I just recently got a copy of Pulsonix 4.6 to try out as I have been using Eagle like the most of us for a few years. Their are a lot of things in Eagle that annoy me but while Pulsonix is very quick and I like that spice is integrated I have some questions.
For spice I used NI Multisim at school and its very handly as it allows you to tag any wire and get voltage/current readings and look at a design on a whole. Also the virtual instruments are very handy. This seems a more student oriented package as all other spice programs I have used are the netlist and re-graph on any change type. I used LTSpice with Eagle but it was horrible making changes back and forth between programs. Im sure with more reading I will get how to use a standard spice package.
My big issue with Pulsonix is library creation. I have no idea how this is suppose to be easy but I am trying to make a 28pin package with 4 different pin spacings on different offsets. It took me half a day just to use ‘set origin’ and ‘offset’ to get the package shape. In eagle you can easily define a grid and layout line by line to make the shape and then you can trip edges to make rounded recesses and such. I was expecting a bit more of a refined layout system. (Ideally I wish package setup was done with a SolidWorks style. Parametric model of the part and can easily generate land pattern and the shape for 3d view)
So in short I need some learning material. Anyone recommend some websites or tutorials on how to properly create new components in Pulsonix? With its somewhat limited library generating parts is a MUST and if its going to be this hard I might as well stick with eagle and the relatively low spice pains.
Creating new parts manually is actually very easy and quick, see the Tutorial and the User Guide. You also have wizards that make it even easier and quicker.
I am still going through the documentation pdf’s but have not found anything besides the library creation section. With what they told me on how to create a 14pin dip it is useful, but I don’t get how you are suppose to create complex layouts without constantly re-defining the 0,0 origin?
Moving the origin is how I often do that sort of thing. Construction lines are also very useful. You can also work out the coordinates of all the features wrt a datum, put the origin there, and position each feature using its coordinates. You’ll get plenty of suggestions from other members on the forum.
Well I got my footprint and schematic symbol drawn. The footprint is awesome when I printed it out was 100% best part I have ever made!
One thing that helped was that the arrow keys can nudge your cursor and you can use the keyboard for placement. I presume if you had all the shortcut keys memorize you could be very proficient.
I had to turn the footprint into a gerber file and then use a gerber viewer to print it. Eagle is nice to be able to print at actual size is their a similar option in Pulsonix?
Tomorrow I gotta re-read the manual again and figure out why my entry’s are not showing up when I add my part to schematics. I added them as the manual says to a pin and my options look like the ones in your library file (leon.plf) but thats a job for tomorrow…
To get a 1:1 printout you have to use CAM/Plot, as if you were creating Gerbers, but outputting to a Windows printer. You can also create a PDF. You can combine layers on the printout.
The default text (ISO-Latin-1) looks OK to me, I think it’s a standard engineering font. You can use whatever font you have on your system, of course. Details are in the documentation.
It would be best to post questions like that to the Pulsonix group.