FAQs

PCBWorks is available through certified Altium resellers in the SolidWorks® reseller channel. Complete the form on the How to Buy page of the PCBWorks website to be contacted with more information.

PCBWorks includes a streamlined licensing system, enabling you to get licensed and up-and-running with your PCBWorks Software in a timely and efficient manner. The system offers various licensing types to meet, and suit, your licensing needs:

• On-Demand – client-side license acquisition is administered by an Altium managed server. There are two 'modes' when using a seat of an On-Demand license:
  • On-Demand – a seat of an On-Demand license acquired by any client computer, only while you are signed in to your account. When you sign out, the seat is released so that another user can acquire it.
  • Roaming – a seat of an On-Demand license acquired for a specified time. In this mode, you can sign out and work offline, in essence roaming freely with your acquired seat
• Standalone – client-side license acquisition is managed by the user through use of a standalone licensing file (*.alf). This file can be saved, copied and backed-up as required. The .alf file is reusable on a home computer (in accordance with the EULA) simply by copying the file to a specific folder on that computer and then adding the file as part of Standalone License Configuration.
• Private Server – client-side license acquisition is administered by a user-managed server. Your administrator sets up a Private License Server to access and use Private Server licenses. Once the license is in use on the server, that server will then serve the license to local computers. Users on the local network do not need to sign in to their PCBWorks accounts to acquire the seats from the Private License Server.

With a Standalone license, the only time you need to sign in to your PCBWorks account (through the Altium portal), is:

• To 'see' your license, and to activate it for the first time.
•  To reactivate the license (required for example when you have deleted the license and don't have a backup of the license file).

All communication with the Altium portal is secure over https.

The software can be set to check for new updates, on the System - General Settings page of the Preferences dialog. Use the drop-down associated to the Check fequency field - in the Automatic Updates region of the page - to specify how often a check is made. Choose from Never, Every day, Every 3 days, Every week, Every 2 weeks, and Every month. The default checking frequency is Every 3 days.

Alternatively, access the Extensions & Updates area by clicking the Extensions & Updates link, in the Tasks pane of PCBWorks's Home page. Once there, click the Updates link to access the Updates page for the area. When a new version of the platform is available, a notification will be present at the top-right of the Platform region.

PCBWorks offers the following component management methodologies to meet your preferred approach to working with the components used in your designs:

• Standard Component Libraries - Schematic Symbol (*.SchLib) and PCB 2D/3D Component Model (*.PcbLib) libraries.
• Integrated Components
• Vault Components

Standard schematic libraries allow you to attach PCB footprint models to components. Usually, each model link references a file (PCB library file) somewhere outside of the schematic library. So the schematic library saves a link, that is, instructions on where to find the model you attach.
Periodically, PCBWorks will need to locate these models - when you run a board update, for example, the linking instructions will be followed for all current footprints in your design. The search sequence for matching models starts with libraries in the current project, installed PCB libraries, then any files found on the project search path. The management of these separate source libraries is left entirely in your hands, meaning that PCBWorks cannot offer any guarantees that your models will find matches. These links in schematic libraries are brittle, and easily broken by everyday management tasks such as renaming folders on a hard drive, or reassigning labels to a central server.

PCBWorks has a solution - the Integrated Library. The integrated library includes not only the schematic library (or libraries), it also has all the associated model libraries bundled in. If a component came from an integrated library, PCBWorks is guaranteed to find the right model if it can simply locate the integrated library it came from.
Because the components and models are entirely contained within a single .IntLib file, these libraries offer portability to designers who divide their work among different workstations, or who want to share their designs with others. Simply installing the same, single file in the Libraries panel of any PC running PCBWorks will mean that component-to-model links will remain secure (assuming, again, that components were placed in the design from that integrated library).
These libraries are also checked for integrity when they are compiled. That means they are not only checked for availability, but for correct pin mappings. Even designers who want to stay with discrete library files should compile their schematics in an integrated library package, if only to ensure that the source components will map correctly to the target models. Once satisfied, they can ignore the integrated library they created, and keep placing directly from their schematic libraries.

Vault components offer a 'next-generation' model, that effectively maps the concept of a design component – in the traditional electronics design arena – to the component as seen by the rest of the organization in the bigger 'product arena'. A truly 'Unified Component' model that not only represents the component in the different design domains (Schematic Capture, 2D/3D PCB Layout) but also facilitates choices of the desired physical components – real-world manufactured parts – at design-time, offering a significant improvement in terms of procurement cost and time, when manufacturing the assembled product.

Under this modeling paradigm, the design component, as seen by the designer, is separated from the Manufacturer and/or Vendor parts. This information is not defined as part of the component. Instead, a separate vault Item – a Part Choice List Item – is used to map the design component to one or more Manufacturer Parts, listed in a Part Catalog, which in turn can be mapped to one or more Vendor parts, allowing the designer to state up-front, what real parts can be used for any given design component used in a design.

These components, along with their part choices, are stored in a target Altium Vault.

And a significant advantage of using Altium's own Vault-based components - in the Altium Content Vault - is that they are managed for you, so you can be confident that they are up-to-date, available and correctly implemented. Making use of Altium's vault components also avoids the need to create and manage large collections of local component libraries.

PCBWorks's unified design environment consists of various Servers plugged into a core platform. Together with the core platform itself, these servers provide the resources of the software – its features and functionality. These are delivered in the form of commands, dialogs, panels, and the like. These resources are documented and collated by server. Use the following methods to locate information on a particular resource:

• Within the software, hover over a Ribbon button, menu command, dialog, panel, or design object, and press F1.
• Within the documentation, either:
  • Use the pop-up navigation tree to the left of this text (accessed by clicking the  button at the top-left of a page) to browse for the resource required across the various servers (under the Resource Reference section of the tree).
  • Use the Search field at the top-right.

PCBWorks accommodates import of the following file types (using the File » Import command):

• CircuitStudio PCB Files (*.CSPcbDoc).
• EAGLE Files (*.sch; *.brd; *.lbr).
• Mentor xDxDesigner Files (*.prj).
• Mentor Xpedition Files (*.pcb; *.lib).
• OrCAD Designs (*.dsn).
• OrCAD PCB (*.max).
• OrCAD Design Libraries (*.olb).
• OrCAD PCB Libraries (*.llb).
• OrCAD CIS Config File (*.dbc), OrCAD LIbrary Files (*.olb, *.llb).
• PADS ASCII PCB (*.asc).
• PADS ASCII PCB Library (*.d).
• PADS ASCII Logic (*.txt).
• PADS ASCII Schematic Library (*.c + *.p).

PCBWorks can output Gerber (RS-274X), Gerber X2, ODB++, and IPC-2581 CAM formats.

The board in the active PCB document can be exported in the following file formats:

• STEP File (*.step)
• Parasolid File (*.x_t)
• VRML (*.wrl)

PCBWorks supports:

• Unlimited components.
• Unlimited nets.