You can switch between 2D and 3D layout view by using the ‘2’ and ‘3’ keyboard keys. These thin lines are collectively termed ‘rats nest’, indicating to the PCB designer that there are connections to be made between them. You’ll now see our component footprints next to the ‘bare’ PCB with several, very thin, lines displayed going from pad to pad. Simple select ‘Execute Changes’ followed by ‘Close’. To do this, select ‘Design’ -> ‘Import Changes from *.PrjPcb’ in the top toolbar, which brings up the following ‘Engineering Change Order’ window. We need import the footprints and connections that are associated with the schematic and schematic symbols we previously created.

Note however, that a good and manufacturable PCB design pretty much always requires a decent set-up of the design rules. Width’ property to 0.5mm, and ‘Preferred Width’ property to 0.3mm, as shown. Navigate to ‘Design Rules’ -> ‘Routing’ -> ‘Width’, and adjust the ‘Max.

We can edit these design rules by navigating to ‘Design’ -> ‘Rules’ in the top menu bar.Ī new window opens with all PCB design rules – as you can see, there’s quite a few settings that can be adjusted! Don’t worry – in our case, we only need to make one change. Every PCB in Altium Designer follows a set of design rules, which essentially make sure that we stay within manufacturing capabilities, and various constraints to ensure the maximum chance of our PCB working and being successfully manufactured. Then, use the ‘CTRL + S’ keyboard shortcut to save the document using a reasonable name (for example, ‘LDO-PCB.PcbDoc’).īy default, the PCB editor presents you with a rectangular, two-layer PCB.

To do so, in the ‘Projects’ panel, click on ‘PCB1.PcbDoc’ to open Altium Designer’s PCB editor. Let’s move on the PCB design for our simple regulator board. In case you missed it, I’d highly encourage you to check out part one of this quick-start tutorial, which covered project creation, and schematic capture.Īdditionally, make sure to watch the full tutorial video below.īe sure to follow along step-by-step to get the most out of this tutorial. In this second and final part of the Altium Designer quick-start tutorial, we’ll continue our simple hardware design project and move on to PCB layout and routing.

Altium designer tutorial arm