PCB News - Getting started with PCB design

summary

The purpose of this chapter is to explain how to generate circuit schematics, update PCB design information to PCB files, and route and generate device output files on the PCB. And introduced the concept of engineering and integrated library and provided a brief description of the 3D PCB development environment.
Welcome to use Altium Designer, which is a complete development software adapted to the development of electronic products. This chapter will take "Astable Multivibrator" as an example to introduce how to create a PCB project.

Create a new PCB project

In Altium Designer, a project includes the associations between all files and related settings of the design. A project file, such as xxx.PrjPCB, is an ASCII text file, which includes the files in the project and output related settings, such as print settings and CAM settings. Files that are not related to the project are called "free files". Files associated with the schematic and target output are added to the project, such as PCB, FPGA, embedded (VHDL) and libraries. When the project is compiled, design verification, simulation synchronization and comparison will all proceed together. Any changes to the original schematic or PCB will be updated at compile time.
The creation process of all types of projects is the same. This chapter introduces the process of creating a PCB project as an example. First create a project file, then create a new schematic diagram and add it to the newly created project, and finally create a new PCB and add it to the project like the schematic diagram.
As the beginning of this chapter, let's create a PCB project:

Figure 6-1 Creation of PCB project
1. Select File>>New>>Project>>PCB Project, or click Blank Project (PCB) in the New option in the Files panel. If this option is not displayed on the interface, select Files from System. You can also select Printed Circuit Board Design in the Pick a Task section of the Home Page of Altium Designer software, and click New Blank PCB Project.
2. The Display Projects panel box is displayed on the screen. The new project file PCB_Project1.PrjPCB has been listed in the box without any files, as shown in Figure 6-1.
3. Rename the project file (with the extension .PrjPCB) and select File>>Save Project As. Save it where you want to save, enter the project name Multivibrator.PrjPCB in File Name and click Save to save.
Next we will create a schematic file and add it to the empty project. This schematic is the example astable multivibrator in the tutorial.

Create a new electrical schematic

Use the following steps to create a new circuit schematic:
1. Select File>>New>>Schematic, or click Schematic Sheet in the New option in the Files panel. A blank circuit schematic named Sheet1.SchDoc will appear in the design window and the circuit schematic will be automatically added to the project. The schematic diagram of the circuit will be in the Source Documents directory of the project.
2. You can rename the newly created circuit schematic through File>>Save As, and you can save and navigate through the file to the hard disk location required by the user, for example, enter the file name Multivibrator.SchDoc and click Save.
When the user opens the blank circuit schematic diagram, the user will find that the project directory has changed. The main toolbar includes a series of new buttons, including the new toolbar, including the menu toolbar for new items, and the chart layer panel. The user can now edit the circuit schematic.
Users can customize the appearance of many projects. For example, the user can reset the position of the panel or customize the menu options and toolbar commands.
Now we can add this blank schematic to the project before proceeding with the design input.

Add circuit schematics to the project

If the circuit schematic added to the project is opened as an empty document, you can right-click the project file name and select the Add Existing to Project option in the project panel, select the empty document and click Open. A simpler method is to simply drag and drop a blank document with the mouse in the Projects panel to the panel in the project document list. The circuit schematic is in the Source Documents project directory and has been connected to the project.