CLOSED - Electronics Design - PCB Workspaces (2D and 3D): Share your feedback

[dvd.mlm]

We’ve shared recent news about the New Electronics Capabilities Coming to Fusion 360.

For overall feedback about the Electronics Workspace in Fusion 360 (such as Electronics Document and 3D PCB Environment) view this discussion board.

Use this thread to share feedback about the PCB Workspaces (2D and 3D), or any of the following sub-topics.

• Creating a new PCB
• Edit Board Shape in 2D and 3D
• Route and Quick Route panels
• Fixing Conflicts
• Edit board and trace colors in CAM Preview

YouTube Channel | Help Documentation

[TrippyLighting]

Be aware that I am an Autodesk Expert Elite with Fusion 360, not with Eagle.

I have designed PCB's in Eagle, but obviously not with Fusion 360 electronics. I am just myself about 30 minutes into testing and see the same things you see 😉

What you can do is to add the holes to your 2D PCB and push them to the 3D PCB. Then you can reference the holes in your Enclosure assembly.

[WillVickery]

This is literally what I had to do, just sent off for my boards to be made.

[Anonymous]

I'm having a hard time finding the differences in licenses for layer count. For the student, personal, and startup licenses are we limited to 2 layers as was eagle pcb?

[edwin.robledo]

Hi Kristian.Loften,

Thank you for participating, as mention my TrippyLighting, at this time Holes defined on the 3D PCB will not be reflected on the 2D. This action needs to be done on the 2D mode. 

Best Regards,

Ed

[TrippyLighting]

@edwin.robledo that isn't really true. 

How to do this has been described here in this thread/post.

You can spec the extrusion in the 3D PCB and select "Edit Board outline". Then holes can be aded.

Then you need to select the extrusion again and select "Edit Board". This allows you then to de-select/re-select profiles for extrusion.

That in turn then updates the 2D board out line.

[pemerick]

This seems like it's moving in a cool direction but, I'm a little frustrated because it seems like my workflow isn't the same as it was last week. I have an assembly of two PCBs that are each linked to Eagle designs that I put together last week. I could previously edit the canvas of those PCBs in context to build multiple PCB assemblys with related features. I just went to add the third board of the assembly and everything is different. Will the workflow I was used not work anymore? Is there a way I can have multiple PCBs with related features?

[pemerick]

I answered my own question with a work-around that I found works pretty well. It's a little clunky and I wish there was a better way but, it works. Please see instructions and screencast.

1. Add the 3D PCB linked component is to the assembly that will be used to define in-context features and define a joint to another component in the assembly
2. Add a sketch that is parallel to the 3D PCB xy plane - either on one of the PCB surfaces or on a construction plane
3. Use the sketch to define features from other assembly components
4. Copy the sketch
5. Go to the 3D PCB component and edit the sketch
6. Paste the sketch from step 5 into the 3D PCB sketch
7. Edit the extrusion in the 3D PCB  with the updated sketch
8. Save changes
9. Got back to the assembly and refresh - the PCB shape will be updated based on the reference sketch

9017ae3f-87a9-452a-bca2-50bafbf00906,640,620

[david.g.johnson]

Hi,

in testing the new PCB features I created a few items including (an Electronics Design, Schematic, 2DBoard then linked to 3DPCB)

after testing through a few pcb design versions, I went to delete the objects.

I was able to delete the Electronics Design, Schematic successfully but I am unable to delete the 2DPCB or 3DPCB because some of the older versions of the 3D-PCB are linked to the 2D-PCB.

I cannot unlink the older versions of the 3D-PCB because doing so only creates a new version

below is the following error.

[isedhe]

@david.g.johnsonThis is a rather annoying Fusion behaviour that also happens with mechanical designs. I usually solve this by creating a "Delete" folder and move the stuff inside. Often, when I come back later to the project, I can successfully remove the old stuff, but not always. I would love to have a warning like that with a "Nah, don't care, just delete" button. Obviously, this could create a bunch of broken ref's.

[david.g.johnson]

My ocd drove me to do the same before seeing this reply.
I completely agree, if this scenario cannot be managed by the system without these issues, then we at least deserve an override in the warning.

[david.g.johnson]

I am trying to identify a workflow that will allow 2dpcb to be dynamically linked to a model sketch.

it was proposed that from my assembly I could do the following:

1. create 3dpcb from assembly sketch profile
2. save the newly created 3dpcb
3. from main assembly create/derive profile sketch into 3dpcb file
4. from 3dpcb, edit board, reselect board profile from derived sketch
5. from 3dpcb, push changes to 2dpcb

I have not been able to get this to work.

*one major issue is, when you derive a sketch into a 3dpcb file, you will not be able to unlink, delete or otherwise remove the derived sketch from the file.

any workarounds to this?

[pd700]

Feature Enhancement - Add Keep-In and Keep-out

This enhancement might be a bit premature until things are sorted out, but I thought I would post this since it would help the work flow. Please feel free to move it to the in the idea station.

I think it would help the work flow to create keep-in, keep-out and height areas into the 3d pcb and pushed to 2D pcb. This would reduce the number the number of times switching back and forth between the 3D enclosure to check clearances especially on organic designs which contain curves and several i/o, and displays etc. If the 2D pcb component placement is done by another team member this would be of even more value. Heights could be made by projection to the surface and create a allowable height by which substracts out a specified clearance from pcb to enclosure or other feature.

[rhdfmail]

I agree. The workflow for creating a PCB that matches a enclosure and vice versa is a bit.. clunky.. 

Isn't the idea that a mechanical designer and a "electronics-wizard" can work with 2 different parts of a project.
Changes in the enclosure shall be seamlessly transfered to the PCB-outlines  and holes etc added in  the pcb-editor shall popup on the 3D-pcb så the mechanics-guy can change stuff and so on

For now it seems that one of them has to be almost 100% finished with the final outcome of the design before the other one can do their part

[isedhe]

It seems that the solder mask is not correctly exported from 2D to 3D PCBs. The 3D PCB doesn't seem to care about tStop/bStop layers, but rather use some other flawed source of information. All the SMT pads have stop mask on top of them!

[erik.buerV95QJ]

Copied form my other post:
I route with shapes. Most of my power and large current signals are routed with shapes on my boards. This is to ensure maximum capacitance between signal and return. However the polygon tool is lacking a bit in functionality.

I would like to have:

• Negative shapes
• A shape which works as a negative (boolean NOT) to whichever plane it is placed upon.
• Min distance.
• A tool which finds the shortest distance between two objects, shape-trace, shape-pad etc.. and returns the distance. This is essential in high voltage, and designs with voltage isolation requirements.
• Thermal keepout configuration.
• On multilayer boards it is essential to be able to configure how many thermal relief connections a pin is allowed to have in order to ensure that rework soldering is possible. A setting which allow the selection of which layers the connections are allowed, and amount of connections would be practical. This configuration must be possible on a layer basis (global), shape basis, net basis, and pin basis.
• Dynamic thermals contact.
• When a pad cannot place a set amount of shape connections due to the shape not completely covering the pad, it should create the set amount of connections with equeal angular separation on the available contact area to the shape.
• Display shape edge.
• The shapes edges must be shown even for poured planes in order to reduce the amount of clicks necessary for editing planes.
• Layer and shape opacity
• When working on multilayer boards it is essential to be able to see through multiple layers. A separate layer and shape opacity would be neat.
• Signal color and highlight.
• When routing complex boards, it is necessary to be able to highlight and color specific nets in order to follow them throughout the board. Net coloring should be possible, independent of the layer colors.
• Net-to-shape keepout.
• When routing sensitive analog signals, e.g. controlled impedance traces, the distance to the same layer planes must be configurable. A net-to-shape distance constraint is necessary.
• Plane capacitance calculations.
• A simple way of calculating plane capacitance between signals. This is necessary in power integrity design.
• Non-functional pads (NFP)
• Vias have pads on all layers regardless of whether there are connections or not. These pads add capacitance to the signals, which are unfavorable on sensitive nets. It should be an option to remove NFPs on specified nets and layers.

[erik.buerV95QJ]

Copied from my feature request post.

When routing multilayer boards, it can be hard to tell which net an airwire represents.
The DRC Error table should contain information on which net the ariwire represents.

[christoffer1997.ca]

I started by making a sketch and then create a PCB from that plane. Like in the video. Then I created a Schematic and a Board. Then I linked the board from the 3D PCB. After moving around the parts and adding a few vias the 3D PCB gets corrupt and only the top and bottom layers seem to be correct. What am I doing wrong?

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast/e83ec6b8-f3b6-450b-af9a-6d7f5593f2df

[dvd.mlm]

Thank you everyone for ALL your valuable feedback. We really appreciate it and our team is working hard to incorporate as many of your suggestions as possible. In the time that this thread has been active we’ve been able to address a few issues like:

New Video Content and Documentation

• PCB from Enclosure workflow has been improved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ny4kWdhTbg
• Adding holes on the 3D PCB has been documented here: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-electronics/how-to-work-with-3d-pcb/td-p/9278497

Hotfixes

tStop and bStop issues have been resolved.

Responding to your feedback

• Negative shapes- A shape which works as a negative (boolean NOT) to whichever plane it is placed upon. This feature is already available as a Cutout polygon
• In an upcoming release of EAGLE, EAGLE will again be able to import a PCB that starts in Fusion360.

Continue to share feedback on the Electronics Discussion Board

Since we now have a dedicated Fusion 360 Electronics discussion board, we will close this thread to additional responses. We encourage you to continue posting your suggestions on the Electronics discussion board so they can be responded to appropriately. You can find the Fusion 360 Electronics forum here: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-electronics/bd-p/6071

Check for additional updates and resources about Fusion 360 Electronics Design on our YouTube Channel and Autodesk Knowledge Network for Fusion 360 Electronics Design.  

Best Regards,

Autodesk Team

​Jorge Garcia - Product Support Specialist for Fusion 360 and EAGLE

David Milam – Fusion 360 Product Research Admin