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Production assembly BOM - Need a better way

Hi all,

Been using CS since the beta days....love it (came from Eagle 6.3).

I assemble tens of boards at a time and by hand, probably a hundred or so components on each. Currently I keep my BOM in Excel as I never really use the built in CS BOM management (all values are set though).

So, when it comes to assembling my boards I usually print of part of my BOM (sample below) and run down it that way.....but it's cumbersome. What I would really like is a way of having my deskmounted iPad or 3rd PC monitor to have the layout of the board and I just select a component value and all same components are highlighed and I can just follow the layout. Could be say 1off resistor, but may be 10off.

Any ideas?........I don't think there's anything that can help me within CS (or am I missing out?), but perhaps there's a 3rd party app or something.

Ian.

IanJ over 5 years ago

Update:

I have been pointed towards this app......but seems to have problems with CS gerbers.

https://www.compuphase.com/visualplace/visualplace_en.htm

Ian.
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adamwebber over 5 years ago

I'd liike to help but I don't fully understand your question. It appears that you are using the built-in BOM function of CS from the attached picture. Have you tried making your own BOM template and exporting into that template? It's not difficult if you haven't already used it.
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frog over 5 years ago

Had you considered generating a pick-and-place file - the text version is more or less human-readable and gives you the XY coordinates of each component. It's not quite the graphical tool that I think you're looking for but could be a step in the right direction. Doing something in c# to draw crosshairs over an image of the PCB would be the work of a couple of hours.
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krish2487 over 5 years ago

Or a more manual way would be to use assembly drawings.
You just draw the outline of the component and place a special string with the designator on the component footprint and export the assembly drawing.
It should give you what you are looking for. albeit.. only a print. I suppose you could always highlight all the components of a specific value using different colored sharpies.

Hope this helps!! :-)

Something like this!
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krish2487 over 5 years ago in reply to krish2487

And then there is this.

Openboardview.org - Software for viewing PCB/Laptop/Motherboard Layouts

I have never used this. It might need some additional work to setup and get it working.. but this seems to be the closest to the OPs requirements.
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