DEX eval by free_electron

[Iliya]

Software is allowed to be different. I can perfectly fine deal with different pieces of software. Some of the things i have shown during this review were clearly bugs, and fixed. good. 
Some other things i commented on are things that one can reasonably expect a cad program to be able to do. Like moving a selection of elements to a new position by entering a numerical offset or aligning them to a grid. Other things are , for lack of a better word, defective; like the autowiring That thing just puts stuff down where-ever, just play with it.

And yes, i have opinions about these things. Opinions that are formed by using various CAD programs over the years. They all share some common base functionality.  Like being able to move a selection of elements without disturbing the spatial relations inside that group.

Also, along this topic i have given some insight in best practices which are used in the PCB industry , and pointers where to get more information as well only to be met with more hostility.

DEX, as a one man project is amazing. The UI is fresh and the program works smoothly , but it has quirks and bugs. Bugs that are fixed quickly . Good. I have to grant that to Iliya : he is quick fixing bugs. Quirks : some are livable and have workarounds or a 'less-standard' why of doing it. Some are just extremely annoying. Whenever i encountered such a blocker i have shown where i encountered it and given reasons why it is a blocker.

I've posted links to good resources and reading material as well and made a suggestion to visit a PCB fab ,an assembly house. Maybe even a tradeshow like APEX and take a look at what is out there , technology wise.

It is not normal for a PCB tool to not have the capability to create paste masks. All you can do is create mask on or off. You can't size elements , you can't even add or remove elements. So there is clearly room for improvement. The same goes for moving groups of elements without disturbing what is already in the group. That just is not workable.

The documentation of the program is a bit lacking which makes it hard to learn and discover what is there. There are some video's but those touch on very simple stuff , or using the wizards. As soon as you want to do something 'manually' dex falls short of expectations.

Dex has some really cool idea's. one thing i like is the linking between schematic and pcb: No need to do things like pull a netlist to go from schematic to board. Place a part in the schematic and it appears in the pcb. No questions asked. That is nice. On the other hand similar 'automatic' processes can be a hindrance. For example : make a new component. Place three pads , place the pins in the schematic symbol , add some artwork. Go back to the footprint editor and place a pad , go back to schematic symbol editing and see what happened. Dex has placed another rectangle and shifted the pins that were already placed. That is a hindrance. Such hindrance is easily solved by adding an attribute in the program to the objects. : 'user manipulated'. Before the automated routine modifies the part it should check for each object if that object has already been touched by the user. If it has: hands off. only add the new stuff. If it has not been touched by the user the routine can move it. That is a fairly logical assumption to make. 

Now, you may say , DEX doesn't work that way, you are supposed to draw pads first , symbol second. And that is fine. If that is a limitation of the program, or simply the way the program works than so be it. But that should not take away my right to complain about that, or tell you why, in my opinion this is 'stupid'. We live in a non-linear world There may be a point in time where i need to modify a footprint a bit. Add two reinforcement pads for mechanical strength for example.

Software developers listen to their users and they look at their competition for ideas as well. I tried to be a user. i failed. Too different , lots of bugs ( now fixed, at lest the ones i reported ) and , for my taste, shortcomings that make it unusable for me.  This is an open forum. I documented every step i took and you can try the same for yourself. Everyone is entitle to an opinion.

Iliya also still is convinced i am 'after him'. I am not. Like i said many times : DEX intrigues me as it is very impressive as a one man show. It looks promising, but the images in the documentation and the sample designs do not reflect well. Sub-par routing is one aspect of it. So i thought maybe i can create a projec tin DEX that shows off better. iliya himself has asked for people to post their designs. Has anyone stepped up to the plate ? (one guy did, but they aren't quite state of the art designs) At least i tried. I've put a lot of hours into this and am now about at the point where i can make a footprint, but i'm stuck as i can not make it according to even manufacturers drawings.
i have not commented on anything beyond that point because i am focused on footprints first : they are the foundation of a PCB layout. Limiting factors in dex make it impossible to even make the footprint according to what the part manufacturer specifies , for example the paste mask settings: The part manufacturer specifies the overprint or underprint and the lattice structure for the thermal pad. Dex has no ability to edit the paste mask. That is clearly a huge shortcoming. State of the art designs require these things.

The foundation is there , there are a bunch of rough edges and a bunch of shortcomings. I helped polish some of the rough edges and iliya was quick to solve these. the shortcomings ... those are met with a lot of resistance. I do understand they may not be easy to code up. But that is the life of software developing.

All i have done is point out  what some of those shortcomings are. If the software creator does not like that ... so be it. Freedom of speech. This is a review and an open forum. Other users of DEX could have pitched in showing me how to do it. sadly none came forward.

Clearly AutoTRAX is not for you, but stop trying to spoil it for others.

[Iliya]

I wonder how much he makes per email..

Who?

Only one person here is collecting emails for 'no' purpose.

Why are you no nasty?

P.S. I'm glad to see your written English has improved.

Seriously, Iliya, stop digging.

Please answer the question, who is collecting emails?

[Monkeh]

I wonder how much he makes per email..

Who?

Only one person here is collecting emails for 'no' purpose.

Why are you no nasty?

P.S. I'm glad to see your written English has improved.

Seriously, Iliya, stop digging.

Please answer the question, who is collecting emails?

Oh, I see, you've now stopped that practice again in a wonderful attempt at spin.

You should've gone into marketing.

[Iliya]

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

What is a Ca $.
He has not given me any free consulting.

His poorly organized, badly spelt and difficult to read diatribes are not consulting. His videos, well, others have remarked on that.
He never intended to give a constructive fair review.

I never asked him do do anything.
Where did you find his hourly rate? I could not find it on his web site.

[Iliya]

I wonder how much he makes per email..

Who?

Only one person here is collecting emails for 'no' purpose.

Why are you no nasty?

P.S. I'm glad to see your written English has improved.

Seriously, Iliya, stop digging.

Please answer the question, who is collecting emails?

Oh, I see, you've now stopped that practice again in a wonderful attempt at spin.

You should've gone into marketing.

I don't know what you are talking about. Ah well, some people. 

[Monkeh]

I don't know what you are talking about. Ah well, some people. 

now my antivirus reports suspected Win32.Evo Gen virus for both version 5.01 and 5.02 i just downloaded latest version need password to install so, BYE dex for now.

[iampoor]

Clearly AutoTRAX is not for you, but stop trying to spoil it for others.

Until you address its obvious shortcomings, its not very usable for anyone.

[DerekG]

Clearly AutoTRAX is not for you, but stop trying to spoil it for others.

Until you address its obvious shortcomings, its not very usable for anyone.

I note this thread has now been running for just 21 days. It has been read 16025 times which averages out (at the time I'm posting this) at 765 reads per day.

When I Google AutoTrax Dex it comes up third after the kov.com website.

It certainly has attained a lot of traffic in a very short space of time.

[Wytnucls]

Here is my feeble attempt at Vincent's challenge. Round pads is a bitch if it has to be done individually. Still looking for some copy and paste solution.

[mswhin63]

Staring uni soon, so this will probably be my last post.   

Iliya, I have to agree the tone in your emails are a little sour and that is what causes this forum to light up. It is not worth it, now that the forum has gone through so  many pages it will hardly be looked through and much of the future looks will be taken out of context too. No more, the software is really good at its price and I know that in the future all improvements will make this an excellent software package. Try not to update everyday though, unless it is a severe bug. I like the ability to auto-download updates and do not wish to switch it off but can't be a bit tedious to update so often. free_electron has goaded into submission which takes away the primary purpose of the software as I have know for many years. It is developing and continue to do this. As I go through Uni and continue into RF development, I will gain valuable experience and knowledge and will be glad to pass it on if needed to update the software. In the meantime I will add if required any of my skills as a technician.

free_electron, if you love to evaluate free software, have a go at KiCad and GEDA, I am at odds why you have targeted DEX when only announced shortly, the others have been around for a while. Time to see what kind of evaluator you really are. Have you targeted DEX for a reason and shy'd away from the others. I am sure there will be some good entertainment coming if done.
For GS, do videos properly, you explanation really suck. You supposedly gave up once I suggested to go with audio in your video. I am buggered to know how you were chosen to evaluate other software. 

I will have to use Altium soon, as it is a Uni requirement, so I will see how well it works in comparison for the price. Even the university only has 14 licences, obviously they think it is expensive too.

[Dave Turner]

Nearly thirty years ago I was involved in an exercise to evaluate a number of CAD programs for construction purposes.

I had been for some years using a program designed for use on a mini (eg a step down from a mainframe yet not a 'PC') the name of which I cannot remember. The output of this system was on 3 screens. One showed the program commands another the the server commands, & the main screen which was a long persistence vector storage display. Input was respectively by keyboard, keyboard and graphics tablet. Sounds complicated but in fact was very easy to learn to use.

The 'new fangled' systems tested, which were invariably based on an IBM PC (pre Windows), all  had a different ethos. Nevertheless they all had points in common - the ability to select a group of components and move them en mass by an XY(Z) offset was a basic requirement. There are many other such requirements the absence of which would count against the program in a practical environment. At the time AutoCad (though not perfect) won the shootout.

Design of a  PCB is different to that of a building nevertheless manipulation of the fundamental objects and their properties remain the same.

I currently run Linux thus no longer have easy access to Windows (I can't abide Windows 8.1); therefore I cannot try DEX out, much as I might wish to.

Perhaps Ilya might like to show, in a video, how to produce the component, footprint, soldermask etc, that Free Electron has been attempting to achieve.

[iampoor]

Perhaps Ilya might like to show, in a video, how to produce the component, footprint, soldermask etc, that Free Electron has been attempting to achieve.

 

It would be good to see how it was designed to be done.

[Mechatrommer]

Clearly AutoTRAX is not for you, but stop trying to spoil it for others.

if we see imminent danger, we'll warn others. but we cant stop them from experience it themselves, its a free world. if you think the sw is good, no reason to be afraid of, no need to be so protective. just keep introducing it, and dont expect anybody other than you know how to use the sw.

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

He has not given me any free consulting.
He never intended to give a constructive fair review.
I never asked him do do anything.

you seems certainly never ask someone to "consulting" you. even if you do, maybe you'll kick him out of the door the first word come out of his mouth. major part of consultation is to "rectify errors" where "the good things" are left as is and no need speaking much. at least that the "real consultants" do. if you want flower talk consultation service, you should pay him and ask the consultant to do flower talk in advance, he'll do the job.

you havent ask f_e to do consultation, but what he did is a "real consultation", its for free and you miserably failed to realize that. any people care to spend their time replying to you, you failed to appreciate them. you failed to foresee the good intent people want to give to you, your protective nature blinded that from you, your resistance to change from your state of mind hinders that, you are firm enough with your comfortable zone and definition of truth make that any words against that translated as an insult. and also i guess, any "bug reporters" you dont see them as contributors or "small scale" consultation. maybe you only see them as normal users who suppose to make the bug report because "they paid". you cant differ between a user (or potential user) who keep mourning in hope for improvement than a user who talk no more and leave for good.

Dex has some really cool idea's. one thing i like is the linking between schematic and pcb: No need to do things like pull a netlist to go from schematic to board. Place a part in the schematic and it appears in the pcb. No questions asked. That is nice.

i agree no doubt here, but thinking further, how dex implement multi board multi schematic design in one project? or one schematics that consists 2 pcb? is unknown. the failure of dex support department to answer basic questions make me want to keep this more advance questions for diptrace or altium. diptrace maybe unable to do it in one single interface, we need and have and will find the workaround, as long as the support department show good behaviour.

comparison with kicad, protel, geda, eagle etc etc is moot, they are all ancient stuffs ancient interface (beware kicad is making hyperjump with opengl, push and shove and differential routing, its possible they sweep all gui update too to include ribbons, who knows?). of course dex wins on most part compared to ancient stuffs. we would like to compare with more modern, like diptrace or altium? i know comparing or expecting 5K sw is unfair either. my pivot point is simple... diptrace, more ancient gui but more efficient in term of workflow (mostly when editing and moving existing components/tracks around). this is a shame i see in dex. also what we hope is dex has the usability and efficiency as altium, at the price of like $200-$500, people will rush for it. thats the idea some people dont get. but since dex team is so protective, they deserve the $50 price tag, with resistances... imho. fwiw.

[Wytnucls]

Getting there slowly:

[Mechatrommer]

Getting there slowly:

nice! can you remove some silkscreen on top of that solder mask? or that heatsink pad? that silkscreen may reduce heat transfer efficiency if not cut by pcb fabhouse, i'm not so sure.

[free_electron]

Here is my feeble attempt at Vincent's challenge. Round pads is a bitch if it has to be done individually. Still looking for some copy and paste solution.

Close ...  You have an opening between the wings and the central tab, that should be connected copper. Only the soldermask is supposed to divide that, there is still copper under the soldermask.
Did you draw the backside ?
Can we see the soldermask ?
Pastemask ? (This could be drawn on the documentation layer or silkscreen. As long is it is made.)

I would like to see the process how this is created. That is the difficulty I am experiencing in using DEX. Some basic object manipulations I am used to, not only in Altium but also in Illustrator, Solidworks , heck even PowerPoint ) I cannot find, or they don't exist, in DEX; and I'm searching for workarounds or alternate ways. That is the difficulty in learning any program , not only DEX.

Here is a short sequence of what I typically do ( note : this is NOT Altium specific. Cadence and Mentor tools, and most other vector based drawing programs like Illustrator (which is not a pcb tool) can do these operations too.

- Set X-grid to 25mils , Y-grid to 14.2mm.

Problem: DEX only has 1 grid dimension , and can only accept numerical entry in 1 unit type at a time. I have raised this multiple times. It would be really great to be able to type a number followed by the unit designation in any coordinate entry field. This avoids having to fidget between metric and imperial (which is common the PCB world) . It should not be that hard to implement.

In visual basic :

Code: [Select]

function ReturnUnitLessNumber (text as string) as double
  dim number = val(text)
  scaling = currentunits   ' currentunits holds the scaling factor. 1 for millimeter , 25.4/1000 for mils so we translate all to millimeters. ( for example). currentunits is set from the menu.

  if instr ucase(text),"mm" then number = number * mmscale
  elseif instr ucase(text,"mil") then number = number * milscale
  elsif instr ucase .... ' you get the idea : add your others like  in , m or whatever here
  else
      number = number * currentunits
  end if
  return number
end function

Something along those lines. ( not responsible for typos and bugs, code above is principle only and was typed by hand using two fat fingers on a keyboard with coffee stains and not sent through a linter or compiler)

- I Set my grid x and y spacing.
- Now I select the place-pad operation .
- I Set up the pad as a rectangle 0.6mm wide 2mm tall. Rectangle, pad number 1. Set soldermask opening to 4 mils over pad.
- Click 10 times in a row left to right. Go one row up, click 10 times right to left. Done. I Could simplify this by doing an array placement. I Could also select the first 10 and then duplicate but my CAD program does not increment pad numbers in that case.

Note: Bonus points for DEX here: it does increment pad numbers in the copies!  . I Wish Altium had that. In DEX: select the pasted group and do a flip around vertical axis to get them to count backwards. I'm going to suggest to Altium they implement that. (There is array paste in Altium but I don't think it increments. I've never tried it on single pads.)

So now i have my base structure.

- Set origin to center ( 1 command, cad software figures out where the center is of what i have already drawn.) My origin point now neatly sits in the center of this structure.

Note : DEX does not have such a command. I Need to calculate numbers by hand or position 'by eye'. I suggested this as an improvement. In the right clock menu you can set origin but have to click yourself where you want it. With this imperial pat pitch and metric column pitch... that is a whacky number... so, on that menu all that is need is an additional selection ' set origin to center'. I Have suggested that before.

- Set grid to 1mm for both x and y.
- Somewhere outside what I already made I now draw a rectangle of 10mm by 16mm and set the width of the line to 6mils. I Have a toolbar that shows me how long a line is as I am drawing it.

Bonus points for DEX : DEX displays the x and y directly on the object being drawn! I Do not need to take my eyes off where i am working to go read some numbers somewhere on the UI
(I'm going to be on the phone on Monday with Altium suggesting they could learn a thing or two from DEX when it comes to userfriendlyness. .Not a week goes by without them getting an earful from me about something that does not work as expected. But they appreciate feedback. Of course working for one of their largest accounts with several hundred licences all on subscription does help a bit Maybe I should buy 100 licences of DEX. Only 4500$, cheaper than an Altium seat.)

- Select the rectangle, invoke cut-command, click on the center point of the rectangle because that is where I want to 'grab it'. The center point is indicated on a selection. Not only the center point, but also the corners and centers of all edges. The software snaps to it automatically if I approach it with the mouse.
- I Now approach the origin point and the mouse snaps to that. I Click again to drop the selection. (paste operation)

DEX does not have a notion of a pickup point or drop point. You can drag a selected group but you have no idea where you are headed. There is no way to position elements centered, apart from you figuring out numbers, and looking at the scale rules, to see if you are there. If you type in numbers to apply an offset to the selection, only one element moves. If you move the selection, and inside the selection there are off-grid elements: they move on-grid.  That is frustrating as DEX 'undoes' any relational positioning I already did inside the group , simply because I move the group. DEX can also not pick up a 'hollow object' inside the object. Draw an empty rectangle and try to pick it up by click-drag inside the rectangle. DEX thinks you want to make a selection. You can only grab a selection by grabbing an edge. Be careful not to grab a corner because then DEX will scale it  ! ( That in itself is not a problem for a vector drawing program, but is a problem for a PCB program. It upsets everything )

At this point I am frustrated with DEX as I cannot do these simple graphical operations without the software trying to 'help' (Which is  no help at all : moving things to grid which i do not want to move to grid). All drawing programs, even PowerPoint, do not touch spatial relations inside a group if you move that group. This is a basic graphic operation. Draw a few rectangles in PowerPoint , select them and move the selection around: they move in unison and nothing inside the group re-positions. DEX does re-position inside the selection. (See my video on manipulating pads)

Missing basic operation : move a group as-is

OK, back to me drawing.I Have two rows of pads and the silkscreen placed.
- Invoke Place pad command , set width and height to 6.3mm and 9.5mm, soldermask opening to 4, number to 21.
- Move mouse to center, it snaps, click to drop pad. Pad was already 'held' by its center. I Can hit space-bar to rotate the pad or X and Y to flip horizontally or vertically. DEX has similar shortcuts. No problem there, although the traditional windows style <ALT>+ key is crippled. Not Iliya's fault : a problem with a toolkit called Dev Express he is using , but nonetheless a bit annoying

OK, pad tweaking time.
- Select all on top layer
- Shift click on pad 1 and pad 21 as I do not want those
- In the properties panel change rectangle to rounded rectangle. Done.

Under certain circumstances , and I can't remember if pads are one of em, DEX will not apply settings to a group. It will only alter 1 element in the group. This makes the manipulation of common parameters for a group impossible. So you need to do this for each individual element.  Note : I could have, during placement of the pad, altered the pad shape. But since I have group editing capability I don't bother.  I Have finer grain control in group edit than every time having to toggle pad shape settings when I need a different kind of pad. That's just how i'm wired. All software i use has group editing. So it gets very frustrating when dealing with a program that cannot do such a basic operation.

So now i have to draw the wings.
- I Start by drawing a polygon 1cm wide with 'some' height, grab the polygon by its edge and drag it over to meet the silkscreen edge. My cad tool 'snaps' as I approach. I now grab the top edge of that polygon and drag that upward. The large crosshair looks for far-aligned objects. When i approach the upper edge of the top row of pads the cursor snaps. ( It snapped also on the bottom edge , but I kept on dragging).

For people used to programming in visual studio: if you draw a button, and then a second button, and you move the second button you get these blue lines. These are alignment guides. As you approach such a line you get a snap effect. This allows you to position two elements vertically and horizontally and size them to each other. This again is base CAD operations , even non cad programs like PowerPoint and Inkscape and Photoshop can do such things.

DEX: haven't found this functionality. I Tried, but i couldn't find it. So this bugs me. I Need to'fidget' to align two objects. If I had from-to operations I could have clicked on the edge of the drawn pad, then clicked on the edge of the silkscreen and it would have been done, but that is also not possible.

OK, so now i have a copper pad 1cm wide, top edge aligned to 'toe' of upper row of pads.
- Repeat operation: grab the bottom edge and drag it so it snaps to the toe of the bottom row of pads.

Note : Maybe some people do not know what 'toe' is. Maybe i should explain : an SMD pad is to a pin ,what a shoe is to a foot. Meaning: the edge of the pad pointing towards the body of the part is called the heel. And the edge of the pad pointing away from the package body is called the toe of the pad. Toe and heel also apply to the pin itself. Toe is the tip of the pin furthest away from the body ,heel is the last piece of the pin that touched the pad before the pin bends upwards. ( the ankle). Design rules for manufacturability say that the toe of a pin should fall in between the center of the pad to 85% of the pad length. The heel of the pin should sit no closer than 15% to the heel of the pad. This is to allow a nice fillet to form during reflow for mechanical strength.

OK, so now i have rectangle there.
I Now set my grid to 10 mils spacing and draw a rectangle 170 mils tall. ( the connection piece between center pad and the wing. ) . Width doesn't matter for now.
I copy this piece and set the copy's width to 23 mils (numerical entry). I Move the 23 mil wide, 170mil tall copy so it snaps against the edge of the thermal pad. ( It goes off-grid here. CAD program allows going off grid if you approach an electrical object. DEX has no such concept making such operations harder than need be. It's always on-grid).
Now I move the previously drawn piece so it butts against the 23 mil wide one and I stretch its other side so it butts against the wing.

Why 23 mils? I need a sliver of soldermask 15 mils wide. The opening in the mask is set to 4 mils over pad. I will set the 'opening over copper' for the wing also to 4 mils. So, by making a piece that is 23 mils wide , I have 4 mils under the opening of the center pad, 15 mils covered in soldermask and 4 more mils under the opening of the wing structure. Mission accomplished.

-I now select the connecting piece and the wing, and apply soldermask opening 4 mils over edge. That is just a numerical property of an object, no drawing is involved in this. DEX only has a slider that affects all soldermask. Anything else needs to be drawn as polygons. Pads and tracks have no property in of themselves that defines the mask associated with that particular object. Room for improvement.

-I now shift-click on the 23 mil wide piece to add it to the selection. (The others were still selected)
- Select the copy function.
- Point to the center of the thermal pad (it snaps) and click to specify that as the pickup point.
- Invoke the paste operation. Hit the Y button to flip the the pasted selection around the mouse point and click again on the center of the thermal pad.
- Left wing and the connecting stubs are now in place. I used the snapping functionality, flipping operations and pick and place points to my advantage to do a very quick mirror image placement. Everything falls into place.
- Switch to bottom layer.
- Invoke the place-fill command, set soldermask as 4 mils over copper, go to the top left corner of the left wing, the mouse snaps, I click , I move to bottom right corner of right wing, the mouse snaps again and I click again. My bottom pad is now done.

Via time !

- I Set my X grid to 50 , Y grid to 75 mils,  and invoke the place-via command : set via drill to 10 mils, pad to 20 mils. Three clicks vertically and I have a column of vias. Select colum, copy , click the center of the top via (as pickup point) , click 1 grid space to the right(as drop point). Select the, now 6, vias ,mouse two grid space to the right : paste , move two more grid spaces : paste.
- Select the group of via's , set the pickup point as the center of the group. Drop point as the center of the thermal pad. Now those are in place and aligned properly

- Making the paste mask is a similar process. We know we need 20 mil spokes. I Conveniently set my via pad width to 20. So i can draw filled rectangles simply by allowing the cad tool to snap to the edges of the vias. Once I have 1 rectangle: copy, set pickup point to the center of a via, move two via's over ,click to drop. Repeat. I don't care if I go over the edge of the pad for now.

-Once all are placed : switch grid to 1 mil.
-Select a row or column that is 'over' and drag the edge that is over, 4 grid spaces inside the thermal pad. Do this for top row , bottom row and left column and right column. (selection editing)

Paste mask is done. Footprint is done. Import step model and paste. Save to library , use for the L6203 and L298 and some other devices that have this footprint.

This is another question that has popped up in this topic a couple of times. Not just by me : how to tie 1 footprint to mulitple schematic symbols. No answer yet. Maybe i missed it.

So that should give you an insight in what kind of object operations I use. These operations are common in almost any drawing program. PowerPoint, Illustrator, Photoshop, Cadence, Mentor. Doesn't matter. These are basic operations. Some of which are missing in DEX , some of which I can not find in DEX.

Having to work with a smaller toolset gets very annoying very quickly. Especially if lots of other software has the same tools.

Note : if anyone can find spelling errors in the post please inform me. I will ask for my money back. I bought Dragon Dictation. Since now i have a headset might as well use it
(note: that code segment was typed by hand)

[Iliya]

I will do the L6370 tutorial.

I will do it in the DEX manual with integrated video.
It will be a step by step how-to.
I'm a bit busy today so it will probably be tomorrow.

I have made a single pad for the top and and single pad on the bottom connected using vias.

The part is downloadable at:
http://kov.com/DownloadFiles/lm6370.zip

It is work in process, not yet complete so please let's not have a slanging match over this. Please be constructive.


DEX Symbol


DEX Footprint (Yes there is a mistake here, work in progress!)


DEX 3D view


Active3D

[Iliya]

Here is my feeble attempt at Vincent's challenge. Round pads is a bitch if it has to be done individually. Still looking for some copy and paste solution.

The rounded pads are actually very easy.
1.   Start with the part builder, create a SOIC and set pitch and pad sizes, then round the pads.
2.   Now capture the symbol terminal names in the part builder
3.   Now using the part builder, click the large button with a cross to convert to fully custom footprint.
4.   Turn top package layer on ( all others off ) and delete that graphics you see.
5.   Reset layer.
6.   Add center top SMT pad and size ( grid snap off, object snap on, snap SMT center to placement point)
7.   Add the copper shapes to the top.
8.   On bottom add a SMT pad and size
9.   Add a single via to top
10.   Select it
11.   Edit array set row and column count and create interactive. Drag cursor to see vias move.
12.   Go to symbol and name pins 21 and 22.
13.   Import 3D model and position it.

I've put the 3D model in the zip file.

[Wytnucls]

Thanks Iliya, I'll have a look at custom pads later. (I used the array)
In the meantime, here is my latest attempt with solder mask, paste mask and some corrections:

[rsjsouza]

I ventured in creating a TPS60120 that has a powerPad and vias (I don't care for the ST part, really) and can comment on a few details about footprint creation, as well as free_electron's takes on it.

Problem: DEX only has 1 grid dimension , and can only accept numerical entry in 1 unit type at a time.

I have never used mixed units, especially when trying to reproduce a part from the datasheet. Although it wouldn't hurt to allow this for the folks that want/like it.

Note: Bonus points for DEX here: it does increment pad numbers in the copies!

+1 to that as well! The copy and paste of multiple elements nicely increments the pin numbers.

- Set origin to center ( 1 command, cad software figures out where the center is of what i have already drawn.) My origin point now neatly sits in the center of this structure.

Note : DEX does not have such a command. I Need to calculate numbers by hand or position 'by eye'. I suggested this as an improvement. In the right clock menu you can set origin but have to click yourself where you want it. With this imperial pat pitch and metric column pitch... that is a whacky number... so, on that menu all that is need is an additional selection ' set origin to center'. I Have suggested that before.

I had to set the origin manually as well, and it is a pain given the snap to grid was not very helpful for me.

Bonus points for DEX : DEX displays the x and y directly on the object being drawn! I Do not need to take my eyes off where i am working to go read some numbers somewhere on the UI

I don't care too much for that, but I see its usefulness.

If you type in numbers to apply an offset to the selection, only one element moves.

Yes, that happens to me as well. It is painful. I tried to make a selection of the elements with Shift, Ctrl+Shift but the outcome was always the same.

If you move the selection, and inside the selection there are off-grid elements: they move on-grid.

I can attest to that as well. It complicates the process as the snap to grid is not useful on the part I was working on (a 0,05mm pitch was required, but 10 snap points per grid are 0,1mm). To do that successfully I had to disable the snap grid.

You can only grab a selection by grabbing an edge. Be careful not to grab a corner because then DEX will scale it  !

I personally don't see this as a big problem.

Under certain circumstances , and I can't remember if pads are one of em, DEX will not apply settings to a group. It will only alter 1 element in the group. This makes the manipulation of common parameters for a group impossible.

I was able to do this selecting the elements using Ctrl+Shift and change width and Height, but if you try to change position, the modifications are applied to a single element.

For people used to programming in visual studio: if you draw a button, and then a second button, and you move the second button you get these blue lines. These are alignment guides. As you approach such a line you get a snap effect. This allows you to position two elements vertically and horizontally and size them to each other.

I missed that as well - alignment snap rulers. The fact you can't change the position of a selection makes everything harder.

I have to stop here, but I have additional comments. One of the most bugging issues to me (and reported by free_electron) was the fact that, when you add a pad or a via, the schematic symbol resets completely! It is very painful to keep getting back
all the time to reposition the pins...

[Iliya]

I have now changed the way DEX pastes objects. If you paste anything then the active viewport mode changes to move selected. So as you move, the objects follow with the center of the objects being beneath the cursor. Single click places them.

I think this was suggested and/or demanded by free-electron in one of his many diatribes. I find them difficult to read, especially the older ones. The readability has improved but could be better organized. If instead he used the DEX wish list to suggest an idea, it would have been more visible and actionable. I prefer 1 idea per wish. This makes them easy to do and record.

I did this because it was a good idea and even though I now despise free-electron because of the way he has gone about his ‘review’ I did it. It was done for others.

http://kov.com/Support/WishList

[Iliya]

I ventured in creating a TPS60120 that has a powerPad and vias (I don't care for the ST part, really) and can comment on a few details about footprint creation, as well as free_electron's takes on it.

Problem: DEX only has 1 grid dimension , and can only accept numerical entry in 1 unit type at a time.

I have never used mixed units, especially when trying to reproduce a part from the datasheet. Although it wouldn't hurt to allow this for the folks that want/like it.

Note: Bonus points for DEX here: it does increment pad numbers in the copies!

+1 to that as well! The copy and paste of multiple elements nicely increments the pin numbers.

- Set origin to center ( 1 command, cad software figures out where the center is of what i have already drawn.) My origin point now neatly sits in the center of this structure.

Note : DEX does not have such a command. I Need to calculate numbers by hand or position 'by eye'. I suggested this as an improvement. In the right clock menu you can set origin but have to click yourself where you want it. With this imperial pat pitch and metric column pitch... that is a whacky number... so, on that menu all that is need is an additional selection ' set origin to center'. I Have suggested that before.

I had to set the origin manually as well, and it is a pain given the snap to grid was not very helpful for me.

Bonus points for DEX : DEX displays the x and y directly on the object being drawn! I Do not need to take my eyes off where i am working to go read some numbers somewhere on the UI

I don't care too much for that, but I see its usefulness.

If you type in numbers to apply an offset to the selection, only one element moves.

Yes, that happens to me as well. It is painful. I tried to make a selection of the elements with Shift, Ctrl+Shift but the outcome was always the same.

If you move the selection, and inside the selection there are off-grid elements: they move on-grid.

I can attest to that as well. It complicates the process as the snap to grid is not useful on the part I was working on (a 0,05mm pitch was required, but 10 snap points per grid are 0,1mm). To do that successfully I had to disable the snap grid.

You can only grab a selection by grabbing an edge. Be careful not to grab a corner because then DEX will scale it  !

I personally don't see this as a big problem.

Under certain circumstances , and I can't remember if pads are one of em, DEX will not apply settings to a group. It will only alter 1 element in the group. This makes the manipulation of common parameters for a group impossible.

I was able to do this selecting the elements using Ctrl+Shift and change width and Height, but if you try to change position, the modifications are applied to a single element.

For people used to programming in visual studio: if you draw a button, and then a second button, and you move the second button you get these blue lines. These are alignment guides. As you approach such a line you get a snap effect. This allows you to position two elements vertically and horizontally and size them to each other.

I missed that as well - alignment snap rulers. The fact you can't change the position of a selection makes everything harder.

I have to stop here, but I have additional comments. One of the most bugging issues to me (and reported by free_electron) was the fact that, when you add a pad or a via, the schematic symbol resets completely! It is very painful to keep getting back
all the time to reposition the pins...

Try requesting it as a wish.
http://kov.com/Support/WishList

[Iliya]

Productivity tip

I use a programmable extra keyboard.



http://xkeys.com/XkeysKeyboards/index.php

I have 2 keys set up for cut and paste.
Now with the new pasting method:

1.   Select objects.
2.   Press custom copy button
3.   Press custom paste button
4.   Now dragging the mouse drags the copied items.
5.   Press custom paste button again leaves the pasted objects in place and now you are dragging another copy.
6.   Repeat pressing custom paste button to repeatedly add.
7.   Finally click left mouse button to finish or press ESC key.

I set up another button to do copy and paste (record Crl+C Crt+V)
Now I do this:

1.   Select objects.
2.   Press custom copy/paste button
3.   Now dragging the mouse drags the copied items.
4.   Press custom copy/paste button again leaves the pasted objects in place and now you are dragging another copy.
5.   Repeat pressing custom copy/paste button to repeatedly add.
6.   Finally click left mouse button to finish or press ESC key.

[Iliya]

3D Models...

http://www.3dcontentcentral.com/default.aspx


DEX takes STL and XGL. I will add VRML in next few days.

XGL and VRML have color and normals. STL does not. (some STL has color but color is not standardized)

[Monkeh]

3D Models...

http://www.3dcontentcentral.com/default.aspx


DEX takes STL and XGL. I will add VRML in next few days.

XGL and VRML have color and normals. STL does not. (some STL has color but color is not standardized)

That's great, but if you go to get 3D models for actual parts:
Molex 22-05-2061
TE 2-644489-2

You'll notice the formats available are STEP and IGES.

Sure, I could create an account with some site providing 3D models made by who knows who.. or I could get them from the manufacturer in industry standard formats with no login required.

Even if I did sign up to that site, you'll note neither of those commonplace parts shows up by part number, which is the only logical way to search for them.