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22-Sapphire I
MikeLockwood22-Sapphire I
22-Sapphire I
January 9, 2015
Question

ECAD WorkGroup Manager - Using Altium

  • January 9, 2015
  • 2 replies
  • 10034 views

Hello all,

After years of administering Windchill and Creo at Alcon, I'm on my own working with several companies to optimize their use of Windchill and related.


I've recently contracted with Altium, working with the developmennt team. Several of Altium's customers have asked for "better integration with Windchill." This week we installed Windchill at Altium for this purpose and started some processes of more precisely defining success in this area.

Please look for 4-5 Altium employees to request membership to this group soon - and some active discussions / possibly surveys.

thank you

2 replies

K
khines1-Visitor
1-Visitor
January 9, 2015

Hello Mike,

I am not an Altium employee, but one of the customers that has asked for "better integration with Windchill". I attended PTC Live 2014 and was disappointed with the lack of information regarding ECAD integration. It seemed to me that PTC has been mostly focused on MCAD data thru Creo software. The company I work for contracted an outside independent to help us integrate Altium with Windchill, thru the use of ECAD Work Group Manager. Since I am the ECAD Librarian, I was involved in the process and would like to be part of your development group discussions.

Thank You,

Kitty Hines

W
Wayne_Beck12-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
February 2, 2015

Can I ask what you are using for library management? Are you using Altium Vault? Does it now replicate to other sites?

Thanks,

Wayne Beck

K
khines1-Visitor
1-Visitor
February 2, 2015

Hi Wayne,

No, we are not using the Altium vault. We are using Excel exports from PDMLink for Database Libraries in Altium Designer. WT Parts, ECAD docs & 3D models (*.prt) all associated in PDMLink and linked thru added Altium attributes.

ME dept manages the prt's

S
scaine1-Visitor
1-Visitor
February 10, 2015

Hi Mark

We are just moving over to Windchill and have been investigating how best to integrate Altium. We are using the Generic ECAD type because we want to keep all the Altium source together (PCB + Schematic).

At the moment we are only working with Documents but later in the year want to integrate the library as part of the Part and BOM implementation. This would give us a great advantage being able to create new parts in Windchill and use them in Altium. A method to allow Windchill to be used as the Altium Database woudl be fantastic.

Also tighter integration from within Altium and the ability to launch the Altium project from within Windchill would be great. ECAD generic does not allow this.

The changes in 10.2 are a definete step forward.

Please keep us informed on the progress and I am happy to get involved with feedback on proposals.

Steve Caine (GE Oil & Gas)

S
sclaes1-Visitor
1-Visitor
February 12, 2015

Steve and other Altium users,

I would like to point out that managing Altium data with separate board and schematic objects IS possible. A simple reconfiguration of the Altium directory structure is required - it's not OOTB Altium, but we have implemented it at several customers and it works well. Note that with this configuration, Altium can be launched from the WGM.

I would also like to note that managing the data as generic ECAD, prevents the use/creation of Visualization and thumbnails on the Windchill server. Not really a big deal for those with Altium licenses, but downstream data consumers would have access to design data for viewing and comparison with Creo View ECAD. The common event we see here is PCB Assembly engineers comparing solder paste masks between versions to insure a new paste screen is/isn't needed - or something similar.

Regards,

Scott Claes

www.claes.biz

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