Altium questions

[tooki]

1. Reconnect tracks
Hi,
When you move a component and its track comes disconnected, how do you make that track auto-reconnect?
2. Disable everything in Altium
Hi, Am trying to route up a simple PCB...and Altium is making the track dance all over the place as i route it...it wont let me put the track where i want it.......how can i disable absolutely all these extra features in Altium?, so that i can then put them back , individually, as and when  they are required.....for this simple board, i just need Altium to act like Eagle does anyway.
3. Altium videos
Have now watched shedloads of altium videos, and they none of them seem to tell the needed stuff....all cover over stuff not so needed for simple board routing...and cover it over and over.....where are the good videos which tell whats really needed? i can almost recite off by heart the Ferenec and Altium Academy vids, as well as many many others, but am still getting stuck on simple stuff.
Dont get me wrong Ferenec is good....probz the best, but still if you need to just route a simple board its difficult.
4. Altium wont allow routing
Hi, I am trying to route a track so as to reduce the loop area of the power switching current loop, but altium will not allow me to route in that direction........it just stops, ...it will allow me  to go another direction but that would give poor layout....how do you stop this?.....Tools ...Preferences...PCB Editor.....then what?
5. Altium is routing things to the wrong place
Altium wont let me route a track to a certain place....it just routes it to a different place, which would give poor layout...how do i stop this?
I seem to have disabled everything in TOOLS PREFERENCES   PCB_EDITOR....but its  still doing it.
I am just trying to do manual routing.
At one point, Altium actually did a "figure of 8" track, going back over itself....that would never ever be wanted....that must be a bug in altium.
This is just a simple 20W flyback board......how do i disable everything so i can just route it up like in Eagle Pro?

1. There’s a setting for this. While dragging a component (drag, not move!!) press Shift-F1 to list the available shortcuts while dragging. One is the component reconnector.
2, 4, 5. Same thing while placing or dragging a track or component: shift-F1 to see the shortcuts. Among them are the routing style options.
3. I very much doubt you have absorbed everything their videos say. Not a criticism: even understanding everything they say means knowing Altium to a degree that you don’t have yet.

Also, please stop the “make it behave like Eagle” silliness. On the one hand, Altium is not Eagle so it’s unreasonable to expect it to behave the same. On the other hand, many Altium users have never used Eagle, so saying “make it work like Eagle” is completely meaningless to us since we have no idea how Eagle does it. But the best advice I can give for switching to Altium (which is comparatively intuitive compared to many layout programs) is to consciously try and forget what you know about Eagle, and instead approach it as you would if you’d never used a layout program at all. (Ages ago when I worked at the Apple Store, a piece of advice I’d give to people switching from Windows to Mac was “don’t expect it to work like Windows. Instead, forget Windows and just think ‘how would I think it should work?’ and try that.” The customers who did that learned it very quickly; the ones who doggedly expected it to behave like Windows struggled.)

[Faringdon]

Thanks
Updating from library
Hi, i have some resistors , routed in the layout but with keepouts between the SMD pads. The keepout is stopping copper pours on the other side, so i now have to replace all these resistors.
So i got a P&P file showing coords and rotation....then i delete each resistor  from schem, then push this thru to pcb...then replace in schem with resistors with no keepout....then do "properties" on each resistor, and type in coords and rotation.....voila....seems a long way round...is there a quicker way?
Keepouts between SMD pads
How do you do keepouts between SMD pads, such that copper pours are still allowed on the  other side of the pcb to where the resistor is?

[tooki]

In Altium parlance, “updating” a footprint means replacing a footprint with a new version of the same footprint, like if you edit the footprint in your PCB library and want that edit propagated to your PCB. This is done in the footprint editor: in the list of footprints, right-click the footprint and click “update PCBs with (name of footprint)”. If you want to instead change components to a completely different footprint, the best way IMHO is to edit your schematic symbol to add the new footprint, then update the schematic symbols the same way as footprints.

As for the keepouts: I don’t understand why you even think you need keepouts between pads. Just define your clearances correctly, once and for all. If you need different clearances for a specific component, then create a second clearances rule, with some query that will make it apply to the exceptions.

[Faringdon]

Thanks,
Keep getting old "sign in" popup
Hi Altium keeps  freezing very regularly when my old company sign-in popup keeps popping up and inviting me to sign in....but i am already signed in with a different company....do you know how to stop this?....Altium is not useable till ive dealt with the pop-up.

[Faringdon]

How make it NOT "read only"
Hi, i need to change an altium schem and layout, but it just says "read only".....when i go tools ...prefs...Dev Man......etc etc....it doesnt stop it being "read only"...and offers me to save a copy.....when i do that. it deletes all the components when i only delete one....do you know how to solve?
How to stop "sign in" popup keep showing up?
Hi, i am in a "standalone offline" licence, but the "sign in" popup keeps showing up.....when it shows up it stops me from working, till i deal with it...how do i stop it?
Can't modify an Altium pcb/schem
Hi, I have been given an altium project, and need to make changes....but it wont let me...when i delete a component from scm...and push it to pcb, it then deletes all the components from the pcb.
There doesnt seem to be a library within the altium project, and when i go "file....new...library....create integrated library", it produces a title , bit no library...do you know whats going on?...is it some security issue?

[thm_w]

If you can't modify anything maybe your license has become invalid, check the state of that.

I'm assuming this is related to the read only issue, if not check the properties of the file, which should have read-only unchecked.

[Bud]

How to contact your regional Altium Support?

[Faringdon]

Default layer stack region - Default layer stack
Hi, i was just clicking to change all the PCB designators to 1mm....and then must have accidentally clicked something, and now the board has gone kind of all-layers-green, cannot be worked on, and says "Default layer stack region - Default layer stack"....Do you know how to get out of this? [SOLVED...just closed and re-opened]

[tooki]

You pressed “1” while not in any text field, which changes the view to the Board Shape view/editor. (“2” changes to standard 2D view, “3” changes to 3D view.)

[ahbushnell]

Default layer stack region - Default layer stack
Hi, i was just clicking to change all the PCB designators to 1mm....and then must have accidentally clicked something, and now the board has gone kind of all-layers-green, cannot be worked on, and says "Default layer stack region - Default layer stack"....Do you know how to get out of this? [SOLVED...just closed and re-opened]

You should say what you did to make it work. 

[Faringdon]

......Thanks, i just closed the pcb doc and then re-opened it...to make it ok again....it was a bit of a freak fault.....i was pressing "1" regularly to change the text to 1mm....but must have done it "out of sync", and went into the Board shape editor by mistake.
Changing a project name, and the schdoc and pcbdoc name.
Hi, I am doing a new version of a PCB, with the UC2843 chip instead of the LT1243 chip..., so i want to change the project name from "LT1243" to "UC2843", and then start doing the modification.... also wish to change the schdoc and pcbdoc files to be named to "UC2843"  instead of  "LT1243".
Is it ok to do this?......will i loose anything?.....will the design rules , or something, not be there any more?
Also, what about changing the name of the libraries from LT1243 to UC2843?
How to get rid of "Room"
Hi, i have started editing a PCB , to add a few components to it, and a red rectangle, calling itself a "Room" has appeared in the PCB window. How do i get rid of it, is it safe to just delete it?

[tooki]

Nothing was “out of sync”: if you type letters or numbers while inside a text field, you enter text. If you’re not in a text field, keystrokes are processed as shortcuts, and execute commands or settings.

Renaming: do the renaming within Altium by right clicking. But for your application, depending on how big the layout changes will be, you may consider using the Variants feature instead.

Rooms: if you don’t want to use rooms (which aren’t useful in smaller designs IMHO) then you need to disable room generation within the class rules in the Project options. Otherwise the rooms will come back every time you update the PCB. (In one of the most recent updates, Altium changed the project options defaults to not create rooms. But that won’t apply retroactively to projects created in earlier versions.)

[Faringdon]

Thanks,
NetClass_A to NetClass_A clearance?
Hi, if you have a NetClass_A  and you want its nets to be minimum of 3mm clearanced from each other, can you do that in a Clearance Design Rule?........i wondered if it could be difficult, because Altium may try and make the nets clearanced from themselves!?......like.....Net_A must be 0.3mm away from Net_A........Doh!....obviously i   wouldnt  want that.
How to have keepout under SMD component so that copper pour does not go under it?
Please advise?
How to have a courtyard round a component, such that when you push to opposite layer, courtyard goes with it?
Please advise?
Change all circular vias of 0.8D/0.5Hole to 0.6D/0.3hole
.....Do you know how to do this?
How to do auto-routing
Hi,  i have been given a board to gerber up. However, its 4 layer, and the ground plane is so badly cut up that it needs re-doing. Its a micro with loads of connections to lots of opamps, etc, over the board. I believe i will first put in the layer 1 and layer 2 ground planes....then add ground stitching vias near the  chips...then autoroute from there. Is it possible to identify a load of circuitry, and then select it, and then just hit "autoroute, and then it all just happens? Noting that first you have to identify your "preferred" track width for each net, and give the clearance of each net from each other.
Also, we wish the autorouting to be done without going inbetween the pads of an IC or component. (ie no tracks going underneath component bodies)
How to define all vias on PCB as being tented?
...Please advise how?
How to locate all vias of drill diameter 0.6mm?
I can get the "shape" thing that corresponds to them in the drill table...but still finding all 26 of the  0.6mm diameter vias is not easy...do you know a quick way?
Repour shelved vias?
Hi, can you repour vias that are shelved....?....i always get , "repour vias because DRC needs it"....but do i have to then unshelve them, then repour them?...then shelve them again because you cant correct DRC errors with the pours poured.
Component pushing
Hi,
When i am solving clearance errors by pushing components about, sometimes the next  adjacent component starts getting pushed away, before the component that i am moving has got near to it.......there is no collision, but the other component moves away...which is not wanted. How do i stop this? I mean, i have the pusher on...but i dont expect components to get moved before i get near to them. I turned off silk to silk clearance in design rules, but it made no difference.
Vias changed to have 0mm solder mask expansion causes problem
I just made a design rule to make all vias have 0mm solder mask expansion....and Altium must have moved some of the vias nearer to pads, because i am getting minimum solder mask sliver errors which i never got before. Is this a bug in altium.?
Slots in PCB in mechanical layer?
Hi, I put some slots in my PCB using the Altium "SLOT
Change all track widths on PCB?
Hi, just routed a PCB....used many 0.2mm traces....now realise 2oz copper cannot be done with  0.2mm traces without much expense...so now, how do i convert all the 0.2mm traces to 0.25mm traces?
Wont allow error tracks to be moved?
Hi, I have just changed the thickness of all 0.2mm thick traces on layer 2 to be 0.25mm instead. So now there are clearance issues where the tracks are too near to each other.....sometimes it lets me move the track to solve the clearance, but very often it wont let me move it....why wont it let me move it?
Its not as if i am trying to move it into a clearance problem place.
I am speaking of the bits of tracks that are now coloured green as they are clearance error tracks.
...................OK...now it has let me move them.....i just tried moving them from different points, and eventually it let me move them..why is this?

[tooki]

Thanks,
NetClass_A to NetClass_A clearance?
Hi, if you have a NetClass_A  and you want its nets to be minimum of 3mm clearanced from each other, can you do that in a Clearance Design Rule?........i wondered if it could be difficult, because Altium may try and make the nets clearanced from themselves!?......like.....Net_A must be 0.3mm away from Net_A........Doh!....obviously i   wouldnt  want that.

Why don’t you try the solution you propose?

[Faringdon]

Why don’t you try the solution you propose?

Thanks, it seems to have worked, i guess it should have, because the default clearance is "ALL to ALL"

[Faringdon]

Hi,
Doing lib part of a 4 coil common mode choke.
Do you know why i get 4 comon mode choke footprints instead of a single common mode choke with 4 coils?

I have assigned a part of parts A,B,C and D.....ie, the 4 coild of a comm mode choke...but when i place them , itgives me 4 common mode chokes....do you know how to solve?

[Psi]

Hi,
Doing lib part of a 4 coil common mode choke.
Do you know why i get 4 comon mode choke footprints instead of a single common mode choke with 4 coils?

I have assigned a part of parts A,B,C and D.....ie, the 4 coild of a comm mode choke...but when i place them , itgives me 4 common mode chokes....do you know how to solve?

If you only want 1 sch item to place with 4 coils then you shouldn't have assigned parts B, C and D.
You only use the part system when you want multiple placably items within the same component.
Like for a dual/quad opamp where you might want to place each opamp separately on the schematic.
If its just a single item with 4 coils you should only have 1 part and that part has all the pins needed for all your coils.

[T3sl4co1l]

They're either different designators or different UIDs.

Tim

[Faringdon]

Multi Part component
Hi, Thanks,
Now i'm trying to do a dual opamp, MCP6002, one symbol including the power pins. Do you know how to do this?
I can do this easily in Eagle Pro. You just make two symbols separately in the lib...then shovel them both in when you make the "part".

...So now i have got the Part A and Part B in the lib...but it only places one of the parts on the schem sheet.
In the components window, it doesnt show the dual opamp as a 2 part device...but in the schem library, it shows as a 2 part device.

Ive just watched 2 altium videos on how to do this, and none showed how you get the components lib to show the 2 part device.
Even the Altium documentation doesnt show you how to do this....
https://resources.altium.com/p/your-altium-library-multiple-part-symbols-ease-your-design-time

...OK i deleted "U?" then re-typed it and now its ok......i presume i fixed this but it seems a bit bizarre.

..I believe this needs registering as a bug in Altium...i just spent an hour trying to do a dual opamp multi part......it wouldnt work...then it did work when i delted the "U?" designator and then re-typed it , the exact same as it was before i deleted it.

...OK now worked out whats wrong...when you have a multi part..you cannot just click and place, you have to formally go "place part", then right click the multi part, then place it...otherwise you dont get all the multiple parts.......this is not explained anywhere in any Altium documentation or training video. Likewise so many other issues, ...this is why Altium cannot expect to get  bigger sales......admittedly , unfortunately, other than Eagle, Altium is probz the one with best training docs out there. (apart from Eagle , but Eagle isnt as comprehensive) ....but with Altium leaving  problems in like this...it just makes the KICAD bow so much stronger.

Its things like this that prevent people from paying the $10k for Altium plus the $2k per year maintenance....when KICAD is  FREE !!!

[PlainName]

Its things like this that prevent people from paying the $10k for Altium plus the $2k per year maintenance....when KICAD is  FREE !!!

Yep. That's why you're using ... oh, wait...

[thm_w]

Its not an Altium issue, anyway: you place the parts, use shift drag if you want to place the next part in the sequence (eg UxA -> UxB, etc.).
Otherwise you can annotate and it should name them as needed.

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/620773/what-is-the-correct-way-to-use-multi-part-schematic-symbols-in-altium-designer
https://community.element14.com/products/manufacturers/altium/f/forum/10823/annotate-messes-up-multi-part-component

[tooki]

Multi Part component
Hi, Thanks,
Now i'm trying to do a dual opamp, MCP6002, one symbol including the power pins. Do you know how to do this?
I can do this easily in Eagle Pro. You just make two symbols separately in the lib...then shovel them both in when you make the "part".
…

Its things like this that prevent people from paying the $10k for Altium plus the $2k per year maintenance....when KICAD is  FREE !!!

Stop expecting Altium to be Eagle. With that mindset, you WILL struggle, and it’s exactly what we continue to see from you.

The problem when someone expects one program to work identically to another is that they stop thinking about how else one might go about doing it. (Back when I sold Apple stuff, there were tons of people switching from Windows. The people who expected macOS to work just like Windows struggled. I always told switchers “Don’t expect it to work just like Windows. Instead, approach it as though you’d never used a computer at all. How would you intuitively want it to work? That’s how the Mac usually does it.” The switchers who followed my advice mostly did well; the ones who continued to expect it to be Windows found it frustrating.

When I was absolutely new to Altium (and, indeed, EDA software in general) a few years ago, it took me no time at all to figure out how to place multipart components. So it can’t be that hard. It isn’t that hard. Altium is fairly intuitive.

...So now i have got the Part A and Part B in the lib...but it only places one of the parts on the schem sheet.
In the components window, it doesnt show the dual opamp as a 2 part device...but in the schem library, it shows as a 2 part device.

Ive just watched 2 altium videos on how to do this, and none showed how you get the components lib to show the 2 part device.
Even the Altium documentation doesnt show you how to do this....
https://resources.altium.com/p/your-altium-library-multiple-part-symbols-ease-your-design-time

...OK i deleted "U?" then re-typed it and now its ok......i presume i fixed this but it seems a bit bizarre.

..I believe this needs registering as a bug in Altium...i just spent an hour trying to do a dual opamp multi part......it wouldnt work...then it did work when i delted the "U?" designator and then re-typed it , the exact same as it was before i deleted it.

...OK now worked out whats wrong...when you have a multi part..you cannot just click and place, you have to formally go "place part", then right click the multi part, then place it...otherwise you dont get all the multiple parts.......this is not explained anywhere in any Altium documentation or training video.

No, it is documented. You just suck at searching.

https://www.altium.com/documentation/altium-designer/schematic-searching-placing-components says:

Placing a Multi-part Component

If the component being placed has multiple parts, the part selected under the symbol preview image in the Models region of the panel will be initially placed.

Once a part of a multi-part component is placed, it can be changed to another part of this component using the Part drop-down in the Properties panel when the part is selected, or it can be switched to the next available part using Edit » Increment Part Number command from the main menus or the Part Actions » Increment Part Number command from the part's right-click menu.

Likewise so many other issues, ...this is why Altium cannot expect to get  bigger sales......admittedly , unfortunately, other than Eagle, Altium is probz the one with best training docs out there. (apart from Eagle , but Eagle isnt as comprehensive) ....but with Altium leaving  problems in like this...it just makes the KICAD bow so much stronger.

While Altium does have its share of bugs, this is a pure PEBKAC (“problem exists between keyboard and chair”, i.e. user error).

Bigger sales? Altium is already dominant in the low-midrange professional EDA software market, which is why they can hike up their prices as much as they have. You seem to think they’re an underdog or something, struggling for market share? 

KiCAD has essentially zero market penetration in the professional market because it’s just not good enough right now. It does some things really well, but so many others are still just not there*. Can you, with effort, overcome its limitations and produce excellent boards with it? Absolutely! But whereas Altium has gazillions of tools and features to make things go faster**, KiCad makes you do it manually.

But it’ll take a lot more effort than in Altium.

*The fact that in KiCAD it is still impossible to select multiple components and edit them at once (for example, changing the part number of a bunch of resistors) just blows my mind. You have to edit each one individually. Insane.

**Admittedly, perhaps the least-obvious part of the Altium learning curve is learning to configure some of these key tools (most prominently, rules) properly from the beginning, so that the tools are working for you and not against you, as it feels when an incorrectly-configured rule actively blocks something you want to do.

[Faringdon]

Buggy Altiums?
Hi,
Are there certain versions of Altium that are full of bugs?
Because recently i have layed out multiple boards in Altium, 4 layer, with little problem,
and use some of the snazzy features with ease.
At some other companies, i was not able to use their Altium due to constant problems.
(I have used Eagle pro for 20yrs+)
Or i wonder if perhaps a disgruntled staff member can screw up a company's altium?....lace it with bugs?...maybe thats
what happened?

[tooki]

Buggy Altiums?
Hi,
Are there certain versions of Altium that are full of bugs?
Because recently i have layed out multiple boards in Altium, 4 layer, with little problem,
and use some of the snazzy features with ease.
At some other companies, i was not able to use their Altium due to constant problems.
(I have used Eagle pro for 20yrs+)
Or i wonder if perhaps a disgruntled staff member can screw up a company's altium?....lace it with bugs?...maybe thats
what happened?

Excluding actual bugs that cause crashes, etc:

Altium’s behavior behavior is governed by numerous things, including:
- app preferences
- project settings
- rules
- options/modes for the active tool
- grids
- grid snap options
- object type selection options
- layer stack
- impedance profiles
- active layer
- variants
- view options

If any of those is set wrong, it can make it behave in a way contrary to how you want, and it’s easy to perceive this as a bug when in fact it’s working exactly as it should. As one gains experience with Altium, one starts to learn which of these things governs a particular behavior. When set properly, these things all help to enforce one’s particular design requirements.

[Faringdon]

Repeated  un-routed net  issue after design rule check

Hi,
I am running design rule checks, and when i do , certain nodes report "unrouted net" problems.
The track doesnt quite go to the middle of the pad or via.
So then i correct it, and re-run the design rule check, and low and behold, one of the nodes again
has "Unrouted net" problem, and the editted correction that i had just put in has somehow just not happened.
Even though i save the whole project every time that i do a correction.
I am literally just going round and round in circles.
Do you know whats wrong?

(Altium 23)