Is a PCB Outline Now Required to get a 3D Rendering?

[chris_cummingsDT]

We used to be able to render a design block that will be used in another PCB design:

While it looks odd, it still helps us identify issues and identifies it as a Design Block for us.

When we Push to 3D without a board outline, we now just get nothing, or the previous version of the 3D rendering, if we ever rendered it WITH an outline.

Access to the 3D object is immediate, like there is no rendering process even started.

So, is it silently failing?

Of greater importance, with the new Insert Electronic Design feature, is the concept of a design block with no board outline an obsolete Eagle paradigm?

Can we insert designs with a board outline into another, larger board?

Any insights would be wonderful!

[chris_cummingsDT]

I hope it is OK if I reply and Solve my own problem.

We tested the concept of having the board outline in place in our "design block" and when we used "Insert Electronic Design" F360 automatically deleted the border on the inserted design exactly as we needed!

[chris_cummingsDT]

Well, it appears I spoke too soon.

Perhaps my team-mate had temporarily removed the border, as after the first placement was done, I went back to start doing the other 9 needed for the current project and the border WAS brought in.

So, I think, when placing an electronic design into an existing circuit with a closed border in the 2D PCB layout, it would maybe make sense to automatically remove the inserted design's border, or at least bring up a dialog that offered the option to remove it before F360 places the parts into the 2D PCB design.

On a side-note, a cool feature is letting the user insert a copy of the current, open (and saved) design. As I need 9 of the same circuit replicated and PCB layout is a big part of the replication, it was nice to hook up 3 copies, then insert the design to get my second row of 3 and another for a 3rd row.

That way, only renaming nets was needed to get everything daisy-chained together. Cool! 

[jorge_garcia]

Hello Chris,

I hope you're doing well. You shouldn't have to remove the border if the original design doesn't have the border to begin with. It seems like the original electronic design has the closed border in it.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[chris_cummingsDT]

Thanks for replying, Jorge! No need for you to interrupt your planned off-time, LOL!

But in my case, the final PCB design has the border (12mm x 500mm) and each design "block" (inserted as an Electronic Design) also has a border, so we can render it "stand-alone". 

When we look at the 2D PCB design after the design block is inserted, the borders compete and the entire workspace drops back to gray. Only after eliminating at least one side of the rectangle border of the design block does the dark black return to the 500mm PCB area.

[chris_cummingsDT]

Here, I forgot to remove the border from the last block I added, and I actually got it to render without a border, by accident, LOL!!

[chris_cummingsDT]

After deleting the border around that last block, I got back to what I needed: