IDF Translators continued ...

I read through the thread from early January of this year about IDF
translators. I have a translator that I have written that will import
and export IDF 3.0 files. I have been tweaking it for about 3 years and
am almost ready to put it out as shareware.

IDF is very simple in concept, but to really make it work reliably
requires a substantial investment in robustness of your SolidWorks
library parts and the placement and and orientation of the part. It
also requires a lot of information be understood by the user about the
PCB that they are designing. This is true whether you use Circuitworks
or any other IDF translator. I used Circuitworks early on, but the
devil in the details forced me to write my own. You have to have a
reasonable working knowledge of the IDF format so you can chase down
discrepancies. You will also need a person who is invested in
understanding the system.

In addition, you have to work with the ECAD librarian to keep
everything up to date, because there is no method that I have found of
keeping the ECAD and MCAD libraries in sync (which is necessary for
this to work) except by meticulous communication between the two groups
and constant negotiation and checking of the libraries. We have the
ECAD components guy trained on SolidWorks so that the libraries are
maintained at the root level by one and the same person.

Where I work, we have invested in this and the payback is huge. I can
import a full board in a matter of minutes with all the detail
necessary. I can also export my designs back to PADs. There are
limitations to this, inherent in IDF, and the implementation of the
importer for PADs, but it accurately conveys board outlines, keepouts,
height restrictions and placement of components if they are constructed
properly in SW, and this saves numerous hours that we used to invest in
detailed part placement drawings for the layout folks.

The biggest payback is in the reliable checking of critical mechanical
parts in complex electro-mechanical assemblies, as well as very good
representation of what the board actually looks like for thermal
analysis and for interference checking. A lot of our board assemblies
are high density, High voltage boards where every component is
critically placed by the engineers before the board is laid out by the
ECAD group, so accurate modeling and rapid checking of fits is critical
to us, and being able to export this information saves hours of work.

The CircuitWorks Lite embedded in SW2006 gives a nod in the right
direction, but it is just a nod when you really need cash on the barrel
head. It's fine for studying the masses and volumes but useless for any
kind of design detail. It does not really build the board as an
assembly, but just a plate with a bunch of brick features on it that
are the right height, and you cannot go back the other way.

I will be doing a presentation at the New England SolidWorks User group
at Foxwoods August on Friday, Aug 11, about the ins and outs of using
IDF; the gotchas, the limitations, the heartache and the joys and what
it takes to make it work in both directions. If this is of interest to
you, it will be worth your while (nice plug, hunh?)

In addition, I am looking for 4-5 persons in the Boston area that want
to make it work and can help create guidelines or standards for getting
IDF to work well with SolidWorks. I have a lot of it done, but want
some help so that it is not just one company specific. To my knowledge,
no one has done this.