Do the new Rigid-Flex features of 17.2 version of PCB Editor require a special license?

It looks like there is something wrong with your 17.2 menus.   The Setup > Unused Pads Suppression option was eliminated in 17.2 as that functionality was moved into the Cross Section Editor.

Try typing zone create on the Command line and check the Options tab for Zone Data information and a Zone Manager button.  If so they there is something wrong with your 17.2 menus.

Hope this helps,

Mike Catrambone

Hi Mike,

Yes. In fact, there's something wrong with my 17.2 menus. Regarding the old Setup > Unused Pads Suppression option, I found a similar topic reported some days ago. I just don't know why my Setup menu is still not corrected since my installation is updated (I'm using the almost latest hotfix).

I typed zone create in my command line - And I'm being able to create zones - That's great!

I think it's likely that I have some installation problem in my 17.2 version of PCB Editor. I'm now trying to find the reasons for the wrong menus. I'll report it here as soon as I find the reason and the solve for this.

Just one more information: which command shall I type in the command line to open the zone manager?

Thanks a lot for your help!

In Allegro open Tools>Utilties>Keyboard Commands

then enter 'zone*' in the Filter: entry box & push the 'tab' key, which should show 2 commands

zone create

zone manager

Once Zones are created you should be able to get to the Zone Manager by typing zone manager on the Command line.

Good luck getting to the bottom of the menu issues. 

You could try renaming your PCBENV folder (normally under your Home directory) and restart Allegro which will regenerate a clean PCBENV folder..  If your menus look good than it is something in the environment files contained in the PCBENV folder.  Maybe you have a setting for MENUPATH in your PCBENV/ENV file that is pointing to a folder where it is reading an old allegro.men file?

Once Zones are created you should be able to get to the Zone Manager by typing zone manager on the Command line.

Good luck getting to the bottom of the menu issues. 

You could try renaming your PCBENV folder (normally under your Home directory) and restart Allegro which will regenerate a clean PCBENV folder..  If your menus look good than it is something in the environment files contained in the PCBENV folder.  Maybe you have a setting for MENUPATH in your PCBENV/ENV file that is pointing to a folder where it is reading an old allegro.men file?

Thanks Mike,

I'll try to get my env variables point to some other directories. My environment variables are all pointing to old files from 16.6 and older versions. I hope this fixes the problem. I'll get back with the result when I finish it.

Rgds

Hello Mike,

The problem is related to the MENUPATH environment variable. As I had 2 versions of SPB installed in my machine (16.6 and 17.2), it was probably pointing to a folder where it was reading an old allegro.men file. When I modified some of the directories that MENUPATH env variable was pointing to, the Zones - Create / Manage options started to appear under the Setup top pull-down menu. However, when I clicked these 2 options an error message was shown in my command line. Then I uninstalled the 2 versions of SPB and I reinstalled only the SPB 17.2 version - all env variables were reset to their default directories - And now the Zones - Create / Manage options are working fine! What I have to do now is reinstall the SPB 16.6 version and set some env variables of this version - I will take care not to interfere in some critical env variables that might cause problems to the SPB 17.2 version.

Thanks a lot for your help!

 Gustavo