component database manual

[rwatson]

Where can I find a listing of all the components in Multisim/Cap and Ultiboard. When I want to put, say a connector on the circuit, I get a list of many components but I don't know what they really are. To learn them, I need to place one in the circuit, transfer it to Ultiboard, and then examine the 3D view.

Is there any madness to the numbering of components? In surface mount technology there are thing like 0805, 1206, 1210, etc that describe the physical size of the component. What else exists?

[Mdesigner]

Hi,

I do not know of any really good reference manual.

With ultiboard 7 you got a PDF which did give some idea of the shapes.

I have never loaded ultiboard 8,9 so I am not sure if the library is any better. In ultiboard 7 the  documentation was poor and never kept upto date.

My understanding is alot of effort has gone into multisim and very little effort has been made to keep developing ultiboard and keeping it upto date.

Regards

MPC..

[Stuboy]

I remember in the mists of time printing out a big book of component shapes WITH DIMENSIONS, was looking at upgrading to 10.1 but as far as i can tell there is no way of telling how big most of the components are.  Surely this is ridiculess?  Select a transformer i want a small one, how do i tell what size it is???????????

So far I'm not impressed!

[lacy]

This may be of no use, but you can click on the details button in the parts selection dialog box and see more detailed information about your compopnent including the footprint.  Granted this may not help, but that is about all I can find in 10.1. Also if you click a component on the workspace and select  Properties then you will be taken to the help file which is where I believe they have placed the component reference guide in 10.1. This only details the component function and does not have any layout information such as footprints.

I hope maybe yoy can glean something from this that may help.

[Stuboy]

Thanks for your reply,  there is no indication of scale on the footprint so it is next to useless, why can't they have dimensions on the parts? They must be there somewhere?

Regards

[lacy]

Yes, I agree with you about this. I think this has been discussed before with NI, but I do not remember what they said in reply to it. It may already be on a feature list. If not, it definitely needs to be added.

The way I get my parts dimensions is to select a footprint that I think will work and then transfer to Ultiboard and view it there. If I am not happy with it, then I change it in Multisim and forward annote that back to Ultiboard. I do this in conjunction with any datasheets/parts information I have. This is probably the long way around to do this, but I usually stick with what works for me.

If the datasheet already has a footprint number that is contained in the database then I will use that one. I have run into situations. namely with resistors. where the only thing you have are dimensions and the seller's part book doesn't list anything about a footprint number.

Maybe NI can release an article in their knowledge base that contains this information or point users to somewhere that does have this info.