Creating a PCB Footprint in Altium Designer | Altium Designer 22 User Manual | Documentation.Improving Your Design Flow with 3D Measurement Tools

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
To calculate object-to-object distance, the measuring tool must first calculate the location of each of the selected objects. The results of. Hi I’m using Allegro Free Pysical Viewer to check design file. Set all of Grid option setting to fulfill min distance I wonder. Altium Designer doesn’t snap to the soldermask layer, even if it’s the active or only shown layer. The best you can do is zoom in quite a.
 
 

 

Altium designer 17 measure distance free –

 
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– MeasureDistance | Altium Designer User Manual | Documentation

 
 

The Units controls on the Schematic – General page of the Preferences dialog are used to select the measurement units, select between Mils or Millimeters.

Note that Altium components are designed using the an imperial grid, if you change to a metric grid the component pins will no longer fall onto a standard grid. Because of this, it is recommended to use Mils for Units , unless you plan on only using your own components.

The Active Bar The tools most commonly used in each editor are available on the Active Bar, displayed at the top of the editing window. Wiring the schematic. To make sure you have a good view of the schematic sheet, press the PgUp key to zoom in or PgDn to zoom out.

Firstly, wire the lower pin of resistor R1 to the base of transistor Q1 in the following manner. Click the button on the Active Bar Place » Wire to enter the wire placement mode.

The cursor will change to a cross hair. Position the cursor over the bottom end of R1. When you are in the right position, a red connection marker large cross will appear at the cursor location. This indicates that the cursor is over a valid electrical connection point on the component. Click the Left Mouse Button or press Enter to anchor the first wire point. Move the cursor and you will see a wire extend from the cursor position back to the anchor point.

Position the cursor over the base of Q1 until you see the cursor change to a red connection marker. If the wire is forming a corner in the wrong direction, press Spacebar to toggle the corner direction. Click or press Enter to connect the wire to the base of Q1. The cursor will release from that wire. Note that the cursor remains a cross hair, indicating that you are ready to place another wire. To exit placement mode completely and go back to the arrow cursor, you would Right-Click or press ESC again – but don’t do this just now.

Next wire from the lower pin of R3 to the collector of Q1. Position the cursor over the lower pin of R3 and click or press Enter to start a new wire. Move the cursor vertically till it is over the collector of Q1, and click or press Enter to place the wire segment. Again the cursor will release from that wire, and you remain in wiring mode, ready to place another wire. Wire up the rest of your circuit, as shown in the animation above.

When you have finished placing all the wires, right-click or press ESC to exit placement mode. The cursor will revert to an arrow. Wiring Tips Left-click or press Enter to anchor the wire at the cursor position. Press Backspace to remove the last anchor point. Press Spacebar to toggle the direction of the corner. You can observe this in the animation shown above, towards the end, when the connector is being wired. Available modes include: 90, 45, Any Angle and Autowire place orthogonal wire segments between the click points.

Right-click or press Esc to exit wire placement mode. Whenever a wire crosses the connection point of a component, or is terminated on another wire, a junction will automatically be created. A wire that crosses the end of a pin will connect to that pin, even if you delete the junction. Check that your wired circuit looks like the figure shown, before proceeding. Wiring cross-overs can be displayed as a small arch if preferred, enable the option in the Schematic – General page of the Preferences dialog.

Adding net labels. Click the button Place » Net Label. A net label will appear floating on the cursor. To edit the net label before it is placed, press Tab key to open the Properties panel. Type 12V in the Net field, then click the Pause button to return to object placement.

Place the net label so that its hotspot the bottom left corner touches the upper most wire on the schematic, as shown in the images below. The cursor will change to a red cross when the net label is correctly positioned to connect to the wire.

If the cross is light grey, it means there will not be a valid connection made. After placing the first net label you will still be in net label placement mode, so press the Tab key again to edit the second net label in the Properties panel before placing it.

Place the net label so that the bottom left of the net label touches the lower most wire on the schematic as shown in the completed schematic image, above. Right-click or press ESC to exit net label placement mode.

Save your circuit, and the project as well. Net Labels, Port and Power Ports As well as giving a net a name, Net Labels are also used to create connectivity between 2 separate points on the same schematic sheet.

Ports are used to create connectivity between 2 separate points on different sheets. Offsheet connectors can also be used to do this. Power Ports are used to create connectivity between points on all sheets, for this design Net Labels or Power Ports could have been used.

Compiling the Project After you complete the schematic in Altium Designer, you compile it. Configuring the Error Checking. Scroll through the list of error checks and note that they are clustered in groups, and each group can be collapsed if required. Click on the Report Mode setting for any error check and note the options available.

Changing the Connection Matrix. To change one of the settings click the colored box, it will cycle through the 4 possible settings. Note that you can right-click on the dialog face to display a menu that lets you toggle all settings simultaneously, including an option to restore them all to their Default state handy if you have been toggling settings and cannot remember their default state. Your circuit contains only passive pins.

Let’s change the default settings so that the connection matrix detects unconnected passive pins. Look down the row labels to find the Passive Pin row. Look across the column labels to find Unconnected.

The square where these entries intersect indicates the error condition when a passive pin is found to be unconnected in the schematic. The default setting is green, indicating that no report will be generated.

Click on this intersection box until it turns Yellow as shown in the image above , so that a warning will be generated for unconnected passive pins when the project is compiled.

You will purposely create an instance of this error later in the tutorial. Configuring Class Generation. Clear the Component Classes checkbox, as shown in the image above. This will automatically disable the creation of a placement room for that schematic sheet. There are no buses in the design, so there is no need to clear the Generate Net Classes for Buses checkbox located near the top of the dialog tab. There are no user-defined Net Classes in the design done through the placement of Net Class directives on the wires , so there is no need to clear the Generate Net Classes checkbox in the User-Defined Classes region of the dialog tab.

Configuring Comparator Settings. For this tutorial it is sufficient to confirm that the Ignore Rules Defined in PCB Only option is enabled, as shown in the image above.

You are now ready to compile the project and check for any errors. Compiling and checking for errors. When the project is compiled, all warnings and errors are displayed in the Messages panel.

The panel will only appear automatically if there are errors detected not when there are only warnings , to open it manually click the button down the bottom right, and select Messages from the menu.

If your circuit is drawn correctly, the Messages panel should not contain any errors, just the message Compile successful, no errors found. If there are errors, work through each one, checking your circuit and ensuring that all wiring and connections are correct. You will now deliberately introduce an error into the circuit and recompile the project: Click on the Multivibrator.

SchDoc tab at the top of the design window to make the schematic sheet the active document. Click in the middle of the wire that connects R1 to the base wire of Q1. Small, square editing handles will appear at each end of the wire and the selection color will display as a dotted line along the wire to indicate that it is selected.

Press the Delete key on the keyboard to delete the wire. PrjPcb to check for errors. The Messages panel will display warning messages indicating you have unconnected pins in your circuit. The Messages panel is divided horizontally into 2 regions, as shown in the image above. The upper region lists all messages; which can be saved, copied, cross probed to, or cleared via the right-click menu.

When you double-click on an error or warning in either region of the Messages panel, the schematic view will pan and zoom to the object in error. Before you finish this section of the tutorial, let’s fix the error in our schematic. Make the schematic sheet the active document. PrjPcb – the Messages panel should show no errors. Save the schematic and the project file as well. When you double click on an error in the Messages panel: The schematic zooms to present the object in error.

The Zoom Precision is set by the upper slider in the Highlight Methods section of the System – Navigation page of the Preferences dialog.

The entire schematic fades, except for the object in error. The amount that the schematic fades is controlled by the Dimming level, set by the lower slider in the Highlight Methods section of the System – Navigation page of the Preferences dialog. Click anywhere on the schematic to clear the dimming. To clear all messages from the Messages panel, right-click in the panel and select Clear All. Adding a New Board to the Project.

Note that you do not need to enter the file extension in the Save As dialog, this is automatically appended. Adding the PCB has changed the project, so save the project too right-click on the project filename in the Projects panel, and select Save Project.

Setting the Origin and the Grid. There are two origins used in the software, the Absolute Origin, which is the lower left of the workspace, and the user-definable Relative Origin, which is used to determine the current workspace location. Before setting the origin, Keep zooming in to the lower left of the current board shape until you can easily see the grid – to do this position, the cursor over the lower-left corner of the board shape and press PgUp until both the Coarse and Fine grids are visible, as shown in the images below.

To set the Relative Origin, select Edit » Origin » Set , position the cursor over the bottom left corner of the board shape, then left click to locate it. The next step is to select a suitable snap grid, as discussed in the table above. During the course of design it is quite common to change grids, for example you might use a coarse grid during component placement, and a finer grid for routing. For this tutorial you will be using a Metric grid. By entering the units as you entered a value, you have also instructed the software to switch to a Metric grid.

If you look at the Status bar you can confirm that the Grid is now metric. Redefining the Board Shape. The default board shape is 6×4 inch, for the tutorial the board size is 30mm x 30mm. The board will exactly fill the PCB editor.

The next step is to change the board shape. The display will change, the board area will now be shown in green. Your choice now is to either redefine the board shape draw it again , or edit the existing board shape. For a simple square or rectangle, it is more efficient to edit the existing board shape, to do this select Design » Edit Board Shape from the menus. Note that you must be in Board Planning Mode for this command to be available.

Editing handles will appear at each corner and the center of each edge, as shown below. Note that clicking anywhere other than on an editing handle or an edge of the shape will drop you out of board shape editing mode.

Use the current location information down the bottom left of the Status bar to guide you as you reshape the board. Transferring the design from schematic capture to PCB layout. Make the schematic document, Multivibrator. SchDoc, the active document. PcbDoc from the Schematic editor menus. The project will compile and the Engineering Change Order dialog will open. Click on Validate Changes.

If all changes are validated, a green tick will appear next to each change in the Status list. If the changes are not validated, close the dialog, check the Messages panel and resolve any errors. When completed, the target PCB opens with the Engineering Change Order dialog open on top of it, and the Done column entries will be ticked as shown in the image below.

Click to Close the dialog and complete the transfer process. The components will have been positioned outside of the board, ready for placing on the board. There are a few steps to complete before starting the component placement process, such as configuring the placement grid, the layers and the design rules.

Right-click on a Tab to access frequently-used layer display commands. Configuring the Layer Visibility. Open the View Configuration panel. Note that this panel is where you control the display of the mask layers, the silkscreen layers and the system layers, such as DRC and grids. Switch to the View Options tab. Confirm that the Pad Nets and Pad Numbers options are enabled.

Configuring the board layer stack. Open the Layer Stack Manager. For a new board, the default stack comprises: a dielectric core, 2 copper layers, as well as the top and bottom soldermask coverlay and overlay silkscreen layers, as shown in the image above. New layers and planes are added below the currently selected layer, which is done via the Add Layer button, or the right-click menu.

Layer properties, such as material, copper thickness and dielectric properties, are included when a Layer Stack Table is placed, and are also used for signal integrity analysis. Double-click in a cell to configure that setting. For example, the Thickness settings shown in the image below have been changed slightly to more suitable metric values. When you have finished exploring the layer stack options, restore the values to those shown in the image above and click OK to close the dialog.

Support for Multiple Grids Altium Designer allows multiple snap grids to be defined. Only the default grid is used in this tutorial. Configuring the snap grid. Type the value 1mm into the Step X field. Because the X and Y fields are linked, there is no need to define the Step Y value.

To make the grid visible at lower zoom levels set the Multiplier to 5x Grid Step , and to make it easier to distinguish between the two grids, set the Fine grid to display as lighter colored Dots. Click OK to close the dialog. Configuring the Routing Width Rule for the signal nets. Each rules category is displayed under the Design Rules folder left hand side of the dialog.

Double-click on the Routing category to expand the category and see the related routing rules. Then double-click on Width to display the currently defined width rules. Click once on the existing Width rule to select it. When you click on the rule, the right hand side of the dialog displays the settings for that rule, including: the rule’s Where the First Object Matches in the top section also referred to as the rule’s scope – what you want this rule to target ; with the rule’s Constraints below that.

Since this rule is to target the majority of nets in the design the signal nets , confirm that the Where the First Object Matches setting is set to All. An additional rule will be added to target the power nets.

Note that the settings are reflected in the individual layers shown at the bottom of the dialog, you can also configure the requirements on a per-layer basis. The rule is now defined, click Apply to save it and keep the dialog open.

Adding a Routing Width Rule for the power nets. The next step is to add another design rule to specify the routing width for the power nets. With the existing Width rule selected in the Design Rules tree on the left of the dialog, right-click and select New Rule to add a new Width constraint rule, as shown in the animation below.

Click on the new rule in the Design Rules tree to configure its properties. The last step is to set the Constraints for the rule. Click Apply to save the rules and keep the dialog open.

When: a new rule is added it is given the highest priority, and when a rule is duplicated the copy is given the priority below the source rule. Click the Priorities button down the bottom of the dialog to change priorities.

That is because this is a binary rule – it is a rule that applies between 2 objects. Defining the Electrical Clearance Constraint. Expand the Electrical category in the tree of Design Rules, then expand the Clearance rule-type. Click to select the existing Clearance constraint.

Note that this rule has two Full Query fields, that is because it is a Binary rule. The rules engine checks each object targeted by the setting Where the First Object Matches and checks it against the objects targeted by the Where the Second Object Matches setting, to confirm that they satisfy the specified Constraints settings.

For this design, this rule will be configured to define a single clearance between All objects. In the Constraints region of the dialog, set the Minimum Clearance to 0. Click Apply to save the rule and keep the dialog open. Expand the Design Rule tree and select the default RoutingVias design rule. Since it is highly likely that the power nets can be routed on a single side of the board, it is not necessary to define a routing via style rule for signal nets and another routing via style rule for power nets.

Set all fields Min, Max, Preferred to the same size. Save the PCB file. Disabling redundant rules. Click on the Testpoint category, and disable the 4 Testpoint type rules clear the checkboxes in the Enabled column. If this is not done, you will get testpoint violations later in the tutorial.

Setting the component positioning options. Click the icon located towards the upper right of the application, to open the Preferences dialog. This ensures that when you “grab” a component to position it, the cursor will hold the component by its reference point.

Note the Smart Component Snap option, if this is enabled you can force the software to snap to a pad center instead of the reference point by clicking and holding closer to the required pad than the component’s reference point.

This is very handy if you require a specific pad, to be on a specific grid point. It can work against you if you are working with small surface mount components though, as it can make it harder to “grab” them by their reference point.

The connection lines are automatically re-optimized as you move a component – use them to help orient and position the components so that there is the least amount of connection line cross-overs. Positioning the components. Zoom to display the board and the component.

One way to do this is to zoom out PgDn so the board and the components are all visible, then choose View » View Area , then click to define the top left and bottom right of the exact area you wish to view. The components will be positioned on the current Snap grid. For a simple design such as this there are no specific design requirements that dictate what placement grid should be used, as the designer, you decide what a suitable placement grid would be.

To simplify the process of positioning the components you can work with a coarse placement grid, for example 1mm. The components in the tutorial can be placed as shown in the image above. To place connector P1 , position the cursor over the middle of the outline of the connector, and Click-and-Hold the left mouse button.

The cursor will change to a cross hair and jump to the reference point for the part. While continuing to hold down the mouse button, move the mouse to drag the component. Press the Spacebar to rotate the component if required, and position the footprint towards the left-hand side of the board, as shown in the figure above.

When the connector component is in position, release the mouse button to drop it into place. Note how the connection lines drag with the component. Reposition the remaining components, using the figure above as a guide. Component text can be repositioned in a similar fashion – click-and-drag the text and press the Spacebar to rotate it. The PCB editor also includes interactive placement tools. These can be used to ensure that the four resistors are correctly aligned and spaced.

Holding the Shift key, click on each of the four resistors to select them, or click and drag the selection box around all 4 of them. A shaded selection box will display around each of the selected components, the Selection color is defined in the System Colors section of the View Configuration panel. Right-click on any of the selected components and choose Align » Align to open the Align Objects dialog. The four resistors are now aligned with the lowest component and equally spaced.

Click elsewhere in the design window to de-select all the resistors. If required you can also align the capacitors and transistors, although this might not be required since you have a coarse Snap grid at the moment.

Preparing for interactive routing. The first option releases the cursor from the current route when you click on a pad to finish that route.

The second option allows you to change existing routing by simply routing an alternate path – you route a new path until it meets the old path creating a loop , then right-click to indicate it is complete – the software then automatically removes the old, redundant part of the routing.

This feature will be explored later in the tutorial. Interactively routing the board. Check which layers are currently visible by looking at the Layer Tabs at the bottom of the workspace. Click on the Top layer tab at the bottom of the workspace to make it the current, or active layer, ready to route on.

The cursor will change to a crosshair, indicating you are in interactive routing mode. Position the cursor over the lower pad on connector P1. As you move the cursor close to the pad it will automatically snap to the center of the pad – this is the Snap To Object Hotspots feature pulling the cursor to the center of the nearest electrical object configure the Snap Distance in the Snap Options section of the Properties panel. Sometimes the Snap To Object Hotspots feature pulls the cursor when you don’t want it to, in this situation press the Ctrl key to temporarily inhibit this feature.

The current mode is displayed on the Status bar. Left-Click or press Enter to anchor the first point of the track. Move the cursor towards the bottom pad of the resistor R1, and click to place a vertical segment. Note how track segments are displayed in different ways as shown in the image below.

During routing, the segments are shown as: Solid – the segment has been placed. Hatched – hatched segments are proposed but uncommitted, they will be placed when you left-click. Hollow – this is referred to as the look-ahead segment, it allows you to work out where the last proposed segment should end.

This segment is not placed when you click, unless the next click will complete the route. In this situation the Automatically Terminate Routing option kicks in and overrides the default look-ahead behavior. Manually route by Left-Clicking to commit track segments, finishing on the lower pad of R1. Note how each mouse click places the hatched segment s. For the connection that you are currently routing, press Backspace to rip up the last-placed segment.

Auto-complete behaves in the following way: It takes the shortest path, which may not the best path as you need to always consider paths for other connections yet to be routed. If you are in Push mode shown on the Status bar when routing , Auto-complete can push existing routes to reach the target.

On longer connections, the Auto-Complete path may not always be available as the routing path is mapped section by section, and complete mapping between source and target pads may not be possible. You can also Auto-complete directly on a pad or connection line. Continue to route all the connections on the board. Use the techniques detailed above to route all of the connections between the other components on the board.

The simple animation above shows the board being interactively routed. There is no single solution to routing a board, so it is inevitable that you will want to change the routing. The PCB editor includes features and tools to help with this, they are discussed in the following sections and are also demonstrated in the animation shown above.

Save the design when you are finished routing. Exploring ActiveRoute. Open the PCB panel. Select Nets mode in the dropdown at the top of the panel, and enable the Select checkbox. Unroute the board Route » Unroute » All. In the list of nets in the panel, click on the 12V net name.

Click the ActiveRoute button at the top of the panel, the 12V net will be routed. This makes the workspace the active element in the software, otherwise the software will attempt to interpret the shortcut as a panel instruction.

This net will not route completely if you click the ActiveRoute button now, because the default pattern of connection lines is not optimal. While it is possible to rearrange the connection lines by defining manual From-Tos, a simpler approach is to encourage ActiveRoute to attempt a different pattern by de-selecting the entire net, and interactively selecting just the upper pad of R1.

Now click the ActiveRoute button, this time both connections in this net should route. The connection between Q2 and C2 should route, but the connection between Q2 and R2 might fail. To route this connection, you will need to interactively route a short segment of track upwards from Q There is no need to create any corners, a short straight segment should be sufficient.

There are 2 different methods available for displaying violations, each with their own strengths. You are now ready to check the design for errors. Measure Distance – measure the distance between the 2 locations you click after running the command, keep an eye on the Status bar for instructions.

The location that you can click is constrained by the current snap grid. Measure Selected Objects – measure the length of selected tracks and arcs. Use this to work out route lengths, select the required objects manually, or use the Select » Physical Connection or Select » Connected Copper commands.

Measure Primitives – measure the edge-to-edge distance between the 2 primitives you click on after running the command, keep an eye on the Status bar for instructions. Measurement results are overlaid directly in the workspace, the colors that are used are configured in the System Colors section of the View Configuration panel.

Resolving the Solder Mask Sliver violations. To resolve this violation you can: Increase the solder mask opening to completely remove the mask between the transistor pads, or Decrease the minimum acceptable sliver width, or Decrease the mask opening to widen the sliver to an acceptable width.

The first step is to reduce the allowable sliver width. A value equal to the pad separation of 0. Now click on Mask in the tree on the left of the dialog to show the current Solder Mask Expansion rules, there should be one rule, called SolderMaskExpansion. Click on it to select the rule and display its settings, it will specify an expansion value of 0. Since it is only the transistor pads that are in violation you will not edit this value, instead you will create a new rule.

Resolving the Silk to Solder Mask Clearance violations. For this violation, the actual measurement is close to the current rule setting, 0. The value 0. Always confirm that you have a clean Design Rule Verification Report before generating outputs. Adding an Output Job to the project. A new OutJob will be opened and added to the project. Save the OutJob and name it Multivibrator. It will automatically be saved in the same folder as the project file.

Choosing this also means the OutJob can easily be copied between projects, as this setting will not have to be updated. If there are multiple PCBs in the project you will need to select the specific board. The Gerber output has been added, you will configure it shortly. Configuring Gerber generation.

In the OutJob, double-click on the Gerber Files output, the Gerber Setup dialog will open, as shown in the image above. Since the board has been designed in Metric, set the Units to Millimeters.

The smallest unit used on the board is 0. Set the Format to on the General tab, this ensures that the resolution of the output data is more than adequate to cover these grid locations.

Note: the NC drill file must always be configured to use the same Units and Format. Note that mechanical layers may be enabled, these are not normally Gerbered on their own. Instead they are often included if they hold detail that is required on other layers, for example an alignment location marker that is required on every Gerber file.

In this case the Mechanical Layer options on the right side of the dialog are used to include that detail with another layer. Disable any mechanical layers that were enabled in the Layers to Plot section of the dialog. Click on the Advanced tab of the dialog. Confirm that the Position on Film option is set to Reference to relative origin. Note: the NC drill file must always be configured to use the same: Units , Format and Position on Film settings as the Gerber files, otherwise the drill locations will not match the pad locations!

For general information regarding shortcut keys – including access and editing, general Altium environment shortcuts, and accelerator keys – see Altium Designer Shortcut Keys. They are available in general and do not require you to be performing an interactive process to access them. Move the single object currently under the cursor or group of selected objects if the object is part of that selection. If the Always Drag option is enabled on the Schematic – Graphical Editing page of the Preferences dialog , then using this shortcut to move an electrical object will maintain connectivity with other electrical objects.

You can also use the mouse to zoom in to a region of the document by one of the following methods where applicable and depending on how the buttons of your mouse might be assigned :. You can use the mouse to zoom out from a region of the document by one of the following methods where applicable and depending on how the buttons of your mouse might be assigned :. The following shortcuts become available when an interactive process has been launched, such as placing a new design object, or moving an existing one.

Note that the shortcuts available will depend on the interactive command and the specific design object that is the focus of that command. The following shortcuts give access to specific pop-up menus of commands, directly from within the design space itself.

Some of these will be familiar as they are sub-menus found within the main menus for the editor. Each of the main menus also have a defined pop-up key for quick access from within the design space, see Accelerator Keys for more information. Using Altium Documentation. Printer-friendly version. Found an issue with this document? Contact Us Contact our corporate or local offices directly. We’re sorry to hear the article wasn’t helpful to you.

Could you take a moment to tell us why? Connect to Support Center for product questions. I do not want to leave feedback. General Editing.

Access context menu for the design space or object currently under the cursor. If currently within an interactive command, will escape from the current operation. Copy selected object s and paste repeatedly where needed in the design space rubber stamping.

Access the Smart Paste dialog. Change the selection status of the object currently under the cursor without affecting the status of other objects. On a net object to select that object, and to highlight all objects associated to that net across all sheets of the active design project. Select all objects that fall completely inside the selection area or are touched by its boundary. Add the current selection to the selection already stored in memory location n.

Recall selection from memory location n and add it to the current selection in the design space. If the Always Drag option is disabled on the Schematic – Graphical Editing page of the Preferences dialog , then using this shortcut to move an electrical object will maintain connectivity with other electrical objects.

Move the cursor to the left in the current document design space in increments of one snap grid unit. Both of these can be routed. SOT footprint showing two pads with a designator of 2. Jumpers, also referred to as wire links, allow you to replace routing with a Jumper component, which is often an essential ingredient to successfully designing a single-sided board.

Early printed circuit boards were all single sided. To successfully implement all of the connections, jumpers or wire links were often used to create another layer of connectivity, which could pass across the printed routing. The image below shows an example of Jumpers being used to implement the routing on one side of the board. Note the representation of a Jumper, with a curved connection line between the two pads.

In the image, the jumper connection lines are shown in different colors because they inherit the color assigned to the net. The Jumper value set to the same, non-zero value for pads in the Jumper component. After placing a Jumper in the workspace you will need to set the Net attribute of one of the pads manually in the Properties panel since there is no automatic net inheritance.

Note that if the component is defined as a Jumper, then the other pad will automatically inherit the same Net name. The View menu includes a Jumpers sub-menu that allows control over the display of Jumper components. There are also Jumper sub-menus in the Netlist popup menu N shortcut. The query keyword IsJumperComponent is available for filtering and rule definition. Jumpers are typically pieces of tinned copper wire that are bent to the correct length, meaning they need to be in the BOM.

To support this, Jumpers also can be included on the schematic so that they are included in the Bill of Materials. The Synchronizer and the Report engine have the following behavior for synchronizing Jumpers:.

The following description is one approach to working with Jumper components. This workflow starts at the schematic, but you can also start by placing the Jumper footprints directly onto the PCB. The main reason for starting on the schematic is that when the design is transferred to the PCB workspace, the footprints will have the correct component Type of Jumper. If you place them directly from the PCB library into the PCB workspace, the component Type will default to Standard , so you will need to manually set it.

Create a footprint for each length jumper that will be used. Typically jumpers are designed in pre-defined lengths, for example, in increments of 0. Both pads have the Jumper value of 1. Once the Jumper has been designed, you can place a number of them onto the schematic. At this stage, you probably do not know how many you will need, however, extras can easily be deleted. Keep in mind they are on the schematic to ensure they go into the BOM ; they do not need to be wired into the circuit at each location that they end up being used.

For that reason, it makes sense to place them all on the same schematic sheet, perhaps with other BOM-only hardware, such as screws. When a Design » Update PCB Document command is performed, all of the jumpers will be placed into the PCB workspace using the default footprint to the right of the board shape.

The image below shows the PCB, almost completely routed. Note the remaining connection lines showing where the routes are not complete. There are also a number of un-placed Jumper components to the right of the board. The routing for each of these connections cannot be completed because there is no route path available on this single-sided design. To complete them, the Jumper components will be used. To make it easier to include the Jumper in the BOM, enter a suitable identifying string in the Comment field.

In the image below, the footprint name has been copied and pasted into the Comment field since it describes how long the jumper is. Double-click to edit one of the pads then select the required net name from the Net drop-down list in the Properties region of the Properties panel.

The other pad in the Jumper will automatically be assigned the same net name. Using Altium Documentation. The footprints shown on this page are only to illustrate the procedures required; they are not dimensionally accurate.

Always check the specifications of a new footprint against the manufacturer’s datasheet. Selection Filter. All Objects button — select remove object filtering so that all types of objects may be selected.

Snap Options. Grids — used to toggle whether the cursor will snap to the active design space grid. When this option is enabled the cursor will pull, or snap, to the nearest snap grid location.

Guides — used to toggle whether the cursor will snap to manually placed linear or point Snap Guides. A Snap Guide will override the Snap Grid. Axes — used to toggle whether the cursor will axially align in either the X or Y direction to the enabled Objects for snapping. A dynamic alignment guideline is displayed when alignment is achieved from the current cursor location to the axially-aligned object snap point hotspot.

Current Layer — enable this option to allow the cursor to only recognize and snap to objects placed on the currently selected layer. Off — enable this option to turn off snapping to hotspots. Objects — a list of the available objects. Snap Distance — when the cursor is within this distance from an enabled object snap point and snapping is enabled for the active layer , the cursor will snap to that point.

Axis Snap Range — when the cursor is axially aligned and within this distance from an enabled object snap point and the Axes button is enabled , a dynamic guideline will display to indicate that alignment has been achieved.

Grid Manager. Grid Manager — where local customized grids can be defined and managed, as well as the default Snap Grid for the board.

Priority — in the design space, priority is distinguished by drawing order. The highest priority grid priority 1 will be drawn in front of all other grids, then the grid with priority level 2 , etc.

Name — displays the name of the grid. Enabled — check to enable the associated grid. Add Add Cartesian Grid — click to add a Cartesian grid.

Add Polar Grid — click to add a Polar grid. Polar grids enable you to more easily design non-rectangular features and boards. Properties — click to open the respective grid editor dialog Cartesian Grid Editor or Polar Grid Editor to modify properties for the selected grid.

Guide Manager. Guide Manager — where a range of manual Snap Guides and Snap Points for the board can be defined and managed. Enabled — whether the guide is visible in the design space checked or not unchecked. Name — the name of the guide. X — the x-coordinate where applicable specified in the design space that the guide is to pass through or point is to be located at. A coordinate can be defined by clicking on the relevant field then entering the value. Units — use to select the default measurement units for the current PCB Library document.

Default units are used to display any distance-related information on screen or in reports. The default units are always used if a unit’s suffix mm or mil is not entered when specifying any distance-related information. Route Tool Path — use the drop-down to choose the mechanical layer from all those currently enabled for use in the design on which to define the route tool path for the board.

One of the most important procedures in creating a new component footprint is placing the pads that will be used to solder the component to the PCB.