You First PCB With Altium Designer

I've recently started exploring PCB design and manufacture as a way of making better projects and more interesting videos.

I've already explored some of the open-source tools as you can check out here but basically, any search for PCB design tools brought me back to a specific program called Altium.

Altium Designer is considered by many to be the industry standard in terms of PCB design and layout and it is used in a lot of high stake industries like aerospace and medical devices.

Knowing this as a beginner, I was intimidated to even try it out, but when the folks at Altium reached out and offered me to sponsor some of my videos I immediately said yes as I really wanted to expand my knowledge.

On this link, you can start your free trial of Altium Designer at no cost, and if you choose to then upgrade you'll get 30% off your subscription which is a great deal.

Altium Designer Special Offer - https://www.altium.com/yt/taste_the_code

So, armed with some great encouragement, I've downloaded Altium Designer and started the installation process.

I followed the instructions on the screen and without any issues, I was quickly brought to the home page of Altium.

The home page greets you upon every open of Altium and on it, there is information regarding any Altium news and offers as well as quick access to the documentation and learning resources which was great for me.

To start using the software, I choose to create a new project, and I went with re-creating the RGB module that I created in my previous video. By creating the same thing, I wanted to remove any uncertainties in the design process and focus on just learning the program.

The newly created project opened with a blank schematic editor that had a floating toolbar on the top. This toolbar provides access to the most commonly used tools when working with schematics and I quickly found the "Place Symbol" tool.

Once I clicked to add a symbol to the schematic, the components window opened to the right and revealed one of the best features that Altium has, the Manufacturer Part Search.

The components editor of Altium Designer integrates with a lot of component manufacturers and suppliers so you can basically search their catalogs of parts.

You are immediately exposed to the specific component price at different suppliers, their availability, and current stock information so you can know where to order those parts later on.

I chose the first one that was offered from Adafruit and I quickly placed three of the LEDs to the schematic.

Next, I searched for a capacitor and placed three of them next to each of the LEDs along with symbols for the 5V and the ground connections.

Wiring the connections between them was really straightforward but similarly to when I originally created the RGB module, I struggled a bit to figure out how to create the schematic and the appropriate PCB footprints for the solder pads that we will have on the bottom of the PCB.

After some trial and error, I learned about the ability to create custom components in Altium so I first created a schematic library with a circle as the symbol and just a single pin.

When the schematic symbol was created, I proceeded with creating a PCB library and that had only one pad as the footprint.

When you place a symbol to the PCB editor, using the Properties tab you can customize the appearance of that symbol so going from the original through-hole pad as initially placed, I was able to modify it so there is no hole on the pad and instead of being circular, I made it to be rectangular.

The same properties window is applicable everywhere within Altium and through it, you can customize anything.

The only thing left now for the custom symbol was to connect both the schematic and PCB libraries and once that was done, I was able to place the new symbol in the schematic so I can proceed with the next steps for PCB creation.

Before going any further, it is important to check your schematic for any errors and we can do that in Altium by selecting "Project → Validate PCB project" from the top menu. If a problem exists on the schematic, a dialog will appear with any issues that we need to resolve.

A final step before the PCB creation is to verify the assigned footprints for all of the components in the schematic and we can do that by either individually checking each component footprint in the Properties window or by opening the "Footprint Manager" from the "Tools" menu.

Any component footprint can be replaced and adjusted as needed and to accept the changes we need to select all of the components and then click on Validate button so we can tell Altium that we are happy with the selection and that Altium can check it for any conflicts between our selection.

If everything is OK, we can then add a new PCB to the project, save it and select the "Update PCB Document" option from the design menu.

This option will then add all of the component footprints to the PCB and arrange them on the right side of the board.

Since our board will be circular, I drew a circle in the keep-out layer and then selected the "Board shape" option from the "Design" menu. This updates the board shape so it now matches the drawing and we can then move the board origin to match our new shape.

The board origin will dictate the coordinates of each component and it is usually placed in the bottom left corner of the PCB outline.

Our next job is to define the layout of the components and we get great help with that from the pre-defined grid on the board. If that grid is not enough, we can define our own custom grids as I did by adding a new polar grid to the board, originating in the board center.

With it, I was able to properly place the LEDs that were offset by 120 degrees so they are equally distributed on the board.

Additionally, Altium provides a lot of alignment options so we can very precisely align the components.

If for any reason you need to copy several components on the board, there is an extra step that you need to take when pressing copy. Altium changes the cursor to a crosshair and you need to click at a point so that point can then be used as origin and handle for the copied elements.

At first, I struggled a bit with this, but once I figured it out it was very clear to me that this is done so the component handling can be easier.

At each point in the design process, you can jump to a 3D view of the board by pressing the number 3 key on the keyboard and you can switch back to the 2D view by pressing the number 2 key. With the 3D view, you can rotate and preview the board with the placed components so you can make sure that you like how the board looks.

Once I was happy with the layout of the components, I've started the routing process by first defining the width of the tracks and with the "Interactive Route Connections" tool, I started drawing the tracks on the board.

The process is really simple and you get extreme help from the routing algorithm of Altium where if some of the tracks are in the way, they are pushed to the side automatically or re-routed around where a clear path is available.

When I finished with the direct routes, there were few routes that I needed to connect to the other side of the board, so I placed vias close to the pads or the components and used them to connect to the other side.

Again, by using the properties window, you can define the size of those vias, but for now, I stuck to the defaults.

At one point, I was getting some error messages about not having enough clearance on the board based on the set of rules, so I decided to make a bulk change on the thickness of all tracks on the board.

To help me with that, I used the "PCB Filter" window from where you can define a custom selection of components or objects on the PCB based on a set of rules. In my case, I choose to select all of the tracks that were on the bottom and top layer, and using the Properties window, I set the width to all of them to 0.9mm instead of the original 1mm that I started with.

The final step in the routing process was to set the bottom copper zone that is connected to the ground net. This zone helps to suppress any noise generated in the board and it provides a better return path for the current consumed by the board.

To define such zone or copper pour as Altium calls it, we choose the "Place Polygon Pour" tool from the toolbar and we then draw an outline around the entire board or area that we want to be covered in copper.

Once that area is closed, it is filled with copper but at the beginning, it wasn't connected to anything yet. To connect it to the ground, we can select that net from the Properties window, adjust any of the other parameters and we then need to select to re-draw the copper area based on that new selection.

This is done by right-clicking on the area and selecting "Polygon Actions → Repour Selected" and after a few retries, I was happy with how the area looked like and I proceeded with adding some graphics to the board for esthetics.

To add an image, we select the "Place Graphics" option and we then define the area where we want that graphic to be displayed. Once the area is defined, we are asked to browse for the file that we want to add and once it is selected, the "Import Image" window is shown.

In this window, we can customize the appearance and the tracing parameters of the image, and we click on OK to place the image on the board.

Keep in mind that the placement of the image will happen on the currently selected layer so be sure to select the right one before initiating the image placement.

As a final step, I wanted to add text on the bottom side of the board so I selected the "Place String" tool and that allowed me to place a default string on the board. Using the properties window again, I modified the text, its size and I also mirrored it before I moved it to the bottom layer.

If we now want to send the board to be manufactured, we need to export it as Gerber files and that is easily done by selecting "File → Fabrication Output → Gerber Files". In the Gerber setup window, we select the precision for the board, and in the layers tab, we select the "Used On" option to select all of the used layers for export.

In my last video, I covered how these Gerber files can be used to order your PCBs so watch that if you are interested.

What is special about Altium, is that they provide an online viewer for the boards using their Altium 365 service that you automatically get with your subscription. With it, you can easily collaborate with other people on any project, or by just using their Altium 365 Viewer, you can share any project on the web directly.

I've used that to share my board and if you want to see it, I've embedded it on my website.

With that, I'll conclude the video here and I hope that I managed to demystify the complexity of Altium so you can give it a go yourself. Follow this link to grab your free trial and the available discount, subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you all in the next one.

Cheers!