Circuit Studio Bugs/Issues

[LabSpokane]

1.  The Vault -

a) nearly impossible to see the components you are searching for due to all parameter columns being enabled by default.
b) Ability to copy / paste schematics and footprints from the vault to use as the basis for new parts is disabled or does not work. 
c) Slow vault performance


2) Part Creation -

a) User-created parts in CS do not have their origins set correctly (even if they are created directly on top of the origin) and will be placed all over the PCB window.  This does not occur with parts from the Vault.  There seems to be no mechanism by which the origins can be corrected by the user.  (I have a request into Altium on this).

b) There is a bug when attaching a STEP file to a PCB component.  The STEP file will not attached until a simple 3D primitive is created and viewed.  Then and only then will the software allow attachment of a STEP file. 

3) Little to no CS-specific documentation

4) BOM Generation - Exported Excel files are corrupt.  CSV files work fine.

Unless I get a workable solution for the user-created part placement issue, I won't buy Circuit Studio.  That is a total show-stopper.  It makes it worse than Eagle.  And not being able to re-use schematics and footprints from the Vault as one is supposed to be able to is a real drag as well.

For anyone in the market for CircuitStudio, you'd do well to fly before you buy - as in generate a small project all the way though fab and make sure it works out.  I beat my head against the wall for a couple of weeks and I'm pretty close to dropping it and crossing my fingers for Eagle to improve.  There's a lot to like, but what is broken/crippled/undocumented renders it nearly unusable at the present time. 

[rwoody1995]

Copying packages / symbols from the vault in screenshots:
Attachment 1. Find a part in the vault.
Attachment 2. In the bottom half of the vault window switch to preview and double click package or symbol.
Attachment 3. Right click desired package -> Operations -> "Clone blablabla"
Attachment 4. Opens in temporary clone library, select all, copy then paste into a new component in your library.

Is that what you meant was disabled/does not work?

[IanJ]

Attachment 3. Right click desired package -> Operations -> "Clone blablabla"

Right click disabled when I try anyways.

Ian.

[LabSpokane]

Attachment 3. Right click desired package -> Operations -> "Clone blablabla"

Right click disabled when I try anyways.

Ian.

Same here as well. 

[rwoody1995]

Hm... well I have no idea, it's always worked for me. 

[IanJ]

Hm... well I have no idea, it's always worked for me. 

CS or AD?

Ian.

[rwoody1995]

Circuit Studio

[LabSpokane]

Circuit Studio

Which version?

[rwoody1995]

Still running 1.1, updating to 1.2 soon
didn't think something like this would be removed in the update though...

[IanJ]

Hi,

There is a way around changing footprints.......but has a caveat.

So, you've laid down a component from the Altium Vault.....but don't like the footprint.
You find a footprint in the MISC IntLib.
Right click properties on the component on the PCB and you can change the footprint there. Point it to any other footprint.
Downside is that if you compile and update the PCB from the schematic the footprints on the PCB jump back to the original ones.
Note: I tried CTRL-C the new footprint to my own PcbLib1.PcbLib library and referencing it there.....but it resets also. The problem is because the original footprint is still referenced in the schematic and no way to change it.

The only way I guess is to design your own complete library component......schem (design from scratch) and footprint (copy from any vault/library).

Ian.

[LabSpokane]

I hereby award Ian the award for talented perseverance.  I've had so many crashes and endless "please wait" loops that I've gone back to ... shudder ... Eagle. 

It's a pity because Circuit Studio has MUCH to like / love about it. 

[rwoody1995]

I haven't figured out how myself yet but I was told it is still possible to properly clone vault components in version 1.2 but they made it even more convoluted than it was in 1.1 which my screenshots were from...

[IanJ]

I hereby award Ian the award for talented perseverance.  I've had so many crashes and endless "please wait" loops that I've gone back to ... shudder ... Eagle. 

It's a pity because Circuit Studio has MUCH to like / love about it.

Nooooooooo. Don't do it!

I have to say CS is pretty good even at Rev 1.2. It has it's issues, and I have forwarded mine to Altium via my contact, but even as it is I think it's better than Eagle by quite a distance.

As much as I like the Eagle GUI.......the library editing is too much to stomach. It grates on me everythime it comes to use it. The amount of times I have 'smashed' a component just to make on the fly changes has become a joke. Lazy!
Saying that............AutoDesk may turn things around.

Ian.

[IanJ]

I haven't figured out how myself yet but I was told it is still possible to properly clone vault components in version 1.2 but they made it even more convoluted than it was in 1.1 which my screenshots were from...

Interesting......I have had a look, including creating my own integrated library just incase one of those had to be used to clone to......but no luck so far.

Ian.

[LabSpokane]

I hereby award Ian the award for talented perseverance.  I've had so many crashes and endless "please wait" loops that I've gone back to ... shudder ... Eagle. 

It's a pity because Circuit Studio has MUCH to like / love about it.

Nooooooooo. Don't do it!

I have to say CS is pretty good even at Rev 1.2. It has it's issues, and I have forwarded mine to Altium via my contact, but even as it is I think it's better than Eagle by quite a distance.

As much as I like the Eagle GUI.......the library editing is too much to stomach. It grates on me everythime it comes to use it. The amount of times I have 'smashed' a component just to make on the fly changes has become a joke. Lazy!
Saying that............AutoDesk may turn things around.

Ian.

The feature issues I can work around. The hangs and crashes I can't.  I'm still very hopeful for CS, but the lack of response from Altium is disturbing to say the least. Generally technical support is very responsive pre-sale.

It makes me sad because the routing features and ease of part creation are beautiful things.

[RF-Tech]

OK, I'm one of the first buyers of CS - and really glad to see the price drop and interest increase.  I use AD every day so migrating over to CS hasn't been a problem - I'm just now getting time to work with it so if some of this stuff is old news I apologize in advance.

1)  You've got to be able to view your gerbers once they've been generated.  In AD you can add a cam document and then import the gerbers into the cam window with a few short steps - very helpful.
2)  Being able to 'find similar objects' like AD would be great, if it's in CS I haven't been able to find it.
3)  Is there a way to add Directives to nets in CS?  It has Diff Pair directive, but is there a place where you can add rules in schematic; Net Class, PCB Layout, Blanket, etc., another AD feature.
4)  Need to be able to quickly and easily clone a part in either library - CS allows you to clone a footprint in the pcb library and rename which is good, this is needed in schematic as well.
5)  A polygon pour manager similar to AD would be a helpful feature.

So....I know CS is CS and AD is AD, but these features are pretty basic - hope V2.0 has some of them.

About Bugs:

One thing that appears to be a bug, while working in the library it suddenly stopped allowing me to double click on a component and viewing the 'Library Component Properties' dialog box - tried closing the program and reopening, nothing - kept working and few seconds later got the "Unable to get *something-something* from Altium.com", who knows what's going on, I'll try again later tonight maybe restarting my machine will clear it up.

-S


   

[rwoody1995]

Finally got around to updating to 1.2 on my work PC as I only had it on my laptop before, the way I've found to clone footprints from the vault now is to create a sacrificial project with a schematic and PCB, place a component that has the footprint you want to copy onto the schematic, update to pcb and then in the pcb editor, right click the footprint in the PCB, hover over "Component Actions" and click "Explode Component To Free Primitives" in the sub-context menu, then just select all of it, copy + paste into your new custom footprint as before and you're done.

[bson]

Did they ever address the library cloning?  I'm loathe to obtain a time limited evaluation license for something that I know isn't going to work for me.  If they've fixed this I'd love to take a close look!

[LabSpokane]

Did they ever address the library cloning?  I'm loathe to obtain a time limited evaluation license for something that I know isn't going to work for me.  If they've fixed this I'd love to take a close look!

I just recently was contact back by an Altium VP to discuss this issue, among others.  I haven't had time to call him back.  I probably will out of courtesy, but at this point, it's pretty hard for me to seriously consider CS a contender.  I think this price cut was a desperate attempt to save the product, but without cleaning up the product, it's pointless.  And with it taking weeks to get a response back to simple questions, which have to be answered by a vice-president of all things, I have little hope for Circuit Studio's future. 

Furthermore, the only product update information I have seen is for Circuit Maker.  So, my guess is that Circuit Studio will likely die as a product and at some point, a bean counter will have to recognize that Circuit Maker is a financial sinkhole with no AD licenses sold as a consequence of makers upping their game. 

I could see dropping $5K on a professional tool someday when the need arises, but spending $1K to be a bilge-class passenger on a rudderless ship isn't my idea of a good time. 

[rwoody1995]

Did they ever address the library cloning?  I'm loathe to obtain a time limited evaluation license for something that I know isn't going to work for me.  If they've fixed this I'd love to take a close look!

Library cloning as in cloning components from the vault to your own library? they changed the process in V1.2 but my post last month; the one right before yours, explains how to do it, its been supported since release as far as I know as I've been using CS for about 12 months now.

[mrtn]

If it's any consolation there appears to be online documentation now. (hit F1 in CS.)

Net classes seem to be missing in entirety unless I'm just confused.
I was laying out a PFC supply which has several HV nets so I wanted to make a class for them all..
You can create rules based on net names, but that's a hassle.

You can tell from what was removed from AD that they tried to make it simpler and say "well it costs less, the user should have to work a little harder..."

I guess that's reasonable (maybe? ... maybe??) but it's annoying knowing how to use AD and then finding out that they just tore features out of AD to make CS.

[Harvs]

You can tell from what was removed from AD that they tried to make it simpler and say "well it costs less, the user should have to work a little harder..."

I guess that's reasonable (maybe? ... maybe??) but it's annoying knowing how to use AD and then finding out that they just tore features out of AD to make CS.

Yes it is, however for us that know AD, at least we know how it was suppose to be done in AD so when something is completely missing in CS you know they've just ripped the feature set out and forgot to replace it with something.  I feel for those folk that don't have this background info and a left completely bewildered by seemingly adhoc missing things.  For example the ability to create a design rule from the wizard and having no way of editing it.

[Harvs]

I'd like to start a proper bug list over on this forum, as I've seen posts go "missing" from the e14 forum (none of mine so I don't know why??)

What's the best way to maintain a list like that in this forum?

[mrtn]

I'd like to start a proper bug list over on this forum, as I've seen posts go "missing" from the e14 forum (none of mine so I don't know why??)

What's the best way to maintain a list like that in this forum?

Interesting that you say that about e14. I did a Road Test review of Circuit Studio and they deleted my post and deactivated my account because they thought I was a spammer.

[Geoff_S]

Finally got around to updating to 1.2 on my work PC as I only had it on my laptop before, the way I've found to clone footprints from the vault now is to create a sacrificial project with a schematic and PCB, place a component that has the footprint you want to copy onto the schematic, update to pcb and then in the pcb editor, right click the footprint in the PCB, hover over "Component Actions" and click "Explode Component To Free Primitives" in the sub-context menu, then just select all of it, copy + paste into your new custom footprint as before and you're done.

I'm probably missing something obvious.  I have tried to follow the above, but get stuck at the "update to pcb" step - attempting to compile the project results in a slew of errors about unconnected pins.  So do I need to also temporarily wire up every pin on the component in my sacrificial schematic