Altium Designer : Working with an Image Object on a Schematic Sheet

 As a picture speaks a thousand words, adding an image object to the schematics is very handy for design review. Prefer method of adding PNG file as below.

Altium Designer : PCB Planes Pullback implementation

There are many ways to implement polygon planes pullback in Altium. One of my prefer way is utilizing design rules as below.

Alternatively, we can make use of keep-out layer to define polygon pullback.

If you believe in 20H rules and to implement for Internal plane pull back, Layer Stack Manager can be used which is only for internal planes.

Altium Designer : Solving the Component Management Challenge with Alticve BOM

 

ActiveBOM is a powerful Bill of Materials management editor that brings comprehensive BOM management tools together with Altium's powerful part-information aggregation technologies, helping you manage the component selection challenge.

Altium Designer : Layer Stacks for 2 and 4 Layers PCBs

Design > Layer Stack Manager

Altium Designer : Defining Solder Mask Expansion/ Relief

Altium default value is 4 mil and solder mask expansion can be defined according to PCB manufacturer capability.

Altium Designer : Schematics Annotation

Altium Designer : Creating Logo

To Import Logo to silk screen, create logo in MS Word. Copy and paste in Altium.

Altium Designer: Working with Custom Pad Shapes

Altium Designer : Removing Solder Mask Layer from Pads or Test Points

Altium Designer: Creating Non-Plated Through Holes

Altium Designer : Setting Polar Grid

Altium Designer : Selecting Overlapping Objects

Altium Designer : Creating Custom Board Outline and Keepout Area

It is a good design practice to add keepout area along the board outline. Recommended keep out line thickness is 20 mil.

Altium Designer : Shorcuts for Routing and Toggling Single Layer Mode

Altium Designer: Useful Shortcuts for Component Placement

  - Rotate counterclockwise by 90 degrees while moving an object : SPACEBAR
  - Align selected objects by top edges  : SHIFT + CTRL + T
  - Distribute selected objects equally in horizontal plane : SHIFT + CTRL + H
  - Align selected objects by left edges : SHIFT + CTRL + L
  - Align selected objects by right edges : SHIFT + CTRL + R
  - Distribute selected objects equally in vertical plane : SHIFT + CTRL + V
  - Align selected objects to grid : SHIFT + CTRL + D
  - Align selected objects by bottom edges : SHIFT + CTRL + B

Altium Designer : Pcb Panelization

On the Place tab, Select Embedded Board Array/ Panelize. Click anywhere in the PCB area. Under Properties menu, select your PCB and set desired Column margin and Row spacing.

Altium Designer : Creating Board Outline From Mechanical Outline and Making Cutout Holes

Select Mechanical Outline. Under Properties menu, Change Mechanical outline layer to user defined board outline layer.
To create custom board shape, select board outline that has been created. On the Design Tab, in the board shape, select Define from selected Objects.
To create a cutout hole, select the desired outline. On the Tool Tab, in the Convert, select Create Boardcutout from selected primitives.

Altium Designer : Moving Design Origin to User's Preferred Location

On the Edit tap, in the Origin,  choose Set.

Altium Designer, Shortcuts for Viewing, Changing Grid and Snap Setting

Toggle measurement Unit : Q
Accessing Grid menu : G
Changing snap setting : SHIFT + E
Switching 2D and 3 D View : 2 & 3
Fit all objects into view : CTRL + PAGE DOWN
Zoom in around cursor (zooms around cursor, position the cursor first) : CTRL + Mouse-wheel up (or PAGE UP)
Zoom out : CTRL + Mouse-wheel down (or PAGE DOWN)