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How to actually use the Autorouter? Plus it crashes....

grahamUTKMN
Advocate

How to actually use the Autorouter? Plus it crashes....

grahamUTKMN
Advocate
Advocate

HI,

 

I'd like to use the autorouter to connect up some traces for me on an internal layer only.

Can I get some help setting it up please? I've tried, but failed. Infact it just sat there a while and crashed Fusion completely.

 

To try and learn how it should work I did the following:

 

I have two BGAs to connect together. I have routed out from each of them to Inner_3 (yellow).

To prove to myself that I have setup the autorouter correctly I have routed from each IC until I only have a few mm of trace left to route:

Screenshot 2023-12-06 at 14.26.36.png

โ€ƒ

I set up the autorouter like this:

Screenshot 2023-12-06 at 14.26.18.png

โ€ƒ

I click Select, and then click the trace:

Screenshot 2023-12-06 at 14.27.53.png

โ€ƒ

At the bottom, it says this:

Screenshot 2023-12-06 at 14.28.34.png

 

But I can not find a GO button? Where would that be? ๐Ÿค”

 

So I hit enter, nothing, then hit enter again, and I get this:

Screenshot 2023-12-06 at 14.29.57.png

 

I click yes.

This box pops up another 21 times, requiring me to click yes again every time......... ๐Ÿคฃ

โ€ƒ

I then get this dialog box:

Screenshot 2023-12-06 at 14.32.05.png

 

I click start, and wait.

 

After 1 minute 20 seconds Fusion crashed.

I just sent the report.

 

Three times I've tried now, three times it's crashed.

 

OS Version: macOS 13.4 (22F66)

Version: 2.0.17954 (2.0.17954)

 

Am I doing something wrong?

 

Thanks,

 

G

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Replies (11)

jorge_garcia
Autodesk
Autodesk

Hi @grahamUTKMN,

 

I hope you're doing well. So a few things to discuss here, Fusion does not have a GO button, that's an old line from EAGLE days. You press enter like you did and work through it like you did. Basically the autorouter complains because you have layers defined in the layer stack but they are not enabled for the autorouter (which is what you are intending).

 

If you are just trying to cleanup some final signals, which is what it seems like to me, then you don't want the TopRouter variant and you don't need high effort. The TopRouter variant is computationally very intensive and for just a final cleanup it's overkill. 

 

Try it that way and see how it responds. Alternatively, you can use the Quick Route tools to speed up the cleanup in a semi-automated way.

 

Try the above and let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

 

Best Regards,



โ€‹Jorge Garcia
โ€‹Product Support Specialist for Fusion 360 and EAGLE

Kudos are much appreciated if the information I have shared is helpful to you and/or others.

Did this resolve your issue? Please accept it "As a Solution" so others may benefit from it.
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grahamUTKMN
Advocate
Advocate

Hi @jorge_garcia 

 

About the GO button, that's interesting as it actually says press go in the documentation AND at the bottom of the screen in Fusion! ๐Ÿคฃ

Screenshot 2023-12-11 at 15.01.21.png

Why do I need to press enter twice though? Nothing seems to happen on the first press.....

 

I'm not really just trying to clean up some signals, I'm taking baby steps to try and teach myself how the autorouter works as it's not that intuitive. The first time I did try and select a whole bunch of signals, but it crashed. So next time I limited it to just one signal that was nearly completely routed anyway, just to prove to myself that I was using it correctly. However it didn't work and crashed.

Should the autorouter be able to complete this trace:

Screenshot 2023-12-11 at 15.06.35.png

โ€ƒ

Regards,

 

G

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grahamUTKMN
Advocate
Advocate

Well it's been sat for 35 minutes looking like this:

Screenshot 2023-12-11 at 15.23.56.png

Does this feature actually work?

 

Gโ€ƒ

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jorge_garcia
Autodesk
Autodesk

Hi @grahamUTKMN,

 

Hope you're doing well. You have to click Start for it to run.

 

Best Regards,



โ€‹Jorge Garcia
โ€‹Product Support Specialist for Fusion 360 and EAGLE

Kudos are much appreciated if the information I have shared is helpful to you and/or others.

Did this resolve your issue? Please accept it "As a Solution" so others may benefit from it.
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grahamUTKMN
Advocate
Advocate

Doh, forgot that. I did click that last time I tried it.

Trying again now.

 

It should be able to connect these two traces right?

 

G

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grahamUTKMN
Advocate
Advocate

@jorge_garcia 

 

It's been running 3 hours 20 minutes now, so I'm going to kill it and move on with my life and assume it doesn't work.

 

Screenshot 2023-12-12 at 13.26.44.pngโ€ƒ

 

G

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jorge_garcia
Autodesk
Autodesk

Hi @grahamUTKMN,

 

I hope you're doing well. So the last picture shows that the autorouter completed so, it just wasnt able to route anything more. If you wanted to dig into it, you would have to look at the airwires, see if there are any restricts or obstacles that could be interfering. The autorouter fully respects the design rules so you have to make sure those won't interfere with the routing. Also make sure that the layers the contain traces you want routed are 

 

If you only have a few routes left you'll probably get better results just finishing them off manually.

 

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

 

Best Regards,



โ€‹Jorge Garcia
โ€‹Product Support Specialist for Fusion 360 and EAGLE

Kudos are much appreciated if the information I have shared is helpful to you and/or others.

Did this resolve your issue? Please accept it "As a Solution" so others may benefit from it.
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grahamUTKMN
Advocate
Advocate

Hi @jorge_garcia 

 

I'm not sure you've read what I'm trying to do here. I'm literally just selecting one track and asking the autorouter to complete it, to see if the autorouter is set up correctly. I know I could just route this in about 1 second manually, it's just a test.

Again here is the track:

Screenshot 2023-12-11 at 15.06.35.png

I'll just move on with my life.

 

Gโ€ƒ

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jorge_garcia
Autodesk
Autodesk

Hi @grahamUTKMN,

 

What layer is that track on? If it's on 2,4,13,14, or 15 then the autorouter won't touch it. One thing you can try if you just want to run that one net is to command line it

AUTO netname 

 

Then press the enter key. See what it does. That should be simpler than what you have been doing.

 

Best Regards,



โ€‹Jorge Garcia
โ€‹Product Support Specialist for Fusion 360 and EAGLE

Kudos are much appreciated if the information I have shared is helpful to you and/or others.

Did this resolve your issue? Please accept it "As a Solution" so others may benefit from it.
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grahamUTKMN
Advocate
Advocate

Hi @jorge_garcia 

 

The track was on layer 3, I set it to Auto.

Infact, at one point I set all layers to Auto, but got the same result.

 

I tried the command prompt, I just get the same pop up windows and the same result.

 

I just created a project with two resistors to try. I now get worse behaviour:

Screenshot 2023-12-14 at 13.02.29.png

โ€ƒ

Screenshot 2023-12-14 at 13.01.22.png

I only have 2 layers, but the Autorouter thinks I have 16. I've set them all to Auto.

 

I click select, and select my airwire - there's another bug there, but I'll start a new thread.

Screenshot 2023-12-14 at 13.03.36.png

โ€ƒ

I hit Enter (again for no seemingly good reason - what does this do at this point?)

 

I hit Enter again, and get this:

Screenshot 2023-12-14 at 13.04.40.png

 

I don't think this works does it?

Do you want my file or are you able to create a file with two resistors in it?

 

Thanks

 

G

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jorge_garcia
Autodesk
Autodesk

Hi @grahamUTKMN,

 

Thanks for taking the time to explore this with us to see if we can figure out what's going on. In the simple 2 resistor example , if I type AUTO N$1 I get the autorouter setup dialog, I have everything to N/A except for layers 1,16. This worked.

 

I now tried doing it the GUI way, start autorouter, again only layers 1,16 are set to auto everything else is NA. Effort is set to low and the 2 checkboxes are checked. I click select, I choose the airwire between the resistors press enter twice then start the autorouter and I get the middle trace routed.

 

I think I'm going to need your board to see if I can reproduce it. I'll DM you my email so that you can send me the files.

 

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

 

Best Regards,



โ€‹Jorge Garcia
โ€‹Product Support Specialist for Fusion 360 and EAGLE

Kudos are much appreciated if the information I have shared is helpful to you and/or others.

Did this resolve your issue? Please accept it "As a Solution" so others may benefit from it.
0 Likes