Author Topic: Altium: Can you have layers that appear on all pcbdocs in a project?  (Read 1233 times)

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Offline PsiTopic starter

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Hi,

I have a project that has many plug-able sub-boards. I need to keep track of position/location/outline info between 10 or so projects.
Currently i have one special PCB doc that only has this sort of into in it, no actual PCB. It uses various layers for different location/outline info.
I then add this pcbdoc to all projects that need it.
If i need to update a size/position dimension i update the doc and then copy/paste all layers from it into each of my sub-board projects as needed

I was wondering if there's a better way to do this in a more automated way.
It would be awesome if there's a way to have layers that appears on all projects in a workspace, or on all pcbdocs within a project etc..
And if i update 1 doc all the other docs update automatically.

Is there any feature in Altium that would let me do this? 
I'm using Altiums 15

« Last Edit: April 24, 2019, 07:55:50 am by Psi »
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Offline ajb

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Re: Altium: Can you have layers that appear on all pcbdocs in a project?
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2019, 04:07:07 pm »
I think the only reasonable way to do this would be to create a PCB symbol that has all of the reference data you want in it.  Then you just need to update the PcbLib and pull the updates into your designs whenever it changes.  As a bonus you can lock the primitives to avoid accidentally editing the reference data.  The big downside is that the reference data cannot include separate PCB footprints for other components.  But you could include geometry on mechanical layers that you could use to provide snap points for the footprints in the derived PCB files.

In AD19, the new multi-board project feature may provide a more elegant way of handling your use case, but I haven't messed with it, and obviously that doesn't help you in AD15.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Altium: Can you have layers that appear on all pcbdocs in a project?
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2019, 04:36:23 pm »
Use PCb sheet in combination with a template.

google for TU0110  'preparing the board for design transfer.'

set up a master template and bind all your pcb's to that template.
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Offline PsiTopic starter

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Re: Altium: Can you have layers that appear on all pcbdocs in a project?
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2019, 09:54:45 am »
Use PCb sheet in combination with a template.

google for TU0110  'preparing the board for design transfer.'

set up a master template and bind all your pcb's to that template.

Thanks, i will check this out shortly.
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