing library parts were usable. Even when something was close, the effort of checking it was generally more than to just create one from scratch myself. In every project I'd have to create symbols and footprints for components that weren't already in my personal parts library. So the important thing is an efficient and easy to use editor for symbols and footprints. Seeing mention of conversion-importing libraries from Eagle just makes me laugh. Oh yeah, I bet those are all really useful, error-free and in a uniform visual style.

Connection rubber-banding in the schematic editor - one of those ideas that seems good on first thought, but is utterly stupid, dangerous and time wasting in practice.  Personally I consider schematics to be works of art, embodying extremely complex human-vision factors of detail density and flow, emphasis of key features by context, and so on. Trace rubber banding is the antithesis of these principles, and just means you're going to have to delete/move a lot of stuff that would have been quicker to redraw anyway. Also, horribly error-prone.
I'm glad to see it can be turned off in DEX. But its presence at all, and as a default, makes me question Iliya's comprehension of the deeper principles of schematic layout. I'd say the only justification for including it, would be as a painful lesson for nubies who naively felt they would like to have it.

Schematic connection by dots, crosses, tees. On this I disagree with the official standard, in that I do use cross connetions, though mosly only in matrixes of components. The argument that the dot might get lost in copying - oh come on! Just make it big enough that it's visually very obvious and can't get 'lost'. And don't use rubber-banding. As for 'speedbump' line crossings, yuk. Why does this awful looking practice even still exist anywhere?

Op-amps, and always having the + symbol at the top. A personal no to that one too. If your plus and minus symbols are so tiny they're hard to see or might vanish in photocopies, then they are too small! With op-amp circuits I much prefer the negative feedback path components to be above the triangle. So the '-' goes above the '+'. In other cases the layout can be better the other way. Visual clarity of circuit function trumps complaints about possible crappy photocopies. (And this is another reason why I commonly had to construct my own schematic symbols.)


A question for anyone well into using DEX: With a laid out PCB using a netlist, is there facility to delete the netlist, rebuild a netlist from the copper, then do a verification compare between the original netlist and the derived one?
I always found this an invaluable sanity check when nearing completion of a complex board. There shouldn't be any differences. If there are, something is wrong. When I got that sanity check done with no errors, there was a pretty good chance the board would work first time.

Incidentally, some may wonder why I use WinXP, rather than Linux, since I hate MS/Windows so much.
Because it's inspiring. A truly rich and deep source of irritating reminders of how not to do things. This is invaluable for energizing consideration of how operating systems should and could be much better. Which helps with a long term hobby of mine.
Linux has it's own problems, but fewer and different in kind. Not so 'inspiring' in that negative way. Complacency is a trap.

[c4757p]

These occasional "I used it and it worked!" comments are just bizarre. So what if it's capable of making boards? Microsoft freaking Paint could make boards, for tedious and irritating definitions of "make". Also, so what if it's good enough for a hobbyist? Everything is good enough for a hobbyist, who cares? If you only do things simple enough that anything could do them, or you are patient enough to use anything, your opinion of a tool doesn't matter. You'd like anything that's cheap and starts up. Go ahead and use it yourself. Let's go back to hearing from the professionals. And let's see some examples of boards people have done in DEX that aren't complete kiddie crap or so simple that there's no difference. I'd like some evidence that you can use this tool for more than the hour or two it takes to chuck some traces at a board and make a Widgetuino.

Op-amps, and always having the + symbol at the top. A personal no to that one too. If your plus and minus symbols are so tiny they're hard to see or might vanish in photocopies, then they are too small! With op-amp circuits I much prefer the negative feedback path components to be above the triangle. So the '-' goes above the '+'.

Off-topic: yes. +1. Thank you. A few (including f_e? I think I remember him saying this) insist that + should go above -, and yet I've seen it the other way around more often than not, with the notable exception of single-ended noninverting amplifiers which are usually done negative-down to avoid having to wrestle a ground symbol into the top path. And I will continue to do it that way, because it makes almost every op amp circuit clearer. Draw your + and - larger and darker if reading them is a problem.

IMO, it shouldn't matter in the context of a parts library. Either the part should have a separate power unit which can be placed separately to get it out of the way of the signal path, or both versions should be available. The library should never restrict me. I don't care if the library designer prefers them one way, I might want them the other.

That said, I've never met a parts library included with EDA software out of the box that I didn't absolutely loathe. I'm picky about libraries...

[free_electron]

See attached.

This is far more than tweaking.

Iliya : you seem to be in PCB mode ( your PCB tab is selected , i have my FOOTPRINT tab selected )

There is no 'soldermask layer' in the layers panel . even in your attached picture there is no 'soldermask' layer. The layers panel lists
Documentation,Net,Top Package,top silkscreen ,  top copper copper , bottom copper , bottom silkscreen,bottom package,background.

how do we get Top silkscreen , Bottom silkscreen , Top paste mask and Bottom pastemask in there so we can add elements to those layers. ( lines, boxes polygons, text , whatever we want ?

i can't figure it out. If it can't be done then say so or else show how to do this.

[free_electron]

A few (including f_e? I think I remember him saying this) insist that + should go above -, and yet I've seen it the other way around more often than not,

ISO drafting rules. I need to find that document. i have it somewhere. ( paper copy only unfortunately ).
Positive should always be drawn above negative. Doesn't matter if it is for a battery or an opamp input or the opamps power.

[free_electron]

Hi All,

Rather than occupying space with what DEX `can't do' I would like to see some boards that have been done with DEX small and large.

I am a hobbyist and have made several boards with DEX that are available for perusal here. http://www.dontronics.com/micks-mites/files/

Thanks for the demo files. i'll take a look. And, not to criticize your work, but these are 'hobbyist' projects.

I am attempting a 'real' project that follows industrial design rules. That is the nature of my evaluation. Even if i design something for myself as hobby i like to use 'best practices'. That is how i am wired.

This topic has a long history and is spread over many different threads. to bring you up to speed :
The root trigger for this was the abysmal demo's shown on Dex website. That arduino layout is absolute disaster. Anyone in the PCB business that sees that image as 'demo' will immediately write off the CAD program. I know that is prejudice but that how it works. So that drawing reflects very bad on DEX.

So i said i was going to try to re-make a relatively simple design with a few TQFP's and some 'fancy' part to show a proper layout . So i downloaded and installed DEX. The problem began with the libraries. These are full of errors. an SMD capacitor linking to a thru-hole footprint , wizards that don't work and create wrong footprints. then we got to download a 'community library' that turned out basically to be Iliya that had 'stolen' the eagle libraries and converted them to DEX .. the eagle libraries too are total crap. The problem with all these low level tools is that NONE of em follow the standards. There is a footprint standard called IPC7135 and a whole rule set to create correct footprints that are manufacturable reliably. The problem is this standard costs a lot of money. There is even a program form IPC itself where you punch in the numbers and it creates you a footprint that is compliant.

so i set forth with the idea , let me create a mini library with a few parts like an 0603 and 0805 and sot23 and some other packages that ARE standard compliant , save those and release them for free. Dex can distribute those .

so then i started playing with the software and ran into all kinds of strange behavior and limitations. screen artifacts, selections that don't work , coordinate systems that go wonky. Entry fields that don't do anything. Dex has , from a user perspective, a massive amount of unfinished stuff in it that should not be there. some of the control layouts are illogical. If i am editing the properties of a pad it is illogical that i need three tabs and two panels to do that.

Then there is base shortcomings. like missing soldermask and pastemask layers. i can't even design a standard compliant part if i have no way to set up the parameters for the masks. then there are base manipulations that don't work. like being able to move a selected group  of elements from point a to point b . you can only set the center of the group. Any cad program allows point to point translation. Dex doesn't have that. These are missing  fundamental operations that make the software unworkable. it simply takes too much time and too much effort to do something simple.

When called out, i get blasted back with either no comments , remarks on my typing skills or the traditional 'apple' method : you don't need that.

To add insult to injury Iliya is now starting to look to read some books about PCB design because he finally realizes that he does not have the Design know how to understand why these things are problems. He may be a top nothc programmer ( i could n't do it , and neither could many other people) but , last time he made a board was with thru hole components on rubylith. 40 years ago ( he admitted that himself.) By today's standard he couldn't design himself out of a wet paper bag ...
 It's 2015 ... we do chip-on chip designs with 20 layers and embedded passives inside the board and flex pigtails coming out. Open a smartphone or photocamera or tablet. That kind of stuff.
The 'it's for hobbyists' statement is also getting a bit old. Hobbyists these days make multilayer boards with BGA's on em have em fabbed in china. We live in a world with endless possibilities.

For me that is the fundamental problem behind the shortcomings of dex : the author does not understand the design process of a board with modern technology.
Throughout all my postings i have given detailed descriptions of what is missing and why we need it. but it all gets shoved aside.

i am not here to take the piss out of Dex or Iliya (despite what he may think , and yes tempers do flare because i do not tolerate stubbornness easily, especially when i am trying to teach you something. i have no problem explaining something over and over because you do  not understand , i do have a problem with people that don't want to listen.) I am trying to apply feedback and show where the critical roadblocks are to make DEx really great and usable for real projects.

along the way i find lot's of tiny little bugs and 'oversights'. I can understand that , as the author, you get upset if there is a guy that keeps rubbing your nose in bug after bug. But it has to happen. As a programmer you are blind for shortcomings and idiosyncrasies in your own program. you know how the program works and you do not 'step out of line'. well, it is that stepping out of line that makes bugs surface.

My prodding around and expectations is based on my experience with lots of different programs : Orcad, DxDesigner, Pads, Pcad, ,Tango , Autotrax ( dos version) Smartwork , hiwire , Opus ( Cadence) , Solidworks , Rhino , turboCad, Illustrator and many more.

There is a large amount of 'common behavior that all these programs share when it comes to simple manipulations. they all work identical. Dex is the odd one out.

i will give a simple example of an 'oddity' in the UI of dex.

Start MSpaint.
pick a line width with the line width picker. , and pick a color.

now draw a straight line

if you now go back to the line width picker and change the width the width of the drawn object changes. same for color.

in essence these controls work as follows : you can pick parameters and then draw an object.
if an object is selected and you alter these controls they have a direct impact on the selected object.

Excel works the same way. powerpoint works the same way , all cad programs out there work the same way.

DEX ? hell no. to alter the color of a selected object you need a DIFFERENT toolbar somewhere completely where you don't expect it. the width is then hidden in another toolbar. to add insult to injury you have no clue what width will be as there is a bug that makes that the width control does not follow the selected units ( if set in millimeters and you type '1' your line is 1 inch wide ...

those are problems that have NOTHING to do with PCB design but everything with UI design. Having a program that cannot even do such simple things is a problem.

another gripe in dex : i am placing some parts and decide i want to alter a symbol. i cannot open the symbol. i need to close my work , open the symbol , do stuff there, then reload my project. i want my symbol and my board side by side so i see in real time what happens if i alter my symbol.

These are annoyances that accumulate very quikcly.

but lo and behold if you dare point them out. Fire and brimstone.

anyway. that is the short story of where we are.

i have to shoot another short video. i found something to edit at least the soldermask in a component , it is incomplete and cumbersome but it works. although i have at the same time found at least 5 other 'UI problems ... where doing something doesn't yield the result you'd expect. in 3d mode you can alter the soldermask expansion, except the screen does not get redrawn. to see it you need to go back to 2d and then back to 3d. (yust toggle so the screen redraws.)

All that is needed is, after a value change, to redraw the screen. This is a small oversight , but frustrates the hell out of me. How is it possible that such a simple operation has a bug in it. Doesn't anyone really try this thing ? How come nobody has flagged this ?

[free_electron]

-EVAL TIME-

After futzing around long enough : so it is possible to do something with solder masks in the footprint editor.
it's another case of 'it doesn't sit where you would expect it.'  you actually need to go to the ADD tab on the main ribbon bar and hidden in there is 'No MASK' and you can draw rectangles , circles and polygons. So at least we have that.

You can turn off the margins in the Layers panel ( another panel ). stuff that should belong together really is scattered in 5 different places ... that needs spit and polish.
And lo and behold there is even paste ! ( but for that you need to draw an opening first, then select it then go to Part Builder tab and underneath 'No Solder Mask' check 'Add solder paste'.  At least there is something but it is grossly insufficient.

here is why :

- i want to define different size openings for top and bottom soldermask in the same footprint. for example a thermal pad may need a small opening at the top where solder will go , but a large opeing at the bottom to expose the copper so it can act as heatsink.
- no text ... you can't place strings in soldermask. ( that looks really cool on gold plated boards !)
- no editing of paste overprint or underprint. only on and off. no editing of paste shapes at all. so creating paste lattices is a complete no go. so it is not possible to design a footprint for a PowerSO package for example. or a D2PAk (D2Pak is basically a surface mounted TO220 without the tab or hole) as you need to print a T-shape paste opening.

- manipulating the drawn objects is a pain. you cannot move them as a group with a from-to operation. you can only drag em around 'visually' and sorta kind place em where you think they should be. this is a common problem for any kind of coordinate translation in DEX. there is no from-to move like in other cad programs and that is very problematic.

so here is the suggestion to easily solve these problems:
- add top paste, bottom paste, top solder and bottom solder as layers in the layerstack. Anything we draw on there is treated as NEGATIVE ( removal) in the gerber output. identical like a plane. you already have the code for the plane ( i hope , i havent checked if Dex understands planes and split-planes , i would assume it does and be very disappointed if it doesn't). so you simply need to give 4 such objects. these should exist both in the footprint editor as in the pcb editor as sometimes we need an override there that we may not want to put in the library.

Then we can place rectangles, text , whatever to our hearts content.

-bug time.- i tried submitting bugs but dex doesn't send anything out. i granted dex permission in the firewall but it doesn't seem to work.

in footprint editor , click the add tab , right click the screen and select 'auto repeat commands' so it is on.
click No mask -add rectangle. you get a nice crosshair. draw a rectangle. upon completion mouse cursor disappears, coordinates disappear you only have a floating balloon. Dex is in repeat mode but completely screwed up the mouse system. under some circumstances also the grid disappears which makes it very hard to place ...

in pcb editor place a part go to 3d mode. in the Layer's panel change solder mask opening size. the screen does not refresh in 3d mode , you need to go to 2d and come back to 3d to see the change in the soldermask opening.  when you get a change event from that field please redraw the screen. small oversight but stupid bug.
video follows in a moment

other suggestions

- really really really need from-to moving capability , now you can only position something 'by sight'
- need grids where we can set both X and y snap spacing.
- need polar grids ( nice to have but not immediately required. the X and Y snap spacing is needed urgently ! )
- need to be able to enter unit suffixes in numerical boxes like 1mm 15mil irrespective of the units we are in. it is a pain having to toggle continously using the menus. calculator needs to be aware of this as well. it should be able to calculate 14 mm + 7mil  i dont need inches , just mm and mil is sufficient as those ar ethe prevalent fractions.
- gravitational hotspot
- snap points to near and far objects. if you are in visual studio and you are placing a button. notice how studio shows thise horizontal and vertical blue lines as you move a button and how it let's you snap to other buttons ? that's what i mean. that makes it ieasy to align an object you are moving to an already placed object.

- collect the various settings for pads onto 1 single panel. now they are spread all over the place.
- origin should only be able to alter after deliberate command. now you can pick it up by accident. this messes things up badly.

more to follow

i tried filing the suggestions and bug reports but dex doesn't seem to send anything out..

-video follow along-

link :  http://dl.dropbox.com/u/62657892/Dex%20Soldermask%20editing.mp4

0:06 we are in footprint editing mode (mouse circles around Footprint tab )
0:018 i placed simple rectangle SMD pad
0:020 now click the 'ADD' tab
0:024 click the first pad and go to right panel (layers) set margin to 0 to se tthe opening to the same size as the pad.
at 3:11 i accidentally move the origin. origin should always be loced unless specifically called to change. you can only pick up this cutout by the edge. grabbing it in the center does not work like with a pad. it is 'hollow' that is annoying as it grabs stuff underneath ... unintentionally at 4:30 i got bit again. i try to move the cutout by grabbig it 'inside' that doesn't work , you can only grab the edge. the graphics engine in DEx treats objects as vector art would behave ( hollow box) where as it should treat objects like cutouts as 'filled in negative'. most PCB cad programs work with filled objects for such structures. so this throws people off if they come from different systems.
sat 4:45 i am once again bit by the origin shift
at 4:50 i demonstrate how you can move a pad by grabbing it anywhere, but you can only move a cutout by grabbing the border. illogical.
at 5:10 i set the origin to the pad center. and then move the origin by draggin on the canvas. i wan;t even anywhere close to the origin point so it is not like i am picking up the marker that is there ... this is really annoying.

at 7:10 i demonstrate what i mean with from-to operations.

10:27 : bug time
10:34 : auto repeat on.
10:45 where did the damn grid go ?
10:49 : and where is the mouse cursor and crosshair ?
11:40 turn auto repeat off and magic ! the grid is back , cursor is back ... obviously bugs.

[mswhin63]

f_e, if you are going to post a video post speech in it otherwise don't post a video at all. Waving your mouse around is totally counter productive. There is absolute no way any half decent support staff is going to spend the time watching a video and flick backwards and forward to text notes.

I got my wife to comment as she is profoundly deaf and ask her opinion and you got an even worse response from her (absolute shit, then WTF and walked away). She relies heavily on text in subtitles although she doesn't understand what you are doing or complaining about, she is well verses in visual presentation and is extremely visually aware of her surroundings.

You comment are far too long, overall a terrible review method. Issues that can be easily fixed and have been fixed in a relatively short time. Maybe you have problems but I would not spend that much time wasted on such poor presentation. While carrying out my Uni degree one of the first courses taken are some extremely important engineering methods is presentation. If you are going to present sometime on video then present how the media is mean't to be done, or like YouTube get a big thumbs down 

Course notes:
http://handbook.curtin.edu.au/units/31/316654.html
http://handbook.curtin.edu.au/units/31/316655.html

Predominately communication methods applied for engineering.

[free_electron]

None of my workstations have speakers or microphones. I dont even know if i have a microphone in the house... Never needed one.

also, none of the stuff i do is scripted. i just hit record and start playing with the tool. we'll see what we see when we see it. that is why i take the time to give a time stamped list with the important bits. if you want to what happened prior to that you can scroll back and see the entire process how i got there.

[DerekG]

Do you have a Skype headset or earpiece?

These will plug into the 3.5mm mic & earphone socket on your laptop or motherboard.

[free_electron]

Do you have a Skype headset or earpiece?

These will plug into the 3.5mm mic & earphone socket on your laptop or motherboard.

nope. i just searched the whole house. no microphones. only my laptop and the mac have a built in mic. my workstations don't even have speakers hooked up. i'll stop at fry's on my way home tonight and buy a little headset. unless... i wonder if it would work with my Bose headphones. I have one of those Bose noise cancelling headphones. That comes with a cable with microphone and volume control but that is to hook up to apple iphone or tablet.. i doubt that'll work on a pc...

i'll just go buy a simple headset . i agree that voice is better than waving mouseys but i had to make do with what i have. i'd better make sure it has a long wire too.

I use the Mac to watch youtube stuff, or more frequently a tablet. just put it down in front of me and i can follow along on the workstation. no need to sacrifice screen real estate and i can scroll backward forward on the tablet to line up with what i see on the cad screen.  works better for me.

[free_electron]

Well. it's over. i throw in the towel, call it quits , the final drop ended up in the bucket and the last straw broke the donkey's (me) back.

I spent a reasonable amount of time on this , wrote a whole detailed explanation of some problems, why they are problems, and suggested improvements. and i get an email back with one sentence.

I am trying to do soldermask manipulations like encroaching and thermal pad openings ( trying to create a powerSO package with gullwing pins and a thermal pad that needs a large surface at the bottom and small one at the top connected with via's ) .
i am doing this by building the part from scratch. i run into problems with DEX shifting elements when i move them as a group, not being able to set a parameter for a group of items ( select 5 pads and in the x coordinate type 10 , you would expect all pads x coordinate changes to '10'. It doesn't: only 1 moves.

Anyway. i submitted  a bunch of bug reports , Iliya fixed a coupe of them (very quickly, but a bit too quickly in certain cases yielding only half a solution or a solution that is worse than the problem)

So i wrote a lengthy explanation of why i am requesting the things i request. These are from a pure technological perspective

i read that stuff (comment: the 'stuff' being the chapter in the help section on soldermasks) in the help already.
 
here is the problem :the soldermask is not about 'making colorful electronics' . nobody will ever get to see the board buried inside an amplifier for an undersea cable.
but, the soldermask for such a board is extremely important as it prevents soldering problems during manufacturing and failure due to slivers or contamination or any other failure related to incorrectly defined masks. these failures can be during bare board production, during board assembly, during cleaning, or 10 years from now
 
the same goes for paste-masks
 
here is a typical example ( and this is not something crazy )
 
place a via. i can have two possibilities :
- the via is covered with mask without exposed copper.
- the via is bare (exposed copper )
 
for reliability we want to cover the via's as the soldermask helps against mechanical damage during board manipulation. But there are limiting factors
- maybe the via is to be used as testpoint in which case we need to set it 'open'
 
DEX already has a problem as i cannot set via's 'closed' (painted over with soldermask). a via is treated as a pad. all pads are treated equally and under control of the 'solder mask' entry box in the Layers panel. you can specify an opening and that's it. that does work with thru-hole boards. but it does NOT work with surface mount boards. we need per-pad definitions of soldermask , individually for top and bottom.
 
let me go on.
 
if we set the pad 'closed' we need to know if the pcb manufacturer will use liquid photoimaged mask or dryfilm. In case of dryfilm we can cover a larger drill hole than with liquid. The problem with liquid is that , once the hole starts being a certain size, the mask ink will leak inside the hole. the risk is that , one side is covered, the other side open with ink leaked in halfway. this now forms a 'bucket' . During assembly contaminants can enter the bucket and the rinsing of the board post-soldering to remove flux remnants may not be able to clean the bucket. flux remnants are corrosive so this via may fail 6 months from now , a year from now, 10 years from now. it is a reliability problem.
 
You either have a via that is completely open so we can flush it post-assembly , or completely covered so there is no risk for entrapment of contaminants.
 
so now, as a pcb designer, we have extra variables to play with
 
- i want via's covered for mechanical strength
- i want certain vias uncovered for testability
- depending on what type of masking i am using i may need to open all (liquid mask)
- depending on the hole size in the via i can still close the small ones but need to open the large ones.
 
decisions decisions decisions ....
 
and the story isn't finished yet.
Even with dry film there are limits to what can be covered. if the hole is larger than the what the tensional strength can handle the dryfilm may rip , shear , crack , peel and you still end up with a disaster.
 
So for the 'inbetween' via's that are too large to reliably 'close' (dryfilm or liquid mask) ,but, i really need to be covered because this is a node carrying a high voltage (for example) and i need the mask as isolation, i may want to 'encroach' the via.
 
Encroaching is setting the mask opening equal to the drill opening in the via. The net result of encroaching is that the 'pad' of the via still gets painted but the hole is 'dark' meaning it will not be exposed to the ultraviolet curing and will be washed away post-curing. So we are guaranteed that whatever was covering the hole(dryfilm) or leaked into the hole(liquid mask) was not exposed so it did not 'harden' and can be washed away during the developing of the mask. ( soldermask is a photographical method , although even that is changing. : we now have inkjet printers that can create mask and silkscreen. That ink is heat cured. The inkjets are smart enough not to squirt where there is a drill strike , so encroaching there comes 'free' )
 
Now, encroaching is not always setting it to the drill size. in the case of boards that are semi-rigid or flex or segmented rigid-flex you are not dealing with a soldermask but with a 'coverlay' (covering overlay)  that material is a polymer (typically kapton or something similar). you can not have fully exposed pads in such boards. The problem is that once a pad is soldered , and you flex the board , the soldered pad is more 'rigid' than the trace connecting to it. so the point where the trace connects to the pad experiences much more stress during the bend operation. This becomes a shearing point and point of failure.
the rule there is that the coverlay material shall cover part of the annular ring of a pad or via ( in case we need an open via for testability )
 
So now we need encroaching not only on via's but on pads too !
 
For mechanical strength, or electrical reasons, we may want to encroach only one side of the via so the opposite side still can be used as testpoint.
 
All of the above can only be solved if we have:
 
-per pad or per-via definition of the soldermask where i can set the opening (or the amount of 'closing : encroachment) of the mask individually for the top and the bottom layer.
 
Having a single slider that only sets and 'opening larger than the pad' is grossly inadequate for any kind of modern board.
 
so my advice : rethink your entire soldermask system. you can leave it in there as is for simple boards, but give the possibility to turn the automatic sizing off and allow manual control of top and bottom , per pad and per via. Inthe same board you will have a mixture of both.
 
The decision what is needed where is up to the board designer. The Cad tool needs to let him tweak it. It is ok if there is a default 'simplified' setting for the 'newbies' , but it needs to be able to do more.
 
The same goes for paste masks. sometimes you need to overprint ( print paste outside the pad ) or underprint ( not completely fill the pad ). if you have thermal via's in a pad you need to print in between them so the solder doesn't wick away in the holes.
 
Certain inserts like PEM nuts or stud washers need 'extra' paste to fill the cavity . in that case we overprint. the moment the paste goes liquid the surface tension will pull the excess material in the hole and fill the void.
 
These are all standard assembly procedures but we need to be able to set that up in the layout as this data is needed to make the blank pcb , the paste masks and to the actual assembly of the board
 
For hobbyists it doesn't matter: they don't know and they don't care. For anyone that makes moderately complex boards : they will be screaming murder if they can't set it up correctly.
 
i strongly suggest you find a book on modern pcb ASSEMBLY ( i don;t know of one of the top of my head, i'd have to look at work , we should have some. I know we have the IPC ones and the documents from manufacturers like Jabil , Foxconn , Celestica and others , but that i can not share... the documents contain traces and are under NDA as they contain manufacturing secrets)
 
I also strongly suggest that you go visit a modern PCB manufacturing plant ( the bare board manufacturer ) and SEE how a modern board is made. let them show you a couple of their mid range and some of their extreme boards. and let them show you AOI , LDI , lader drilling , maskless imaging (that will be hard as currently there are only about 100 of these machines in the world. 4 of em are here in Silicon valley, the rest is in china and i know of 1 in Germany (Isola). But that was february last year and things do change. people are buying maskless imagers so there may be more in europe now.
 
it would be good to have you come out to Silicon valley. I have access to multiple assembly and pcb houses and we could tour the facilities. It is very educational to see the state of technology. I do a tour once a year just to keep up with evolution in technology and machinery. it shows me the new things we have access to.
 
it would provide you a better insight in what modern boards look like and that would be a seeding ground for idea's for you to improve dex.
 
i have a feeling that some of the 'shortcomings' in dex that i run in to are because you don't know what is technologically possible and what is a pcb board by today's standard. And that is holding you and DEX back.
 
Even for hobbyists it becomes easier and easier to make relatively high-tech boards. china is cheap and they offer high-tech stuff even for 10 boards. Itead [iteadstudio.com] and seeed [seeedstudio.com] , yes with 3 e's , not a typo ) even have 6 layers , metalcores and flex board for hobby. Hobbyists are starting to make such boards. Itead and Seeed have a requirement manual and publish the design rules. So DEX must be ready for the future !

Then there was a bug reported involving using the <ALT> key to get to see the menu hotkeys. if you hold down ALT and type the letters , in certain cases windows goes -ding- (plays error sound) and nothing happens. if you do not hold down alt but press and release the hotkeys pop up. start typing. as you type the first letter of a two letter command Dex hides the shortcuts that are not not possible. this is great. but, the second letter now causes -ding-.

the reply was: don't use ALT (because of some toolkit he uses hooking in to <alt>).  use CTRL

ctrl - hotkeys does not work and if i can't use ALT how do i get the shortcuts to display in the first place. ?


Then , on the bugfix where the cascading paste operations were 'fixed' by simply pasting them where you picked the elements ( they land on top of what you had selected , which is already an improvement over cascadingm, but equally annoying.) his reply was :

'Paste now does not offset.'

 That is correct, but it is not a working solution so i wrote another explanation why not:

I saw that. but that is equally annoying. if i am zoomed in to a specific area where i am working, and the original pick up point is now off screen DEX will zoom out. that is very distracting and counter productive.
 
if i do a paste operation the viewport should not shift or scale. the part should appear where i point the mouse and, be 'hanging' on the mouse. which means that, after i hit CTRL-V the part is hanging from the mouse pointer and simply moving the mouse pointer moves the pasted element ( or elelemnts in case it is a group) i will position it and then left-click  to 'drop' it where i want it.
 
zooming scrolling panning viewports are a distraction
pasted elements that appear where i am not looking means i have to go over there and pick em up.
pasted elements not hanging from the mouse cursor after a ctrl-v means i still have to go and pick em up and move them.
 
this is about speed of design and ease of design. shave off as many manual operations as possible
 
select a element or group -> store in buffer with ctrl-c
 
go where i need to be ctrl-v , position click to drop , ctrl-v position click to drop
that is the shortest possible sequence to do paste or paste and repeat operations.
 
Eagle has the same misery : you need too many operations , clicking , menus, scrolling , zooming  to do a simple copy -paste- place operation.
 
That is the difference between a cad tool, a good cad tool , a great cad tool ,and a Specific-field cad tool that understands the design process and eliminates as much as possible the 'dumb' steps.
i want the last one. otherwise i can make pcb's in ms-paint.

so i got this back

'Then go and use ms-paint.'

...

so, It's over. I uninstalled it and that's it. I wished him all the best with DEX and a also wished a lot of courage to its users.

i could post a lengthy conclusion but i will leave it to this : DEX has two letters missing after its name : 'b' and 'c' . "Made by Cavemen" could be a good subtitle.

i have a closing picture though : spot the seven mistakes below. (some of which i have been accused of , and i know i am ham-fisted when it comes to keyboards. i am one of these people that needs to look at my keyboard when typing. i pound five or six sentences in one shot ,so if a typo sneaks in i don't always spot it)

Queue the "your typing is bad, your spelling is bad ,your video's don't have sound, you're never going to use it, you are a stooge for <some really good pcb tool, it' for hobbyists, i want to stand on the shoulders of giants, DEX is the best, and other drivel along those lines"

[Iliya]

It's astonishing how such a self-proclaimed expert can't master a simple program.

Sample problem report from him! and he writes books?

Her eis what i wan tto do : create an 8 pin device. two columns of pads. y spacing 25 mils. x spacing 82 mils.

i recorded the process. please watch what ido , watch what goes wrong and and advise what i am doing wrong and how is hould do it.

My reply:
http://kov.com/downloadfiles/8pin.mp4

and later
http://kov.com/Videos/Parts?play=xHy5flnndC0

[Monkeh]

Bye 

Well done, you've driven off someone who's forgotten more about the subject than you'll ever know.

Good luck.

[c4757p]

Bye 

Oh, good, so you don't dispute that you wrote "Then go and use ms-paint." in an email to a user and reviewer of your software? I hope everybody takes note of that. I sure have.

[tautech]

Bye 

And I'll chip in as well.

Now you've lost your remaining credibility.

[PA0PBZ]

Good to know that it's not worth it to put more time in this. Oh well, just one more minute to uninstall.

[free_electron]

It's astonishing how such a self-proclaimed expert can't master a simple program.

Sample problem report from him! and he writes books?

Her eis what i wan tto do : create an 8 pin device. two columns of pads. y spacing 25 mils. x spacing 82 mils.

i recorded the process. please watch what ido , watch what goes wrong and and advise what i am doing wrong and how is hould do it.

well, i wasn't going to post that video publicly, but in order for people to understand what you quoted i will have to release it.

For the readers :

So i am asking Iliya to explain to me how to do this simple task in DEX:
Without using a wizard, purely by placing and manipulating base objects. The goal is to learn the simple base positioning operations available, like moving a group of objects, scaling them , setting parameters etc ....

Place a column of 4 pads , 25 mils apart , make a copy of the column. and then move that second column so it sits 82 mils to the right of the first column.

Let's see in how many ways DEX2020bc can screw that up ...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/62657892/dex%20grid%20and%20positioning%20problems.mp4

There is at least one things that works correctly in DEX : the uninstaller   

[Iliya]

It's astonishing how such a self-proclaimed expert can't master a simple program.

Sample problem report from him! and he writes books?

Her eis what i wan tto do : create an 8 pin device. two columns of pads. y spacing 25 mils. x spacing 82 mils.

i recorded the process. please watch what ido , watch what goes wrong and and advise what i am doing wrong and how is hould do it.

well, i wan;t going to post that video publicly, but in order for people to understand what you quoted i will have to release it.

For the readers :

So i am asking Iliya to explain to me how to do this simple task in DEX:
Without using a wizard, purely by placing and manipulating base objects. The goal is to learn the simple base positioning operations available, like moving a group of objects, scaling them , setting parameters etc ....

Place a column of 4 pads , 25 mils apart , make a copy of the column. and then move that second column so it sits 82 mils to the right of the first column.

Let's see in how many ways DEX2020bc can screw that up ...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/62657892/dex%20grid%20and%20positioning%20problems.mp4

I thought you had gone. Please stick around, the Trolls love it. My downloads go up. Thanks.

My reply:
http://kov.com/downloadfiles/8pin.mp4

and later
http://kov.com/Videos/Parts?play=xHy5flnndC0

[SeanB]

At Vince's rates of Ca $200 per hour for consulting, just how much free consulting has he given?

[c4757p]

Iliya, reading through your posts would be an excellent study in how not to handle PR. If you don't want to scare off customers, you really ought to work on that.

My downloads go up. Thanks.

Watch out though, not all downloads are equal. A download that results in somebody recommending your software to others is worth many times more than just a download. I paid for a copy of your software rather a while ago, so I'm counted there, but I couldn't stand using it so I've never recommended it to anybody...

[free_electron]

your downloads may go up ... but the important question is : do your sales go up ?

And as for going away , i never said i'd go away . I just stopped wasting my time trying to use this program and report whatever bugs i find in it and give you suggestions how to improve it and industry insight how boards are made. As for 'self proclaimed'. i don't have to prove anything, not to you or anyone else. i am just a voice in the crowd , although one that has been making PCB's for over 23 years and knows a thing or two about it.

So tough nails for you mister.
You lost a source of bugreports and knowhow.

[Iliya]

Now this topic is closed, well all but the shouting, I would like to say a few final words.

See for yourself

Download AutoTRAX DEX

Free No Limits 
There is only one binary version of DEX. There is no demo program. The non-commercial license's only restriction is that it must only be used for non-commercial designs; there are absolutely no other restrictions, no board size or pin limits.

[c4757p]

You've a funny definition of shouting. I'm just bemused, watching you dig yourself deeper in this hole you've made...