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miner_tom , 05-17-2021, 02:10 PM

I'm using the newest version of altium designer, 21.3, that I know of, on a Dell 64 bit based system with 16 GB of DDR4. However, I have seen this problem happen when I run Altium 18 on a different computer.

Fedlevel Academy\Advanced PCB Layout Course\Lessons_files_PKZIP\Lesson1\Activity\L1-01-Big-Components-Placement-Module

The floating point error consistently shows up when:

1) I use the pcb filter to select reference designators ("isdesigator").
2) Use the "Properties" panel and select for display or not to display. There are something like 450 reference designators that are selected.

The process goes well until I attempt to save. Then I get a floating point error .

Thank You
Tom

robertferanec , 05-24-2021, 01:46 AM

@miner_tom I am not sure what to say. It's Altium.

When I see this kind of errors, I often ignore them and just restart Altium. If the error is preventing me from working, then I try to find out what exactly is causing the problem e.g. I delete half of the PCB and try if it works or not .... then I delete half of the PCB which was still causing problem ... and I go this way until I find out what exactly is causing the problem. Then I try to fix it.

But often these problems are caused by Altium itself and they are fixed in different revisions (or never fixed).

I would recommend, do not spend too much time with this, continue with other activities.

miner_tom , 05-24-2021, 08:45 AM

Robert, I never did determine exactly what was causing the problem but I made an assumption that there was something that Altium did not like about the PCB that was archived in the original project. Therefore, I deleted the PCB, in this case, since there was no routing and I would lose very little work. I added a new PCB and found that the component footprint libraries were not in the original archived project. At that point I found an integrated library (iMX6 Rex_V1I1.IntLib) in Original Boards_Untouched->iMX6 Rex Module-> V1I1 as well as (MyLibrary.SchLib) in the same directory. I copied these files into the original project Fedlevel Academy\Advanced PCB Layout Course\Lessons_files_PKZIP\Lesson1\Activity\L1-01-Big-Components-Placement-Module, and was able to then add all of the components of the schematic into the new PCB.

The result is that the PCB no longer has the error that was happening before. So, I am past that error in this case. In other cases, the situation may be that I would lose a lot of routing if I just deleted the entire PCB file but I suppose that I can do what you suggest and delete part of the PCB at a time and see what happens.

So, a couple of very simple questions:

1) Was it completely necessary for me to add the whole library files into the project directory? Or, could I just have linked the project to them?

2) I found that there were DRC errors in the project that were only related to the components and not the PCB itself. For example, in one of the packages there was a pad to pad clearance violation. I was able to stop that error by changing the design rule. But, that is probably not a good thing to do in general. What would you recommend? Would you recommend editing the component footprint?

Thank You
Tom

P.S. I found that Altium has a problem with creating a DRC error file when the project is buried too deeply into a directory structure. Therefore, to get an HTML DRC file I had to copy the project directory to a higher project directory. That worked.

qdrives , 05-26-2021, 10:04 AM

1) Library files do not need to be in the project folder. They can be everywhere. Just 'install' them Preferences / Data management / File-based libraries / Install

2) Some DRC rules are 'defined' by the PCB fabrication and stack-up, like minimum clearance and trace width. I have done designs where 0.25mm was the minimum and designs with 0.4mm pitch components. These could not be on/for the same PCB at that time (and fabricator). One of my go-to fabricator is Eurocircuits.com. They allow easy checking the spacing with copper thicknesses.
If the footprint allows it, modify it to accommodate the rules (like 0.25mm pad with and 0.25mm spacing).

robertferanec , 05-29-2021, 02:17 AM

@qdrives thank you very much for answering @miner_tom 's questions.