1 - Introduction

This section of the bootcamp will walk you through the steps of starting your PCB project. Here, you will learn the following:

• How to sign into your Altium account

• How to start your PCB project

• How and what files to add to your PCB project

2 - Creating an Altium Account and Requesting a Student License

To start this section of the bootcamp, you need an Altium account with a valid license. As students who are studying for an undergraduate degree, we are eligible to use Altium for free with student licenses (these licenses are also renewable!).

Using your University of Waterloo email address (@uwaterloo.ca), visit Altium Sign-up and register/create an Altium account. Then, visit Altium Education and request a student license for your Altium account.

3 - Installing Altium Designer

Once you have your Altium account with or without a granted student license, you can install Altium Designer by visiting Altium Downloads and downloading the latest version of the eCAD software. When the installation is complete, launch Altium Designer.

4 - Activating your Student License

From the top right corner of Altium Designer, log in with your Altium account credentials. Once logged in, click on the top right again and choose License…. Your student license should be available here and labelled as Altium Designer. Select it and then click Activate. Now that your license is activated, you can begin using Altium Designer!

5 - Creating a Project in Altium Designer

To create a project in Altium Designer, you’ll need to prepare a project file that will link to all your files, such as your schematics and board files. Create a new project by clicking File > New > Project…. Give your project the following name (i.e. <first-name last-name> Bootcamp), pick a directory to save it in, then click Create. Once the project file is created, it should show up in the Projects pane on the left.

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It’s good practice to add a couple Parameters to your newly created project so that it can be identified easily. Right click on the project and click Project Options, then head to the Parameters tab. Give your project a Title parameter (use the project name as the title) and an Engineer parameter (put your name here).

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Now that your project is ready, it’s time to start adding some files to it.

6 - Adding a Schematic File to the Project

Each PCB project will need one or more schematic files (schematic sheets) to define the circuits at a high level for your PCB. You’ll learn more about how to design schematics in the Schematic Creation part of the bootcamp. This section will just go over how to make schematic files and add them to your project.

To create a new schematic file, click File > New > Schematic. A new file should appear below your project titled Sheet1.SchDoc. Right click on it and click Rename and give the file a meaningful name instead of the default one. If you need more schematic sheets for your project, you can simply create more schematic files.

7 - Adding a PCB Layout File to the Project

Each PCB project will need a PCB layout (board) file. To do so, simply click File > New > PCB. A new file should appear under your project titled PCB1.PcbDoc. Right click on it and click Rename and rename the file to match your project name. Later, in the Routing and Placement section, you’ll learn how to actually make the PCB layout for your bootcamp project.

8 - Adding Libraries to the Project

The last type of files you’ll need to add to your project are libraries. The two needed library files are defined as follows:

• Schematic Symbol Library: Contains all of the schematic representation of components in the form of symbols. The schematic symbol library also stores relevant data pertaining to each component

• PCB Footprint Library: Contains the physical PCB layout patterns (footprints) for each components

For the bootcamp, we’ll be providing you with a schematic and footprint library to use. These libraries will have a few sample components you can reuse, but you’ll still need to make some of your own symbols and footprints. This will be covered in the Altium Part Creation section of the bootcamp. For now, we’ll just go over how to add these to your project.

Download the library files below and move them to the location you saved your project files. Then in Altium, right click on your project and select Add Existing to Project…, and select the 2 libraries to add them to your project.

After you’ve done this, you should see the library files added to your project under a new folder called Libraries. You can check this in the Projects pane as shown below.

That’s everything, your Altium project is ready for you to start working on it! Be sure to save your project by right clicking on the project and clicking Save to save all your settings and included files. When you’re ready, continue to the next section of the bootcamp.