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anoracknophobia
United Kingdom
2 Posts |
 Posted - 29 Jul 2021 : 12:57:56
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| I like a little advice on how to proceed with conversion of a design from 2 layers to 4 layers. Essentially the design consists of a number of RGB LEDs and their drive circuits, I wish to duplicate the drive circuit ( to increase and interleave the number of LEDs ). Currently all the SMD components are mounted on the TOP copper while the LEDs are THOUGH HOLE types. In the "new" design, the duplicated SMDs will be placed on BOTTOM copper ( after L-R flip ? ) ... therefore the two new internal layers of the 4 layer board become the equivalent of the current bottom copper layout. In the completed design all the LEDs (only 15 not 16 ) will also be through hole devices. |
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Iain Wilkie
United Kingdom
1015 Posts |
Posted - 29 Jul 2021 : 13:17:39
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Just take your current layout and simply add two internal layers.
Then edit your design accordingly by copying your original bottom layer to the internal layers and your original top layer to the bottom layer after any mirroring required etc.
Iain
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Peter Johnson
United Kingdom
498 Posts |
Posted - 29 Jul 2021 : 15:06:57
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| Iain's correct, but there's an even sneakier way to do this. Before adding any new layers, edit the bottom copper layer by double clicking on the 'Bottom' box and changing it to 'Inner'. You can also double click on the layer name and change it to something like 'Top Inner'. Now you can add the other layers as 'Bottom Inner' and 'Bottom Copper' without a lot of extra editing. You can also change the default layer colours in the same way. |
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edrees
United Kingdom
779 Posts |
Posted - 29 Jul 2021 : 15:22:28
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I thought there would be a "clever/sneaky" of achieving the layer swaps/additions and Peter beat me to it!
But what about the issue of swapping the topside SMD to bottomside? The existing topside SMD devices need to be flipped from top to bottom side SMD and tracks changed accordingly! I see no way of being sneaky here! |
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anoracknophobia
United Kingdom
2 Posts |
Posted - 29 Jul 2021 : 15:28:52
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You are correct... placing the "top" SMDs on the "new bottom" is where I'm currently at.
..and it's insteresting ... I have to shift stuff to avoid a few VIAs.
quote:
Originally posted by edrees
I thought there would be a "clever/sneaky" of achieving the layer swaps/additions and Peter beat me to it!
But what about the issue of swapping the topside SMD to bottomside? The existing topside SMD devices need to be flipped from top to bottom side SMD and tracks changed accordingly! I see no way of being sneaky here!
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jlawton
United Kingdom
108 Posts |
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Peter Johnson
United Kingdom
498 Posts |
Posted - 30 Jul 2021 : 16:50:17
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Even I don't know any sneaky tricks for this one, but there are a few things that can help.
One the 'PCB Interaction' tab under [Settings], [Preferences], in the 'Delete' section there's an option for 'Delete Track doesUnroute'. Enable this and deleting a track doesn't take out the whole lot. Instead just the selected bit of track is converted back to a connection. Another delete will take it out, but if you just do it for segment adjacent to the leds, you won't get vias when you flip them. Now you can tidy up the track (and layers, then when you're ready, double click on each connection, then right click and use [Auto Complete] to finish the job. |
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Peter Johnson
United Kingdom
498 Posts |
Posted - 30 Jul 2021 : 16:53:09
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| I forgot to mention - if forwarding changes is going to unroute a lot of tracks, unrouting a segment or segments on the end(s) of the affected track(s) stops the whole thing being unrouted - it just redirects the connections instead. |
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Topic |
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Changing an 2 layer PCB design to 4 layers