(9) Generating Fabrication Files - Altium Designer

In this final episode of the Altium Designer Getting Started Tutorial, we finish up with the all-important process of generating manufacturing outputs for getting your new PCB design made. This video will show you how to generate gerber, N.C. Drill and other fabrication file formats, and assembly documents such as Pick-and-Place files and Bills of Materials. Upon completion of this tutorial module, you have walked through the entire design process from scratch, starting with nothing and ending with a completed design with manufacturing output files.

[justinberdell]

I don't mean to be negative, I'm just trying to give constructive criticism. I'm an electrical engineer who has used Eagle up until this point. My new employer uses Altium, so I'm beginning the process of learning the software. I have found the process more than a little frustrating. I would describe the Altium interface and workflow as highly unintuitive. I began looking at posts online relating to how long it takes to get familiar with Altium. Most people say it'll take about a month to figure out how to make your first pcb, and from my experience so far that seems accurate. For reference, I made my first Eagle pcb literally the first day I downloaded the software. With Altium I literally can even figure out how to get components into a schematic from my coworkers' libraries. I mean I had to look that up online. That should be obvious to the point you don't need to find instructions. So far every operation I've tried I needed to look up how to perform. Altium needs to perform more ux research and make significant changes to how a user interacts with this software. I figure it's gotten to the point where they're just so entrenched as the default nobody is even trying to make genuine improvements. It's like how Casio calculators are significantly better than TI calculators, but everyone uses TI calculators because that's just what everyone uses. It's unfortunate

[torivankarlsen]

Great videos for a starting point. Thank You!

[axelanderson]

I want to expose my copper layers on a 3d printer LCD.
With kicad, i could export as SVG. I then wrote a script to render it to scale, and uploaded the image to the LCD.

How can i do this with altium

[oguzhanguney]

Hi there, when I generate my gerber files I don't have .GKO file for my board outline, I don't know what the problem is for this.

[markworkman]

why doesn't the PCB_Outline show up on each layer that is generated ?

[hemrajkoli]

how to make .cdr file with drilling holes open

[scottengel]

I followed this note for note and didn't wind up with the mechanical layer when zipped and sent to the board house.

[idvfpv]

Bruh, my window when I click on gerber is different.