Powerpcb has mind of its own?

[phillipr]

Has anyone come across a problem where powerpcb does stange things to your routing when you go of to another part of the board and work on it?

See the attached file.

I do not know what i do to cause this but i have seen it on a number of occasions.

Is it a bug or am i doing something wrong?

[phillipr]

The jpg seems to be corrupt but you can make out the picture if you look closely.

[Tom]

Phillip,

I have to admit that I've never seen anything like that before on any PowerPCB design. I'm the PowerPCB User Group chairman for Southern California. We have 120 members and I have never heard any of them have this problem either. We would need much more information from you to even try to evaluate your problem. What version of PowerPCB? What router are you using? Does this happen often?

I would get a new computer and do a new install. Speaking of which, our CAD department is getting all new Pentium 2.3 Gig machines today with 1 Gig RAM and 80 Gig hard drives. And, we really need them because our old 1 Gig machines are sooooo slow when running DRC checks, copper flooding or CAM350.

[randychase]

I too have never seen anything like that.
Philip, can you email me the jpg directly?

randy@pcbstandards.com

[phillipr]

I tried to revert back to a copy i made 10 mins before the problem occured to see if i could reproduce it but i could not so i'm no closer to finding out what triggers it. i guess i will just have to wait and see if it does it again.

I'm using 4.01 on windows 2000

Tom we just got a 1.8 ghz machine here, it just fitted under the desk. the biggest tower i have seen.
The problem is its fans are so noisy we are going to have to move it into our server room to get round it.

[randychase]

Interesting!

http://www.pcbstandards.com/images/MIND.jpg

[Sorin Stefan]

yes, Philip, it happend to me too... while I was in DRE mode.

The layer orientation (tacks placed in inappropriate locations), same-net rules are sometimes to be blamed, routing grid not good... all these I think have a role in it.

but there were several times when I was clueless and frustrated. I must have done something wrong, but didn't know when. So I can do it again if I don't know how to avoid it.

[phillipr]

Sorin

I thought i was going mad for a minute.
Its a difficult problem to track down.

If i find the cause. i'll let you know but i'm don't fancy my chances.