Re: [PROTEL EDA USERS]: Disappearing PCBV Components

["Linden Doyle" <ldoyle@zener.net>]

Hi Ian,

One problem that I vaguely remember from my days using Protel V3 involved
the comment and designator strings.

Apparently Protel V3 used the layer the strings were on to determine if the
component was on the Top or Bottom side of the PCB. In my case I had reason
to want these strings on one of the unused Mid Layers or Mech Layers (I
don't remember which). Moving the strings to one of these layers gave Protel
V3 a brain haemorrage. ALL comment strings were reset to the word "comment"
and piled on top of one another at coordinate (0,0).

Protel's advice - don't move the strings to any layer other that Top Overlay
or Bottom Overlay.

I don't know if this is relevent to your problem - but its worth knowing
just in case.


Best Regards,

LINDEN DOYLE
Product Development Engineer
Zener Electric Pty Ltd

linden@zener.net
Ph: +61 2 9795 3600
Fax: +61 2 9795 3611




-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Phillips <ian@ianphillips.demon.co.uk>
To: Multiple recipients of list proteledausers
<proteledausers@techservinc.com>
Date: Tuesday, 26 September 2000 08:07
Subject: [PROTEL EDA USERS]: Disappearing PCBV Components


Sorry to repeat this question


I am using V3 adv pcb and sch. In the process of changing a
circuit revision level I opened a previously completed project, created the
netlist and opened the original PCB file, so far so good, . However when I
single
click on the placed components the mouse cursor flies off screen (or goes to
the top right corner of the window) sometimes the component disappears as
well, (Undo gets it back). If I double click and look at the component
properties the X and Y locations for the comment and designator look correct
but the part attribute XY values are at really wild numbers.

If I then edit the XY values manually to sensible numbers,
when I OK, the part disappears off the screen (and pcb!) even if I zoom
right out to
maximum.

I have tried resetting the origin, rebooting, select all/copy/paste, to new
file, even pleading into the modem microphone. Nothing seems to make any
improvement, and this for something that was supposed to be a 1 hour task.

Does anyone know what is happening here and how I get round the problem? any
help or pointers to which file the Protel Knowledge base would be
appreciated.

Thanks

Ian Phillips