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Importing PCB to combined part Studio & Fix PCB Errors
ryan_mcgoldrick47
Member Posts: 93 ✭✭✭
Hi everyone,
I've imported many PCB's in the past, using various worklflows depending on the situation.
Examples are:
Import PCB > Create part studio configuration of supressed FixPCB feature
Import PCB > Use Fix PCB > Round trip .step file out and back into onshape.
Currently when I try to import this PCB it takes forever for onshape to stop spinning the blue circle, infact I can import to onshape and whilst its loading open solidworks in the meantime and open the PCB .step file and come back to onshape and still be waiting another 5-10 minutes.
I'd ideally like to have one document probably with two part studios, one with a dumb .step that was round tripped through FixPCB and the other with the full .step PCB file. This is to avoid the need for domino configurations up the line.
But currently I onshape either times out trying to open it or will open it but give a random error although I can see everything is there and fine, also Fix PCB will not work with it either.
This isn't a particularly heavy PCB, its fairly simple too.
I'd prefer not to have to encumber engineers to re-export of possible as I can't see how anything is wrong with the file given it does open sometimes and opens file within solidworks.
Thanks,
Ryan
EDIT*
I'm wondering what the performance weight difference is between using a composite part and Fix PCB?
At the moment I would say it seems that composite part is still heavy in just opening the document time but once it has rendered it is ok, so for that reason Id still prefer to use a simplified FixPCB block in everything up stream that doesn't need to have all that detail. I pretty much at this point cant even get the native pcb.step file to open it just times out.
EDIT EDIT*
The bottleneck appears to be with onshapes server side regeration, if I ever get anything to load it works fine rotating zooming etc but regeneration is absolutely terrible.
Hardware performance check attached / internet speed/connection attached
EDIT EDIT EDIT* 23.09.2020
@Jake_Rosenfeld
Not sure if you can have any input here, I had the engineer export from Altium 4 more files,
2 in the parasolid format one with "simplified bodies and no copper" as an export option, the other had "Both" selected, it only reduces the part count down by about 100-200 from 3100 parts.
2 others were exported in .step file format with one "Simplified bodies" the other "Both"
Fix PCB keeps returning the error after much delay and spinning blue wheel that no Planar face was selected for the top of the PCB, I am however selecting the top face and it is just a planar rectangular shape.
Using Composite part isn't really ideal here as the performance weight is still not great and I find onshape times out all the time using either chrome or firefox.
The same file opens without issue in Solidworks but in the past if we had an issue with a part importing into solidworks we would get a .ems /.emp file which is a IDF to 3D translation file that onshape is able to open, however onshape cannot open these files and has no IDF translator it looks like there used to be an app for it but that its not available any more and it sounded like it was very expensive for what it was anyway.
I've imported many PCB's in the past, using various worklflows depending on the situation.
Examples are:
Import PCB > Create part studio configuration of supressed FixPCB feature
Import PCB > Use Fix PCB > Round trip .step file out and back into onshape.
Currently when I try to import this PCB it takes forever for onshape to stop spinning the blue circle, infact I can import to onshape and whilst its loading open solidworks in the meantime and open the PCB .step file and come back to onshape and still be waiting another 5-10 minutes.
I'd ideally like to have one document probably with two part studios, one with a dumb .step that was round tripped through FixPCB and the other with the full .step PCB file. This is to avoid the need for domino configurations up the line.
But currently I onshape either times out trying to open it or will open it but give a random error although I can see everything is there and fine, also Fix PCB will not work with it either.
This isn't a particularly heavy PCB, its fairly simple too.
I'd prefer not to have to encumber engineers to re-export of possible as I can't see how anything is wrong with the file given it does open sometimes and opens file within solidworks.
Thanks,
Ryan
EDIT*
I'm wondering what the performance weight difference is between using a composite part and Fix PCB?
At the moment I would say it seems that composite part is still heavy in just opening the document time but once it has rendered it is ok, so for that reason Id still prefer to use a simplified FixPCB block in everything up stream that doesn't need to have all that detail. I pretty much at this point cant even get the native pcb.step file to open it just times out.
EDIT EDIT*
The bottleneck appears to be with onshapes server side regeration, if I ever get anything to load it works fine rotating zooming etc but regeneration is absolutely terrible.
Hardware performance check attached / internet speed/connection attached
EDIT EDIT EDIT* 23.09.2020
@Jake_Rosenfeld
Not sure if you can have any input here, I had the engineer export from Altium 4 more files,
2 in the parasolid format one with "simplified bodies and no copper" as an export option, the other had "Both" selected, it only reduces the part count down by about 100-200 from 3100 parts.
2 others were exported in .step file format with one "Simplified bodies" the other "Both"
Fix PCB keeps returning the error after much delay and spinning blue wheel that no Planar face was selected for the top of the PCB, I am however selecting the top face and it is just a planar rectangular shape.
Using Composite part isn't really ideal here as the performance weight is still not great and I find onshape times out all the time using either chrome or firefox.
The same file opens without issue in Solidworks but in the past if we had an issue with a part importing into solidworks we would get a .ems /.emp file which is a IDF to 3D translation file that onshape is able to open, however onshape cannot open these files and has no IDF translator it looks like there used to be an app for it but that its not available any more and it sounded like it was very expensive for what it was anyway.
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