Orcad 16.5 PCB Editor "How to display Etch Length as I route traces" ?

Hello I did a bit of digging around and contacted another Allegro user and it appears that what I want to achieve "'Display Dynamic Etch Length" as I route a trace across the board is not possible in the Orcad 16.5 product.

What I have found is this. In the Orcad 16.5 Product at the bottom of the interface in the status area there are two buttons called

P and A, the A button allows you to toggle between absolute and relative coordinates.  If I choose the option "R" when I start a trace
I can see how far I have moved relative to my last position. So if I click on a pin and start routing I can see how far I went. This is OK
but the issue is as soon as I stop routing a trace at a segment and take off routing again that relative coordinate gets reset to zero
as it is just a relative position to where I was.

In a nutshell, start routing a trace then stop then start again and my relative position gets re-set back to zero. For this type of feature
I think this would be the expected outcome.

On the higher tier Allegro product there is a user preference setting called "allegro_etch_length_on" this will enable what is called a
heads up display to show in a dynamic way how far I routed a trace and the total length of the etch. This heads up display when invoked
is kind of awkard because it is like a small window on the screen as one would route a trace. The allegro etch length on feature does not
work on the Orcad 16.5 product as far as I know yet it is a settable preference ?, One would wonder why it is even there if it does nothing. ?

What I have a hard time understanding is in the older layout product this feature to display the length of a net, the length of the current
trace and the position is all right there in the status area of the user interface as I route a trace. The Allegro interface has tons of room
to have the same feature at the bottom in the status area of the UI but the Allegro status area is sparce and it does not have such a
feature. This to me does not make any sense.. Honestly it seems like someone missed the boat on the UI design or something.

I did a few other tests to see if there was a possible workaround but nothing doing.It is very very hard to know how far I have routed a
trace with the current setup. It is not usable to have to resort to count grid dots or have a calculator available to manulipate math to
do something like this.

I am pretty new to Allegro so there still might be a setting to enable what I want that I just have not found.. any insight would be welcome

Thanks Scott

In the OrCAD license level you only have the ability to route the track then use the Show Element function (hover the track, press tab until the whoile track is highlighted then RMB - Show Element) which will give you the total length. If you are using Orcad Professional you can add a Total Etch Length rule from Electrical rules in Constraint Manager. Once routed and you use the Add Delay to lengthen your track you will get a highlighted track if you are larger than your total etch length rule (If that makes sense). Which may help.....

Wow that is really hard to believe steve. I dont think I have ever used a PCB editor that did not display or had the ability to display the dynamic length of etch as I route traces. It would be ok I guess if the feature did not exist in Orcad PCB 16.5 but to think something like that is locked to a feature set is just hard to fathom. Something like that is not a feature IMHO it is a basic requirement of any PCB editor. Thats a show stopper right there, honestly...

I appreciate your insight.

Thanks Scott

ScottCad said:

 it is a basic requirement of any PCB editor. Thats a show stopper right there, honestly...

Ever used PADS, Altium, Eagle?  Do they have it? :) (I mean dynamic display like we're talking here)

Red I believe that feature is available in Altuim I cant say if Pads has it or not. The tools I have used that do provide this feature are Allegro's old nemesis from days of old ''Pcad" & in more recent times Orcad Layout which hailed from the Mastech router product : ) Orcad Layout had that feature since v 15.7 and it was still in the final cut of the product.

That feature was requested back around the 15.7 release. The developers at the time thought it was a very good idea as there was a push to get Pcad users on the windows platform. So thats a little history from the mid 90's on where it really came from.

The etch length feature is kind of handy as it gives you an instant visual que of where you are on the board, the net you are routing and how much copper has been routed and whats left to go. The key really about routing a board is providing valuable info in the form of visual feedback to the designer as they use a tool.

I was amazed to see that this feature in Allegro was locked to a license level, whats worse is the actual feature is available as a usable item via the user preferences but it does not work. Thats shoddy development IMHO. If something is not meant to be available in the UI then take it out. Given an option they really need to put it in the Orcad product because it used to exist in the prior Layout product. Idea I think is to move forward not backwards and provide a good migration to a new tool so more people will actually buy the tool. 

In the Orcad Layout tool they also tied the feature to displaying the length of entering non electrical items such as shapes, or non electrical lines. Very handy when it comes to doing a fab drawing of your board.

All this is achieved in a neat way by providing the information at the bottom of the screen and not in a pop up window that can get in the way of what you are doing as you route traces. What they have in the full blown Allegro product is a pop up window. It is workable but not very slick IMHO..

Thanks Scott