Opinions - AutoTRAX Design Express 2020

[BengtR]

I very close to finishing my first board using Autotrax DEX. I have "just" the GND plane left to do. It is a rather advanced 4-layer board using burried vias and I have also created full 3D models of all parts.

DEX is now coming close to a finished product and that should be very interesting for everyone looking for free or very cheap tools. It has some annoyances but I think I can live with them because there are so many other things that are good or even outstanding.

I have a specific reason to save the GND for last and it is the "route-by-net-wire" restriction. There have been lots of problems and bugs because of this but I think they are fixed know and that I have got the hang of how to route using that method. I will put the result here.

[Neganur]

Oh please do post your example. I've been trying to import eagle (v6) files to it to see an example but it just fails at reading the files.

[IanJ]

I very close to finishing my first board using Autotrax DEX. I have "just" the GND plane left to do. It is a rather advanced 4-layer board using burried vias and I have also created full 3D models of all parts.

DEX is now coming close to a finished product and that should be very interesting for everyone looking for free or very cheap tools. It has some annoyances but I think I can live with them because there are so many other things that are good or even outstanding.

I have a specific reason to save the GND for last and it is the "route-by-net-wire" restriction. There have been lots of problems and bugs because of this but I think they are fixed know and that I have got the hang of how to route using that method. I will put the result here.

Yup, if only I could drop a via down to a ground plane (created by a copper pour) to satisfy a net I'd be using DEX today. Oh well!

Ian.

[Warhawk]

I very close to finishing my first board using Autotrax DEX. I have "just" the GND plane left to do. It is a rather advanced 4-layer board using burried vias and I have also created full 3D models of all parts.

DEX is now coming close to a finished product and that should be very interesting for everyone looking for free or very cheap tools. It has some annoyances but I think I can live with them because there are so many other things that are good or even outstanding.

I have a specific reason to save the GND for last and it is the "route-by-net-wire" restriction. There have been lots of problems and bugs because of this but I think they are fixed know and that I have got the hang of how to route using that method. I will put the result here.

Please share you design with us if you can.
I've never seen any professional PCB board from this software, except few silly arduino examples, so I am excited.

[BengtR]

I can now tell that it is possible to do this even with the net wire restricted route method. It is not a fun process but it is possible. Sometimes DEX refuses to connect to the pad I want to but after trying a few times I found out that it worked good if I was structured and started from one corner. Last time I couldn't even reproduce the problem I had before.

We are used to that you just can draw a trace from the desired pad, create a via in the copper pour and stop there. This you cannot do in DEX. You must follow the net wire so you everytime connects the pad to another pad or another trace of the same net. If DEX was treating the copper pour as such I think this could work just as fine but it doesn't today.

I want to put the vias directly in the pads (via-in-pad technology). That is impossible to do in one step, you have to first place the vias outside the pads and later move them in. That is not a big deal though.

This is the result after connecting the lower line of pads plus two pads on the back layer. First picture is with the vias inside the copper pour and it look totally normal but you cannot see how I did it. If I move the vias outside the copper pour the hidden connections will appear. The trick is that I actually has to draw these traces also and not only the connection from the pad to the via. And this can be tricky because you want exactly one via per pad. As you can see it is obviously possible but the first time you try you will pull your hair! What is important to understand is that sometimes you have to start from a place that you not intend to, connect it and when reconnect the other end. DEX (usually) understand and clean up the net wires fine. If it becomes to messy I think DEX gets problems and therefore it is safest to work from one corner and in, not starting at several random points at once.

It takes some practice but now I can do this maybe just say 5 times slower than in my former tool EdWinXP.... Many other things are much better so from now on I will start using DEX on smaller boards. I cannot use DEX for more complex boards until the copper pour is fully included in the DRC.

For those that are in the DEX user forum I have uploaded a video there. It is

[BengtR]

This is about to change because Iliya has finally been convinced/persuaded to that proper copper pour handling is necessary. I think he has even paused his development of the router to implement a copper pour solution. Even with working DRC checking, at least to some point. (My guess is that it will not initially check for isolated areas and to thin copper pour connections but this is only my personal guessing).

Note that it is possible to create copper pours even in the existing version but not practical. You have to route all connections of the copper pour net together using normal traces or the net wire will not go away making it look like you have unrouted traces even if you don't. These traces will be hidden within the copper pour once created (if placed there). On top of this, which is critical, is that copper pour is not included in DRC.

Ken, You speak of all PCB software you have seen and none have seen the via connection until refreshing the copper pour. I can tell you that obviously you have missed EdWinXP. There you never need to refresh the copper pour while working with PCB, only if you want to see the plots. But EdWinXP is a not very well known software even that it was one of the very first, it has just gone through some (major) changes over the years. If I say EE Designer, you maybe recognize it. However, EdWinXP is what I intend to leave. Still not sure if it is the right decision but I can always go back if I change my mind as I have a full license. I have just stopped updating it.

[nctnico]

IMHO realtime copper pours are a fool's errand. When done right drawing a copper pour takes so much time due to all the calculations and checks that it will slow a CAD package down to a grinding halt when it is done in realtime.

[c4757p]

IMHO realtime copper pours are a fool's errand. When done right drawing a copper pour takes so much time due to all the calculations and checks that it will slow a CAD package down to a grinding halt when it is done in realtime.

Yes, this. It's surprisingly difficult to get right. I'd rather the software be more responsive instead. I turn off pour view while routing anyway.

[timofonic]

IMHO realtime copper pours are a fool's errand. When done right drawing a copper pour takes so much time due to all the calculations and checks that it will slow a CAD package down to a grinding halt when it is done in realtime.

Yes, this. It's surprisingly difficult to get right. I'd rather the software be more responsive instead. I turn off pour view while routing anyway.

What about OpenCL and equivalent stuff? Even LibreOffice uses it for spreadsheets!

https://youtu.be/FK6ctilE7hY

http://developer.amd.com/community/blog/2015/07/15/collaboration-and-open-source-at-amd-libreoffice/

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTQ5OTA

http://www.hexus.net/tech/features/software/69269-michael-meeks-the-spreadsheet-dead-long-live-spreadsheet/

[BengtR]

Well, EdWinXPs solution to copper pour is that it is never displayed in true size in PCB, only when plotting. But it behaves true in all routing aspects. Works well, displaying copper pour as it will be seen is most of the time just fancy and nothing you want.

Going back to DEX gives that DEX solves it in a similar way. You don't need to fill it (true view) to make it behave as it should for routing.

[Mechatrommer]

IMHO realtime copper pours are a fool's errand. When done right drawing a copper pour takes so much time due to all the calculations and checks that it will slow a CAD package down to a grinding halt when it is done in realtime.

Yes, this. It's surprisingly difficult to get right. I'd rather the software be more responsive instead. I turn off pour view while routing anyway.

with this era of 8 cored cpu, this thing should be peanut easy for them. realtime calculation should be made on different thread (core). when done, the result should be passed to the main thread for quick rendering unaffecting user experience. but well, i really dont know what those programmers are eating these days. otoh i agree turning off copper pour is a need and mostly 99% that way during traces editing mode, the pour will only be made when everythings are done, tracing while pour is there is difficult to see the bottom layer tracks, esp when there is no realtime pour update. diptrace got this thing right by having "unpoured" setting in copper pour property. even recently i tried older version of altium, its very difficult to make them "unpoured" during tracing, or its either difficult to find that setting. i have to move the copper pour out of the space while editing, a hack that should not be in the "altium domain" imho.

[c4757p]

It's less easy than you'd think to do the calculation off in another thread while the data you're calculating on is actively changing in the main thread.

Again, I'm not saying it's impossible, it can definitely be done. I'd love to see KiCad do that, if I trusted more of the devs with threading... I'm just saying it's difficult, so you shouldn't be surprised when tools don't have it.

[Mechatrommer]

It's less easy than you'd think to do the calculation off in another thread while the data you're calculating on is actively changing in the main thread.

a copy of the recent data are piped to the other thread in realtime, this should be pretty quick since adding components or editing tracks by the user is performed one step at a time (instead of the inefficient way of the bulk copy of the whole data by request at one time) so a copy of a component is piped without anyone noticing in the background... queue and hold mechanism should also be there in the middle to maintain synchronization between the parallel computing... there will be a lag in realtime pour generation as the user quickly changing the master data but this should be acceptable rather than a hogging GUI due to pour calculation on the same thread as the GUI. maybe easily said than done, but as i said, this should be their butter and bread, not us. i got shocked how the altium guys did exactly this (hogging GUI) while doing realtime DRC that i still dont know yet on how to officially turn it off in general preferences

[firewalker]

I have never used something like this. Is there any video of this feature in use?

Alexander.

[nctnico]

Well, EdWinXPs solution to copper pour is that it is never displayed in true size in PCB, only when plotting. But it behaves true in all routing aspects. Works well, displaying copper pour as it will be seen is most of the time just fancy and nothing you want.

Going back to DEX gives that DEX solves it in a similar way. You don't need to fill it (true view) to make it behave as it should for routing.

All of this copper-pouring requires a lot of calculation to get around obstacles, at the same time following the PCB DRC rules.  Not so bad if your board is small, and you only have one or two copper-pours, the "refresh" of the copper pour would look almost instantaneous.  But if you have a large board with many layers and multiple copper pours, then it is going to take some time [that a human operator would surely notice] every time the entire graphics are refreshed.  So, you don't want this happening every time you make a connection to the copper-pour-- it would be really annoying!  Most PCB packages work by only doing the refresh under the command of the operator.

Going round the obstacles is the easy part but testing connectivity, doing DRC, Z-order, anti-copper areas, etc makes it time consuming. In some of my PCB designs it takes several seconds to do a complete repour of all the copper pours (on a 3.7GHz CPU!). Regarding visibility: the package I'm using has a 'skeleton' display mode for pours which draws a poor in gridded lines instead of a flood-fill so they are see-through.

[BengtR]

As long as there is nor real-time DRC connecting to copper pour is easy. The software assume that the entire area is a valid connection and thats it. If there was an actual connection or not, isolated areas, shortcuts or whatever is checked later when the DRC is done. EdWinXP behaves like that and it is EdWinXPs biggest problem. The core engine is probably made in such way that it is more or less impossible to do any real-time tasks. But creating the copper pour plot is actually instant. Like magic compared to anything else I have seen.

As I said I am guessing but I think the implementation of copper pour in DEX will be similar, it will create a  connection wherever on the copper pour area you connect and accept the connection even if there are isolated areas. You will get a DRC error of course. DEX has real-time DRC so you can deal with it as you like but when again we have the problem of updating the copper pour. It is not instant.

(I have always accused EdWin from still having much of the code inherit from old DOS times. Despite all the disadvantages some of it is like it was written in assembler - fast!)

[nctnico]

Having traces and pours connect to something automatically is a bad design choice. A package should allow to assign a net to a copper pour. That way you can put several copper pours on top of eachother where the Z ordering determines the final shape. I often have a copper pour for a ground plane over the entire top + bottom layer and other copper pours connected to different nets. With the explicit net assignment and Z order the result is 100% predictable.

[firewalker]

It's 49$ again. For anyone interested in buying.

[firewalker]

It could automated to change prices at the start and the end of a month. Because on August 1th it was free.

[nctnico]

Now its my turn: Meh 

[Monkeh]

When he's willing to pay $49 an hour to try and figure out how his program works, deal with his attitude, and teach him how an EDA should work and troubleshoot his software.. nah, not enough money.

[Mechatrommer]

...and teach him how an EDA should work and troubleshoot his software..

no thats not how it works.. he should follow by the rules whether he like it or not... this is AutoTRAX thread.. pay the $49, use the EDA and STFU.

[Monkeh]

pay the $49

Hm.. no.

use the EDA

Definitely no.

and STFU.

Do I have to type those two letters a third time?

[firewalker]

Back to 99 USD.



Alexander.

[firewalker]

An now, 199 USD.



Alexander.