ECAD – Different by Design

PCB Foundations – Book

We at Nine Dot Connects are excited to release our book, PCB Foundations. For grins, we decided to reach out to Steve O’Blenis, the owner of Warbucks Designs, to see what fun he could have with an image or two to promote the book. Steve is a big pop culture/movie fan with a knack for combining different pop culture concepts. Steve provided us with these two images:

Oddly, though Steve did not have a copy of the book when he created the image, page 88 of the 1st edition is the very last page before introducing the design process.

How true, but maybe a bit too edgy…

If you would like to see more of Steve’s work, check out warbucksdesign.com

And, of course, if you would like to purchase PCB Foundations, click HERE:

Of Muscle Memory and Game Controllers

In the world of EDA tools, there is a factor that may inhibit you or your colleagues from a desire to change to or consider other EDA tools. It is not apparent, yet it is well studied. Your hesitation may be an aspect of procedural memory commonly referred to as muscle memory.

The Dedicated PCB Layout Artist – Is This a Sustainable Profession?

The August 2017 edition of Printed Circuit Design and Fab Circuits Assembly acknowledged what many of us PCB designers have suspected; there is a strong need to train young people in the art of PCB design. It is becoming a lost art in a time when it is ever so needed. With the current technological upswing, it is truly a great time to be an experienced PCB designer. But while being an experienced PCB designer is one thing, getting more people to embrace a job as a dedicated PCB designer is another.

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When STEPs Become a Misstep

Author’s note – For clarification purposes, SOLIDWORKS will be referred to as ‘SOLIDWORKS CAD’ to differentiate from SOLIDWORKS PCB.

Though STEP files are critical in collaboration between MCAD, such as SOLIDWORKS CAD, and ECAD, such as SOLIDWORKS PCB, an important issue has become more significant as of late. Because there are many ways for an electronics designer to obtain STEP files, it is difficult (if not impossible) to know what tool was used, or more importantly if the STEP file was validated. This is not just true for components that may have been downloaded from 3DContentCentral.com. Also, such components can be provided by OEMs who then, provide them to suppliers, such as Digi-Key and Mouser.

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Why PCB is a Mechanical Creature – Part 2

This article’s argument for mechanical engineering involvement in PCB design is specific to the layout. The schematics and circuit design such as power, analog, and digital belong to the electrical engineering domain and this area requires classroom and lab experience which one would expect from a degreed electrical program. It is not to say that a mechanical engineer cannot do circuit design. More so, we envision a future in which academia offers degrees in mechatronic design. Under the current circumstances, this industry is notorious for making gross assumptions about an engineer’s capabilities and we wish not to propagate the belief that a mechanical engineer can do the whole PCB design based on their degree alone unless they have been exposed to circuit design during their undergraduate career. – Paul Taubman

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Know Your Customer

Why the ‘Golden Demo’ Isn’t So Golden!

When I was an application engineer at Altium, I was given the task of creating a golden demo which we would use for a weekly webinar. A colleague of mine and I managed to pull together a rather intricate 45-minute script that would demonstrate numerous functions of Altium Designer. Granted, I knew nothing about marketing and I was coming into this job after a decade of test and integration engineering.

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