How to get an pick and place file from Orcad Layout

Auto | Create Reports, select the reports you want. These will report the pick & place location of each part. Since version 7, I haven't had any problem with the report. I generally send the following off to our assembly house (check boxes 2 thru 6): Comp Bottom SMT Comp Bottom Thru Comp Insertion Comp Top SMT Comp Top Thru

The units in the reports will be the same as your display units setting (CRTL-G). You can change this at anytime without harming your board. Don't change the workspace settings in the middle of your layout as that is a mild disaster.

When building a component, Layout has two datums, the component insert point for the Layout program (usually pin 1, but I like the centroid for certain parts) and the pick & place location. I put the pick & place datum at the physical center of the part. For symmetrical parts, you can do a right click to put the pick & place datum in the center of the pin grouping.

To edit your datum points in the library editor, Tool | Dimension | Move Datum. To center or move insertion (pick & place) point, right click in the design window to show a menu with options.

When using stock parts from the Layout library, I always move those parts into one of my custom libraries and modify to my liking. Bad idea to use the supplied library parts without modification. I'll rename the part with a .XX (use your initials for the XX) at the end of the part name so I know that the part has been vetted.

Thanks, Mark!

I am a PSpice expert, not a Layout expert, so there are a lot of things I still need to learn.

Just finished adding solder paste layers to my custom parts this morning, as I hadn't even known what that layer was in the setups!

Charlie

About solder paste, if you have parts with large thermal pads, like a D2PAK or a QFP with thermal pad, use 50% to 70% (I usually use 60%) solder paste coverage. I do this using a number of paste rectangles/squares scattered across the pad area. Draw this with object | copper area.