Multiboardin’ it in Altium Designer 18

[@mikebailey8765]

Excellent video, speedy with no BS and straight to the point. Great stuff thanks.

[@Laurinium]

Thank you soooo much for this tutorial!!! I have watched it twice and started today my first multi-pcb project... for me so fare the best video on this topic, great!

[@johncook538_modelwerks]

Thanks very much for this great tutorial. Now I can do full 3D CAD work with boards!

[@NineDotConnects]

Excellent!

[@philvella7536]

Brilliant intro to the topic, infinitely better than Altium's own, which are more of a sales pitch. One issue I did not see was how to manage schematic annotation to avoid duplicate designators.

[@NineDotConnects]

To clarify, there are two designators. There is the designator of the module on the multiboard and the component designators within the projects. In AD21.6.1, the software will not allow you to create a duplicate designator for the module on the multiboard schematic. It will place an error marker with the tooltip that the "Designator must be unique." As for unique designators across all of the projects associated with the multiboard project, we do not see a method for doing this in the multiboard schematic. The connection manager can make changes to the netlist, focusing on the nets and associated pins. Suppose you want to have unique designators across all projects associated with the multiboard project. In that case, we suggest that you open each project individually and modify the annotations to have a prefix. Tools » Annotations » Annotate Schematics. Make sure you propagate this to the layout. (If boards have already been created, this would not be recommended.)

[@NineDotConnects]

The multiboard schematic editor currently does not have such a feature as you have described it. If it did exist, it would not know what pins would be correctly connected, especially in the case of a wire or harness configuration, unless the net names matched verbatim. Therefore, the tool would need a spreadsheet option that it could compare to. For now, the user will need to review the pin connections for accuracy.

[@luishenriquedavilapossatti5308]

Thanks for publishing this tutorial, it is very useful! I would like to ask you something: Is the MultiBoard Assembly environment capable to check if the pin match assignment I did at the MultiBoard schematic level matches the physical assembly? One example: If I say that the JPA-1 of board A connects to JPB-1 of board B, it is the designer’s task to ensure that the connectors are not flipped or rotated and JPA-1 aligns to JPB-1, as is JPA-2 with JPB-2 and so on? Or maybe there is a step able to check the actual copper connection of final assembly? Thanks in advance!

[@xmenxwk]

Whenever I select the project from 3 dots, altium shows error about "Sending messages error: System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException..." and more. Then project is selected in Source and PCB in board. But thats all, nothing happens further.

[@NineDotConnects]

We can provide some recommendations as to how to proceed, but this may require someone in Altium support to review your setup and/or files. The error message that you got was rather specific. In a sense, that's 'good' because it allows for some specific keywords when searching on both Altium's forums and ideas/bug crunch site. I took the liberty to do so. Nothing showed up. This is also 'good' because this is in a indication that it is specific to your software install, your computer OS setup, or the way you are trying to use the software (as oppose to it being a bug in the software.) Some silly questions/actions, but sometimes they work: 1) Did you close Altium and reopen it? 2) Did you close your computer and reboot? 3) Are you seeing this on other projects? What's the next step beyond self diagnostic efforts: 1) Make sure that you are following the flow of the software. I am not saying that you doing it wrong; I simply cannot tell because the description provided is vague. It could have been a missed step -or- you happen to be using a method that is suppose to be valid, but rarely used. 2) Post on the forums to see if anyone else is having this issue. 3) Get a case into Altium support. Make sure you provide all the details such as the version, the scenario (the files you have set up), and the steps that you have are taken.

[@xmenxwk]

1) yes did 2) didnt reboot 3) yes with every project 4)I did exactly as you are showing in video soon will do something about it

[@peterzhang6807]

Thank you for the helpful video. I ran into a issue that nothing showed on the ID column after open the connection manager. Do you know what's the possible reasons?

[@erichgross5840]

Peter, which did you have in your design, a Direct Connection , a wire, a cable, or a harness between the modules? Did any of the other columns get populated? Also, were there pin numbers on the connectors that you used? Any additional information you can provide would be helpful. Thanks. Erich ([e-mail])

[@fakhrealam1324]

Thank you Altium, you makes our life easy...

[@danthomas9624]

Thank you for this tutorial!

[@NineDotConnects]

It's our pleasure to provide useful videos to the engineering community.

[@arashcrouse2]

Very good and useful demonstration. Thank you very much for your effort.