Altium Reference: A General Page for Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting
The more you learn Altium, the more you realize how much there is to memorize to be truly fluent in the software. This page will include useful tips, references, and shortcuts that we find worth highlighting wether whether you are new to Altium or just need a refresher on useful shortcuts. Use this page, alongside all the other “Using Altium” https://nerdocs.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/NER/pages/3932597/Altium+Designer#Use-Altium pages when working on a project with NER, regardless of experience level (😵)!
CONTENTS
| Table of Contents | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
RETURN TO HOME PAGE: Altium Designer
Altium Workflows
{link to component, project, layout, etc on other pages}
Component & PCB Suppliers
PCB Fab Houses
| Expand | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Component Suppliers
| Expand | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Digikey & Mouser are our core suppliers. Typically Digikey is used as the primary, but given recent events we may use Mouser as our primary.
|
Turn-Key Fabrication (PCB + Assembly)
| Expand | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Helpful Websites
Component Aggregator
Single website that searches effectively all online suppliers for stock
Octopart - https://octopart.com/
EDA (Footprint Sources)
SnapEDA - https://www.snapeda.com/
Ultra Librarian - https://www.ultralibrarian.com/ (Digikey partner)
SamacSys (a.k.a. Component Search Engine) - https://componentsearchengine.com/ (Mouser partner)
Celestial Library - https://altiumlibrary.com/ (open source community library)
Manufacturer sites (some companies provide official footprints!)
Calculators
{}
Tips & Tricks
Schematics
{}
Layout
{}
View Configuration
{talk about hiding rooms, configuring opacity, configuring what to show, maybe also link to where we talk about Shift + S for single view, maybe talk about perspective vs flat 3D views}
Shortcuts
Altium Designer includes a shortcut for almost every single possible action in the software, which can be super helpful but also overwhelming. The following table includes some of the teams most popular shortcuts.
Component creation | ||
Schematic | ||
View | Function | Shortcut | Notes/Restricitons |
|---|---|---|---|
Schematic | |||
Layout | |||
3D Layout | |||
etc |
Tips & Tricks
{tbd}
Troubleshooting
License Popup
You do not have any licenses applied
...
You have no license. Just click “License Management” and figure it out. Likely just need to activate one, or log in.
Duplicate Item
Error. Create item failed. Duplicate item HRID: [X]
...
Your client is attempting to create an item with an overlapping “unique” ID. This error seems to occur for some people when making their first ever symbol or footprint.
The fix we’ve identified currently is to just increment manually the Item ID until the error does not occur. In this screenshot it is the “000161,” from which you could try …162, …163, …164, etc and if this doesn’t resolve, move to tens: …174, …184, …194, etc.
Not a valid value for [X]
“[X]” is not a valid value for [X]
...
This is a glitch that occurs where parameters with dropdowns (dictionaries) are swapped from where they should be. This results in values being placed in the wrong parameter fields, causing type errors (a current cannot be text in this example).
To fix, you can click the arrow of the drop down on the parameter field and instead of selecting a value, instead start typing the value you’d like to enter. This should avoid the mis-fill. Restarting often fixes this issue as well, but of course is more annoying…