Do one of your courses explain keep-out areas and routing restrictions in OrCAD?

[JohnCe]

Robert,
​I have started a new position at a company, where they currently do not have a true PCB package. They use AutCAD, which their own reps indicate is not meant for PCB design. And so I investigated OrCAD. I like it , and have greatly benefitted from your videos. Keep up the great work!

​One problem I just discovered is that since they only use AutoCAD, there are no keep-out rules, and they recently encountered a problem with a new board house. Will you please tell me if one of your courses explain keep-out areas and routing restrictions in OrCAD?

​Lastly, a board house indicated that we output our gerber files as line draw, vs. contours. Is this an issue in OrCAD? Can files be created in contours? Also, is there a way fo OrCAd to specify which holes are actually plated vs just indicating there are holes in the board? The vendor indicated that plating information is not in our files.

Thanks for your consideration.
Regards,
John

[robertferanec]

Hi John,

Will you please tell me if one of your courses explain keep-out areas and routing restrictions in OrCAD?

There is not really much to explain. You just use them: Package Keepin, Package Keepout, Route Keepin and Route Keepout. Do you know what kind of problem they had? You should be fine even without using keepin / keepout areas.

​Lastly, a board house indicated that we output our gerber files as line draw, vs. contours. Is this an issue in OrCAD? Can files be created in contours?

I do not really know what you mean. Could you attach a picture with comparison? I have never had this kind of problems / questions with gerbers.

Also, is there a way fo OrCAd to specify which holes are actually plated vs just indicating there are holes in the board? The vendor indicated that plating information is not in our files.

- plating is specified in padstack. When correctly specified you will see it in drill files and also in NC drill table.

[JohnCe]

Thanks for your reply. I'm not sure I can reproduce the line vs contour issue. I will need to speak with the board vendor first to determine what he meant. A question I forgot to ask is whether OrCAD can be used to create a panel of the same board, i.e. say a 5x5 matrix, separated by a notch. Or is this something you do in a different software package?
Regards,
John

[robertferanec]

I am not sure if there is a simple feature for this (as in Altium). We used to draw panels by ourselves in Allegro (or have a look at this document, maybe it can help: http://www.flowcad.de/AN/FlowCAD_AN_PCB_reuse_panel.pdf).

In my projects, usually, I just write a note and leave panelization up to the PCB manufacturer. But it may depend on quantities you are manufacturing or if you are manufacturing always with same/different PCB manufacturer.