Hi Tony!
Many, many thanks for all your hard work on the new panel feature! Its
a huge step forward!
I just wont to report about my experience: (Please do not be offended
by the long list that follows. I'd like to express my deep respect for
your great work by being as extensive and precise as I can.)
- I loaded an old panel design and it was correctly converted into the
new format. All board and panel fiducial locations (even the ones I
added manually to the file) are correctly recognized and by stepping
through the placements of different boards I feel comfortable to just
start the job again.
- On the Job tab I can no longer change placements, except for
"Enabled", "Placed" and "Error Handling". That's cool! Could you please
also disable this three? To me there is not need to change them on the
Jobs tab if the same can be done on the Boards/Panels tab.
- Switching to the Panels tab, the upper table ("Panels") is almost
unreable because the height is to small. The other to tables consume the
remaining space to equal parts and have lots of space for additional
lines. It seems that the default height of the table in the "Panels"
section could be enlarged. If I manually enlarge the table, it seems,
that the line of the panel (I just have one panel, hence just one line)
has no lower end. In the other Tables there are multiple lines and below
the last there is gray space. For the upper table there is no such gray
space.
- If I select "New Job" from the File menu, the "Job" tab is cleared,
but "Panels" and "Boards" stay as they where. I've to manually remove
panels and boards to setup a new board/panel. (Ok, I now think they can
stay populated when creating new boards/panels.)
- If I create a new Panel, the "Confirm Save As" dialog is somehow
confusing: If I select a file, change its name in "Object name:" box and
press "Save", the "Confirm Save As" dialog shows the name of file I
selected incl. its original extension. (I selected <board>.job.xml,
removed ".job.xml" but dialog asks for "<name>.job.xml". If I select
"yes", a panel named <name>.job.xml.panel.xml is created. If the
dropdown list of "Object name:" is opened and closes, the name is
correctly used.)
- If I try to create a new Panel and then delete a file corresponding to
a panel, thats currently in the Panels list, from within the "Save New
Panel As..." dialog, the GUI freezes. The camera feed is still active,
but I can't move the dialog or OpenPnPs main window. ProcessExplorer
seems to show nothing special, except the usual high load due to the
well known camera issue.
- Whats the difference between "Add New Board" and "Add Existing Board"
I can select between in the "Panel definition"/"Children" section? I was
under the impression, that I can only reference boards I've
defined/added in the Boards tab as part of my panel. (Yes, you said,
that panels can now also be parts of other panels) To me it would be ok,
if I just get a list of active/existing boards and panels to choose from
with the same names as in the Boards/Panels table on their tabs.
- May I suggest to populate the "Panel Array Generator"s Step fields
with the width and length of the selected board? My panels always have a
gap of 0 (v-score) or a few mm (routed) between boards, so Step is
always directly related to width and length (larger or same). For me the
perfect GUI would provide distances between boards and gaps between
boards and would update them wise versa.
- Panel view of the "Panel Array Generator" is not correct for my
current board which has its origin on the middle right. I'm sorry, I
admit the location of the origin is special and I don't have any
suggestion for a better relation between board placements, origin and
board shape.
- If I change the location of the (first) board in the panel, which I've
used as reference in the Panel Array Generator (was present when I opend
the Generator), related boards are not updated. I expected that this
would allow me to shift the origin of the entire array.
- If I recreate the array in the panel (after shifting the origin of the
first board) the "Panel Array Generator" is reset to its default values.
It would be cool if it would remember the values I've used before (for
this panel/array).
- Child board names are malformed if I recreate a panel using the "Panel
Array Generator". On first use boards "Brd[1,1]", "Brd[1,2]"... are
created. On second run (after removing all except the first board,
changing its origin and recreating the array) the boards are named
"Brd[1,1][1,1]", "Brd[1,1][1,2]"... I'd suggest to remove any
"[<number>,<number>]" at the end of the board name before generating new
board names.
- It would be cool if new panel fiducials would inherit the Part and
Side from the one I previously added. It would be also cool if the ID
would be guessed based on the previous value. Suppose my fiducials are
named "fid1", "fid2", ... it should be easy to detect the number and
increment it. Also, an import function, as provided for board
placements, or the ability to paste an array of eg. Excel cells as
coordinates into the table, would be cool.
- How can I save a panel definition or know/verify that its saved? I
don't see a button or an indication for that.
- It would be cool if new jobs would get configurable defaults for X, Y
and Z. Anyone has some registration system for PCBs to be populated so
there is a better default then 0, 0, 0.
- If a job consists of a panel and the panel is selected on the Job tab,
the Placements table now lists the fiducials defined for that panel.
However, the "Placed" column with edit capabilities makes no sense to me
for type "Fiducial". I would suggest to remove or disable it.
- Panel fiducial check works well and updates all panel and children
board coordinates and rotations.
- Stepping through boards in the panel works for Top-Side but not for
Bottom. All board locations are off by x = -41mm which corresponds to
the board width.
- Stepping through the list of components on individual boards works well.
- If I select to position the camera on the panels or a boards origin,
the previously used footprint is still overlayed.
- Note to self: long list, add some friendly words to the beginning ;-)
Many thanks again for your hard work!
Jan
On 14.02.2023 17:34,
tonyl...@gmail.com wrote:
> The new panelization stuff has been merged into the test branch. I'm in
> the process of updating the Wiki but in the meantime, you can look at
> this PR <
https://github.com/openpnp/openpnp/pull/1507>Â to get an idea of
> what changed.
>
> Even if you don't use Panels, there are some changes you should be made
> aware of:
>
> 1. There are two new tabs visible when you start OpenPnP: The Boards
> tab is now the primary place to define Boards (set their dimensions
> and add/import placements). Likewise, the Panels tab is the primary
> place to define Panels (set their dimensions, add Boards and/or
> subpanels to the Panel, and add fiducials to the Panel).
> 2. The Job tab is now primarily for selecting which Boards and/or
> Panels are to be populated, where they are located, and how they are
> oriented on the machine. And as usual, this is where the job is
> executed as well. There is still some limited support for editing
> Boards on the Job tab, but this should no longer be considered one
> of its primary purposes (you should now do that work on the Boards tab).
> 3. The *.job.xml file format has changed. This new version of OpenPnP
> will read the old format and automatically updated it to the new
> format. In case someone wants to switch back to an older version of
> OpenPnP, a copy of the old job file (unmodified) is stored in the
> same directory as the original job file and is named *.legacy.job.xml.
> 4. Hopefully this one is useful to everybody – column widths on the
> Job, Panels, and Boards tabs are now remembered from one OpenPnP
> session to the next. Also, numeric columns on those tabs are now
> aligned on their decimal points making them much easier to visually
> compare between the rows. If everyone is happy with this behavior,
> it should be fairly easy to add it to the other tabs as well.
> 5. There is now a button on the Job tab (the Panels and Boards tabs
> have one as well) that opens a graphical viewer that displays the
> physical layout of the job (or Panel or Board). I think this has a
> lot of potential for future enhancements but for now is more for
> just fun.
>
> If you have used the Panelization feature of OpenPnP in the past, you
> should be aware of the following additional things:
>
> 1. Many of the issues associated with the legacy panelization (see the
> complete list in the above-mentioned PR) have been fixed.
> 2. Panels are now standalone entities much like Boards always were.
> They are now defined on the Panels tab and are stored in *.panel.xml
> files.
> 3. Jobs that were setup using the legacy panelization feature will be
> converted to the new job format as mentioned above and a new file to
> hold the panel will also be created (in the same directory as the
> job file and with the same name as the job file except ending in
> .panel.xml). However, since the legacy panelized job did not contain
> any information about the true dimensions of the panel nor anything
> about panel fiducials that are facing down, those things will not be
> properly represented by the new panel definition. Its dimensions are
> simply set to the rectangular bounding box of the board array and
> only the panel fiducials that are facing up in the old job will be
> added to the new panel. While the converted job will execute just as
> it did previously, it will look somewhat odd in the job and/or panel
> viewers since its dimensions are not set correctly. If your panel
> has placements on both sides, I'd really just recommend creating a
> new fresh panel that has the correct dimensions, board layout, and
> panel fiducials. That way you can take advantage of the ability to
> just flip the panel over, change its side on the Job tab, and you
> will be ready to run the job on the other side (just like you can
> with an individual board).
>
> Tony
>
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