Altium Circuit Studio

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#1

About this tutorial

To use AISLER with Altium Circuitstudio you will need to export your project as a Gerber-Package. Please make sure you zip your Gerber-Files. You will have to setup NC Drill files and the Gerber Export appropriately.

You will have to setup NC Drill Files and Gerber Fabrication output properly for us to understand your designs.

Step 1: Configure NC Drill Files

We do not use the Gerber plots for drills but instead use the NC Drill files. You will have to setup your NC Drill files properly.

Navigate to File » Fabrication Outputs » NC Drill Files to setup NC Drill Files.

NC_Drill_Setup
NC_Drill_Setup500Ă—683 52.4 KB

Step 2: Configure Gerber Setup Dialog

Please navigate to File » Fabrication Outputs » Gerber Files to setup Gerber Export.

Setup Gerber > General Tab

Select “inches” and 2:4 precision in the General Tab

gerber_setup_general
gerber_setup_general639Ă—562 45.4 KB

Setup Gerber > Layers

Select the following layers:

  • G Top Overlay
  • G Top Paste
  • G Top Solder
  • G Top Layer
  • G Bottom Layer
  • G Bottom Solder
  • G Bottom Paste
  • G Bottom Overlay
  • G Mechanical 1

gerber_setup_layers
gerber_setup_layers638Ă—562 44.7 KB

Setup Gerbers > Drill Drawing

Please deselect all Drill Drawing options in the Gerber Export, we will used NC Drill files instead.

gerber_setup_drill_drawing
gerber_setup_drill_drawing639Ă—565 40.3 KB

Setup Gerbers > Apertures

Select Embedded apertures (RS274X) Checkbox

gerber_setup_apertures
gerber_setup_apertures635Ă—563 48.6 KB

Setup Gerbers > Advanced

Film size and Aperture Matching Tolerances are project specific, so please add the project’s relevant settings here.
Set all other values according to the following screenshot.

gerber_setup_advanced
gerber_setup_advanced636Ă—562 52.1 KB

Step 3: Cleaning up

Altium is known to generate a lot of other stuff in the output files, please ensure to only include the relevant ones.

Please only include the following files:

Gerber Layer Name Layer
project_name.toplayer.ger Top Layer
project_name.bottomlayer.ger Bottom Layer
project_name.topsoldermask.ger Top Soldermask
project_name.bottomsoldermask.ger Bottom Soldermask
project_name.topsilkscreen.ger Top Silkscreen
project_name.bottomsilkscreen.ger Bottom Silkscreen
project_name.boardoutline.ger Board Outline
project_name.xln PTH Drills
project_name_npth.xln NPTH Holes
project_name.toppaste.ger Top Paste (Stencil)
project_name.bottompaste.ger Bottom Paste (Stencil)
project_name.internalplane1.ger Internal plane 1
project_name.internalplane2.ger Internal plane 2

Step 4: Zip it up

zip-up

Step5: Profit :wink:

Upload your project

Integration Compatibility Matrix
#2

Hello! For those of you who love Altium CirctuitStudio and Aisler, but are annoyed with the file renaming, I offer you my script that automatically renames all files according to Aisler requirements. If you are engineer, you will be able to tweak it for other programs / Altium versions as well. I am using extensions from CircutiStudio 1.5, default project, using “Generate Outputs” in Project ribbon.
First, create a file named aislerRenamer.bat in the folder where your gerbers and NC drill files are copied. Then paste these lines in your aislerRenamer.bat (you can use notepad or notepad++ or something similar to edit aislerRenamer.bat file):

ren *.GTL *.toplayer.ger
ren *.GBL *.bottomlayer.ger
ren *.GTS *.topsoldermask.ger
ren *.GBS *.bottomsoldermask.ger
ren *.GTO *.topsilkscreen.ger
ren *.GBO *.bottomsilkscreen.ger
ren *.Outline *.boardoutline.ger
ren *-Plated.txt *.xln
ren *-NonPlated.TXT *_npth.xln
ren *.GTP *.toppaste.ger
ren *.GBP *.bottompaste.ger
ren *.G1 *.internalplane1.ger
ren *.G2 *.internalplane2.ger
pause

I put “pause” at the end so that you can read result in Command Prompt window. Without pause, it would just close immediately and you would not read errors, if any.

Then save and close aislerRenamer.bat file. Then double-click on it, and it will do the renaming error-free in milliseconds. You may have to refresh File Explorer with F5 to see files renamed, especially on Win11.

If this script does not find a file, for example, Internal Layer 1, because you only have 2-layer board, don’t worry - it just skips that file and goes to the next line in script.

Best regards,
Andris Igaunis

#3

Hello. Is there a way to use circuit studio to generate the files for assembly by Aisler (as opposed to just PCB)?