Library part management

Library management in Allegro really dont exist but you can organize things to make life a bit easier.

What I do is create an indivudal folder under c:\  you can call it what ever fits best for you. Under that folder I have indivudal folders based on part technology. For example, SMD, Connectors, etc.

I keep the pads for my dra files in the same folder as the pads it uses. In explorer it looks kind of messy but does make things a bit easier when working in Allegro once you have set paths to everything.

Older Layout tool looks kind of good for handling parts after migrating to Allegro/Orcad eh :) In some instances it is easier to create a footprint in the older tool and simply import it for use in Allegro as a .dra

Thanks Scott.

 Hi Scott....thanks for the reply. I kinda wanna do the same....have seperate folders for the components....like our old system is setup. But with the old Orcad you needed to make the pads each time for a new part. I like 16.6 allows you to make it once and reuse it over and over. But then I thought....how do I find where those pads are located? Hence me thinking let me make a "pads" folder and put them all in there...just the pads...no dra files...then be sure the paths are set right. This way I know exactly where to look to find all the pads when making new symbols. I think that might work....lol.

DA 

 That's why there's a padpath and a psmpath. Many users put all *.pad in one location (helps with duplciate names etc) and then have the *.dra and *.psm, *.bsm, *.osm, *.fsm and *.ssm togeher in "other" locations that are set using the psmpath location. Remember the more locations you have the more entires in the psmpath setting. PCB Editor looks at the first entry in the psmpath if it finds a matching name it uses it, if not it moves to the next entry and so on. You could simply have an C:\OrCAD_Library that contains a pads folder and a symbols folder.

 Thanks Steve...thats exactly what I want to do...not have duplicate pad files....but wasnt sure if everyone else was doing that or if there was a better way...ect. Yea those path settings (for both of them) threw me when I first started using the package. Okay sounds like I have a plan for the libraries.

Hi Dass having the pads in a seperate folder is indeed a good idea. For certain things such as vias etc I do the same. The main reason I left the pads in with the dra's was because when you export Layout Footprints the physical Pad gets assigned the old layout pad name
such as 55_1_4 etc. In the layout tool this was ok as you could click on the spreadsheet and see what the pad was fairly easily.

But having a pad that says 55_1_4 is kind of meaningless eh ?, even looking at this in explorer gives no real clue to what it is..

Now in the older layout tool if you did give your pads a name such as S100X100 that might indicate a square pad that is 100x100 mils so that would be ok...

If you go ahead and export any of the footprint libs from layout, lets say the SMD one that contains passives you will see what I mean..

Going forward I think it makes things easier if you come up with a standard for naming pads. In that case if all of those pads were in one folder it might be fairly easy to figure out what they are for re-use in creating new symbols.

Many years ago we had to do this with PCAD.. Allegro is pretty much the same :)

Thanks Scott.