autorouter not using bottom layer or vias

[mick the mend]

I am trying to autoroute a 2 layer board using the internal router with default settings but it does not want to use the bottom layer or vias and is taking forever - any suggestions?

Cheers

Mike

[lacy]

This is a kniown issue with Ultiboard. It defaults to only routing the top layer. To change this go into the spreadsheet under the NETS tab and scroll to the right until you see Routing Layer. It is probably set now to 10 indicating top route only. Reset this for all nets to 11 by clicking the column title. then click any hightled net under that column and a box should pop-up for you to select your layers. Make sure all layers have a check beside them and then click OK. Now all your nets should be routable on both sides of the board. This should also cure the via deal as you cannot route vias with a sigle sided board.

[mick the mend]

Brilliant thanks I would never have found that

Thanks again

Mike

[kittmaster]

it was supposed to be corrected with 10.1....but guess what?.....1 year to go to hope and pray they get it right next time.....

[lacy]

Yes Chris, and to make things worse they removed the only workaround in Multisim that could have taken care of this. In 10.0.1 there was a feature in the spreadsheet to lock the PCB Settings. Using this forced Ultiboard to use both sides automatically on transfer. Now with this not in 10.1, for some stupid reason, you have to manually force it using the method above.

[lacy]

I may have found another workaround within Multisim. Look in the spreadsheet under Nets and then goto routing layer and make sure all the boxes are empty. This si the layer selection to where you can force a layer to top or bottom and with all boxes clear it seems to transfer with both sides available to routing.

I have tried numerous attempts with this and it seems to work. Feel free to try it out and let me know if you get the same results.

[lacy]

Yesterday, I thought I may have found a workaround for this but after further testing I have found that it works sometimes and sometimes it doesn't. Why did they remove the Lock PCB Setting from the Spreadsheet View? We had a nice way to force Ultiboard to do what it should do automatically until this was removed in 10.1

[RnDMonkey]

I think Ultiboard should default to allowing, rather than restricting, access to both top and bottom.

[kittmaster]

That is the way it always was........version 10 has really corrupted a lot of usefulness in this regard. I don't know why they just don't fix these painfully obvious issues and rerelease a patch or just fix the damn eval. It's not rocket science to go back to what was successfully once was and repackage it......and who would know?

This kind of crap is what keeps new users away....how do you explain that to a noob who's never used the software.......just look at the thread someone is asking about now. http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=370&thread.id=4433

If this were an evaluator from a major contract.....you can kiss that large sale goodbye. Its just stupid......and no one gives a damn.....I can say that with full confidence because this was on the Beta list for repair since 1.5 years ago......new release.......no fix.....not to hard to connect the dots......sad really.

[RnDMonkey]

I can't deny that it is a bit frustrating... 😞 You would kind of think that for how much money these software suites cost, they would be more zealous about fixing them.