 Hello. So, you've seen the two, I think, quite commonly used free application. I'm not sure what non-web based, commonly used PCB software is. And this is a printer. How many of you have used or heard of it? Used and heard. Alright. So, it's probably new to all of you. I have been on their beta program for like a couple of years now, if I'm not wrong. And like with most people and their PCB software, I also happen to have a love-hate relationship with this one. Also, just so that you understand where I come from, I firstly, as the disclaimer, I don't use this for all my routing for all my PCBs. I kind of use EGLE. I mostly just use EGLE these days. I am trying out PyCAD, perhaps, also Edge. And we might be moving to LTM at work. So, Upwarder was something. Yes, also, never trust the autorouter. Upwarder was something I was exploring for my work and also personally, try to see if it will suit the need for us. I haven't come to a conclusion, but we're moving to LTM for other reasons. And I'll just kind of go through what I stumbled across and what kind of software it is and my personal take on it. So, the first reason why Upwarder is really exciting these days is the tagline. Never create a part again. I mean, I'm sure most of you have designed PCBs at some point in your life. The most annoying thing is creating a footprint or creating a part. Because it's the one you shouldn't, I mean, you shouldn't scrub any of it, but it's the one that is quite easy to mess up. For example, it's very easy, at least for me, to get the orientation wrong. And I have a relay which is top mounted, but then you have to look at the mirror and you don't know if it's mirrored or not because when you place it, it has to be mirrored. And then when you're designing, they all look kind of the same and you need to visualize it or take a step back and visualize it or look at the component. And sometimes the components haven't arrived yet and if the data sheet, or there's no 3D model of the data sheet, or if you're not as good to understand the data sheet better, you will end up getting really confused and you end up having a mirrored image on your PCB that you just, you can't put the component there. It won't work. So you'll have to put it on the other side and the other components on the other side, lots of problems, probably have to be spinning about. So creating a part is probably the most annoying thing for most of us. And when I heard, so I put it when they came, when they started off, they didn't have this, this came about, I think a year ago. So I got an email saying, hey, guess what? We have this new thing called the pass concierge and then we will create parts for you. And it seemed like no strings attached. We just go there, type in with the part you want, put it in the data sheet and give it a name and click OK. And you just go to sleep, wake up and magically you have a part there. So I was like super excited. Jumped on to the operator that day and I found a random old triac. It was a super simple TO220. I mean, it'll take me like two minutes to design that part because the footprint exists. But hey, someone's going to make it for me. Why the hell should I not try it out? So I went and I just like, okay, can you make me this triac? And then I got a little placeholder symbol to just give you this dashed box and then perhaps I can. So you can just see how, so you just go there, manufacturer, orderable part number, data sheet and you get a little dash thing. And then you can see here it is cute for creation. Someone is creating it now and then it gets created. And then once it gets created, it gets one star. After that, someone is going to verify it and they get two stars and it's like two independent human beings verified it and you don't have to do that stuff anymore. So you just have to worry about your routing and your schematics and the fun stuff that you're generally happy doing. So that was fantastic. This is a dream come true and like PCB design is going to be never same again. So that's how it started. That device that I did create that day was magically created overnight. So when I did it at 2am woke up at 10 or whatever and was there. So it was great. And then I decided, okay, I'm going to try this out for a PCB at work. So they give, okay, a bit of a background that I probably completely forgot about on the PCB. They are this model or whatever. So Ego has a three version with some limitations. That is two layers and some size limitations. Kitecat obviously is completely open source with zero limitations. So Upwarder is free to use. So the basic design suite is free. So that's almost all the features. There are a couple of features that are not free, which would be one is you can't have, they have a 3D export thing like a 3D step model export, which also even the rendering and the export, everything is only for paid users. So if you're on the free tier, you cannot have 3D models. Okay. Another one is they basically are the same model as a circuit maker, which is another circuit design software that I guess is not featured today, where they give you two private designs and the rest all have to be open. So it's kind of like the GitHub model where if you create a software, if you create a PCB for free, you have to open source it. You cannot, if you want private repos, you have to pay for it. That's their personal model. And also they have really good collaboration. It's kind of like Google Docs. So I can be editing something and you will get like, you can see me editing it, you can see everything updating in real time. Also that obviously me has a limitation that is kind of hidden behind the scenes, which is that it's connected. It only works when they connected the web, which is a great thing. It's awesome. That's all great. But for me, I tend to do most of my work not connected or more like I get distracted. Therefore, I don't connect myself to the web. So I try to I kind of program design and basis without network connectivity. So that's a big bummer for me. And Alberta has come a long way from where they started off. I remember the first time I tried it, they didn't have the spots from Seattle stuff. It was just another tool, very simple, very, very nothing spectacular about it. But they have come a long way. So I will just go through a couple of things that they have. They have this thing called guided trace wrapping, I will show you later on in the software how it looks like. This is basically when you design PCBs, or maybe I'll just do it now. Where it's easier. So I have a my mouse is missing. Okay, okay. So I have a new schematic here. I'm gonna add so let's say we want to place a resistor down. So they have this concept of generics, which is very similar to how I can operate in the sense you want to register, please register, you don't have to worry about the footprint. They don't have to worry about the specific device because it's not tied down to anything. Now, once I've now once I've placed this resistor down, I can double click on it. And then I can change the footprint. Let's say I'm being ambitious today and I'll pick a zero two zero one. And maybe not just scares scary. And then you can just change the resistance value to whatever you want it to be. And there you have it. So if I press tab, you can go to this is a PCB layout, and there's a footprint there. So there's that that's one thing about the whole net list export stuff, which I think also plagues Altium, you have to go do the whole net net list export thing, which is, like you said, very frustrating. So they have kind of work around it. I mean, I mean, sorry, they have a much better integration. So it's just, I just press tab, I can do whatever I want. And it, and it sings up real time, which is really good. So let me place a random LED. I can just place that over here. And then let's give it a random footprint. I don't know, one, two, six. And then that's true. So we just have a random resistor connected to an LED. I have no idea what this thing does, but doesn't matter for now. Nobody cares. And the DRC, the design rule check is done real time, you don't have to click on something and do a design rule check. So you can go here to constraints, and it says something is not connected. I have no idea why. What? Zoom? Sorry, everything seems to be connected. I'm not sure why But anyway, so now I can go to my PCB layout. And you can see that the resistor is connected. And those are the air wires that we've probably been introduced by two by the other two speakers. So what I was talking about earlier, this is the constraints manager page where you can add all the constraints. They have they do a pretty good job at this. So I can do something like just call it my tracks for some reason. And okay, so this is basically saying between two different nets. I should have minimum clearance of 0.15 mm. So if I go to schematics now, sorry, PCB layout, and layout, and I do that. And for some, if you can see it, so that's the actual trace width. And we can see the the boundaries. That's basically the clearance around it. So if you change it to one mm, or something ridiculous, it's going to become bigger. And while you while you route it, you will know if you're if you're satisfying your constraints or not. So if I bring it too close, it's going to turn red and say, No, you can't do that. That's obviously wrong. But even something like that, something like this is kind of really nice to have when you're routing a complicated board, you tend to get carried away. You're at different zoom levels. And you don't know how far apart the cases are. And then if I'm doing this on Eagle, I go and click on the DRC and it's like, Oh, great, all these reasons are too close together. Now I have to spread them apart. So if you set up your constraints early on, this is a very, very useful tool to have. And this is a pretty, I mean, it's a pretty straightforward feature. You would expect everything to have it, but not everything has it. And I did not know about this until until last week, Altium 16, I think came out this year, or late, or sometimes late last year, just introduce this feature as well. So and you get it for free if you're open sourcing or whatever, I can't have it as well. That's great, because I'm going to use like it. So that's, that's pretty cool. Or yes, oh yeah, you can you can set the constraints differently here as well between trace and VR and trace and trace and whatnot. So another thing I can do is I'm not sure how many of you have had to do this, but you might need control length or matched lengths. So if you're, you're routing signals that might have risk conditions, or if you want them to have control length for some reason, you would need to make sure they're all within a certain tolerance of each other. So I can select the next next year. There's a pretty nifty feature over here to select nets or select anything for that matter. I can just select nets. And then basically do this. And only the nets get selected, which is nice. If you want to only select nets and move it around or delete all the nets or only select components or whatever. And then I can right click. Okay, there. And then I can create a length matching group. So I come to over here. I'm not sure why. But anyway, you can select both of them and build the constraints and basically set a tolerance. So you saw what the the dialogue looked like. Basically, you can give it a name, set the tolerance. And then when you when you route it, it will basically tell you if your two lengths are off by 1.27 mm. In this case, it will complain and yell at you and say, Hey, the tracks are too long or too sharp. Go fix it. And then you can use your serpentine or micro whatever to you can to match the links. And so they also have a few other nifty features like active layer focus, which you go doesn't have where all the other layers go translucent. And only the active layer that you're working on actually shows up, which gives you a very good idea of especially with a multi layer PCB, where if routing, routing a set layer, you kind of tend to get lost or carried away or you forget about what's beneath it. And you get we get to see all the pores and all the other tracks and buried and blind beers or whatnot below that are translucent, which is I think quite a nice feature. So I talked about the length matching. And also, it has a very nice because all online and everything. I'm not sure. But eagles search kind of sucks. It's probably the worst search I've ever used. I shouldn't call it. I should probably shouldn't even call it search. But the search here is really nice. You can search Vichy, six, six kilo ohm thick foam resistor or something and you'll find a part. So the thing with the parts concierge is with a free tier. The limitation, as I said earlier, the catch is you get five free parts. That's it. All together. So save it for the five super annoying, frustrating, custom part that you ever have to design. But the good thing with Alberta is they have a massive collection of parts. I think it's like 1.4 million or something ridiculous now. And it's actually hard to find components that are not in the database. So I mean, that's a that the gravity of that statement is pretty immense given almost all other tools that I've used. Finding component like footprints has been like my go to thing. So so much so that I design with components I can find footprints for. I mean, that's not unless I can't find a component for it. So I'll basically go to element 14, find a random or whatever. And then I will scroll and look for free ego footprint available and then use it because it just takes me so much more time and less hassle. And the fact that they have 1.4 million or whatever crazy number of parts makes it amazing to design with. So that's a huge plus. Sorry. Okay, yeah, so that's a huge plus for a voter, my opinion. And also the kind of really nice with the features and they're constantly updating that they always email me about new features that are coming up, which is also very nice, compared to let's say you buy Altium, where you pay like what $10,000 upfront. And then it's like, you have to pay 2000 or something every year just to get the updates. Whereas here, if you're using the free tier, you're always on the latest version, you always get all the updates. And even if you're paying for it for personal, I don't know, it might be expensive for students or whatever. But for companies that might really make sense. It's about it's I think it's $100 per user per month. So it still works out to be cheaper than just the update fees. For example, Altium, because Altium you have to or pads or whatever for that matter. It's like $2,000 per year just to get the free update just to get the updates for the for the new version. So in terms of cost, totally makes sense. Although their past concierge, even the very fine or whatever components aren't great, because I actually wanted to design a little board for with Upwarder for this thing. And I didn't manage to finish it because I had one rule about designing with Upwarder, which is I will never create a part. And that's because that's what they claim. And so I tried never to create a part. So I wanted to create a little USB C to micro USB adapter board where I can set the set the current manually, because let's face it, all the cables you get off Ali Express, because I'm cheap, have horrible specs and they will just cry your device. And I basically give them the USB C data sheet, the USB C connector from worth electronic data sheet. And I sent a credit card for me and they did. And it has 12 things when it's supposed to have 24 pins, which was really weird. The moment I saw this, I was like, wait, that's really weird. I hope they have some fancy new hidden feature that I don't know about where I can find the other 12 pins. And I couldn't find it. I waited for a couple of days and they didn't do anything about it. So I followed a bug report. And I didn't hear from them for quite some time. And when I checked again last week, it said update available. So I went there and clicked on the update and I got a 400 bad request. I tried this like just before the talk. So that's what I got. I don't know if it's better now. So if I click on compare, I still got a bad request. And I couldn't upgrade either. I don't know if it works now. Nope, can't upgrade. So that's been really annoying me. And it's little things like this that has been throwing me off Alberta for quite some time now. So I think they're still getting there. They're still refining their stuff. It's not perfect yet. So keep that in mind. And so if I go to the PCB layout, for example, for this thing, this connector is a dual sided connector. So if that's your PCB, it's a really it's kind of a weird connector. The connector goes like that. So it puts a constraint on the PCB thickness, it has to be 0.8 mm. It won't work with thicker because it just won't fit. thinner lines also probably won't work. So it has to be that thickness. And it's a dual sided thing. So you have a the top faces and bottom faces. That's how the connector works. But you'll be surprised to find out with the thing that designed for me. If I hide all on the top, there's nothing below. So that also need really annoyed. So it doesn't work. Although the parts are supposed to be verified and all taken to the pinch of salt if you have a really weird part, and that's probably what you want to use it for. So I'll take it with a pinch of salt. Sorry, they're not exactly weird, but this one's a little it's new and it's different. So I guess it's weird until everybody adopts it perhaps. But yeah, so that threw me off a little bit. And I was also designing another board earlier for my work. I was this breakout for a for an 80s for an ADC. And I wanted to do this. This is something you can probably get done ego, maybe in a week over the evenings or something. And if you want to look at the schematic, it's anyway, so the issue with this was I do not want to create this part. It's a it's the ADC itself. Because I have this policy, not to create parts with a worker. And I asked them to create the part for me. It said, okay, ETA 60 minutes. That's great. Let me go, you know, take a nap and come back. And it should be done. And 60 minutes became a day. It became three days. And it just got stuck at three days for an entire month. And I basically went designed the entire thing in Eagle and came back and it was still like cute for a bit or whatever. So maybe they discriminated against me because I'm the free target. I don't know. I'm not saying that I don't know I don't have any any but I don't know if they just couldn't create it. Maybe it's a really annoying part to create. I'm glad I didn't create it. I found one for Eagle. So that's great. But yeah, it took me really long. And now they seem to have an upgrade that I just found out about. So it's a concierge is a little bit of hit or miss, because there are actual real living flesh, body people making these things. So they're only human, I guess, and they're making this. So it's gonna be hit or miss, maybe they'll get much better in the future. So that's that. And I think I've covered everything. I don't know. This was kind of impromptu. So it's probably all over the place. Do you guys have any questions? Feel free to shoot. Yeah, I think we'll go for one question. Right. If not, we will you post the slides online and we'll ask you there. Sure. Cool. Thank you, Sean.