Questions & Answers - Assembly drawing in Altium

Assembly drawing in Altium

Printed From: PCB Libraries Forum
Category: PCB Footprint Expert
Forum Name: Questions & Answers
Forum Description: issues and technical support
URL: https://www.PCBLibraries.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2171
Printed Date: 07 Oct 2024 at 9:30am

Topic: Assembly drawing in Altium

Posted By: sinistry
Subject: Assembly drawing in Altium
Date Posted: 16 Jun 2017 at 12:15am

I wonder if there is another way of getting the assembly drawings to behave the way I want?

Perhaps there is a bug or Library expert doesn't support Altium all the way?

Do I really need to manually delete layers in my Altium library and setup layer pairs in order to have a printable assembly drawing?

Assembly outline can be set to different layers within Library expert.

Then in Altium you have to define these layers as a layer pair in order to have the assembly outline follow the component when switching from top to bottom layer placement.

When defining different layers for the reference designator in Library expert the designator shows up on both top and bottom layers. Is this a bug?

I want the Assembly outline and assembly designator on the same mechanical layer, following the component when switching from top to bottom placement.

In order to achive this I have to define the same mechanical layer for assembly outline and reference designator in Library expert for top layer.

Then add the same mechanical layer in the empty box for bottom reference designator as the bottom assembly outline has.

And then in my Altium library I have to manually delete the designator-text from my reference designator bottom layer (Since it shows up on booth top and bottom ref.des layers).

And finally set up a mechanical layer pair for the assembly ouline/ref.des top and the assembly ouline/ref.des bottom.

Now the assembly drawings behave and prints the correct way.

This is how I have set up the layers.

Kind regards / Johan

Replies:

Posted By: chrisa_pcb
Date Posted: 16 Jun 2017 at 1:39pm

sinistry wrote:

When defining different layers for the reference designator in Library expert the designator shows up on both top and bottom layers. Is this a bug?

Huh? Not seeing it. I use your layers and get designators on the specified layers. I see no added text on top and bottom. Which version of the Lite are you using?

Posted By: sinistry
Date Posted: 18 Jun 2017 at 10:44pm

I have tried it in both 2017.13 and 2017.14.

However I found another way of getting it right with a little less manual effort.

If I leave the fields for bottom assembly and ref.des empty in Library expert and define the same layer for top assembly and ref.des there are nothing that needs to be deleted in my library. All I have to do is define layer pairs in my Altium project. So I'm pairing the assembly/refdes top layer from Library expert with an empty mechanical layer in Altium.

That worked fine. All you need to do is defining the layer pair in Altium. But that is only done once for each project and no extra manual work needs to be done for every component created by Library expert.