Society of Robots - Robot Forum
Software => Software => Topic started by: airman00 on October 22, 2008, 06:17:58 PM
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How much should i trust the autoroute feature?
Does it always get it right?
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No it doesn't. But you have less work to do manually. I had boards done exclusevely by the autoroute and others where I did all the work manually, because I was not happy with the way autoroute did it.
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ok thx
I was speaking to Scott over at CuriousInventor and he said I should try to do by hand first , since it will yield better results and not a billion vias.
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I prefer to use autoroute when I start a new board. It gets the basic wires where I want without much brain power.
But often you need to play with the weights to reduce the number of vias and weird paths it sometimes takes.
The autoroute makes finding complex circuits easier to plan out, but in the long term I usually re-do all the tracings by hand.
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There are some things to be aware of:
Always check the status bar. (bottom Left) It will tell you what percentage the autorouter was able to complete.
Finding what was missed can be a pain. The trick is to turn off component and trace layers to the the unrouted layer.
When you move a component be sure to rip up any interfering old traces lest you make a short. (use the layer trick again)
Route critical stuff by hand. Run the autorouter. Clean up what it missed.
There is a good instructable on line that tells how to make custom design rules. (for example if you have a home etched board may want fat traces and Big gaps)
Always run error checks and Design rule checks
Kirk