Macaos Gallery 2.5 (June 2021)

Macaos Gallery 2.5

Test Fixture improvements

Macaos Integrated Test Jig

The test fixture designer module now supports design of the Macaos Integrated Test Jig, a new design which integrates test circuitry into a modular test jig. It is developed for increased reliability and ease of design, compared to other supported test jigs.

The Macaos Integrated Test Jig incorporates an upper press fixture, a protective cover, a receptacle plate, and a test circuitry PCB. This is delivered fully assembled, with pins/receptacles installed.

The user selects an active area size, and then specifies the locations and types of Guide Pins and Test Pins. From this information, the Upper Fixture, Protective Cover and Receptacle Plate (the three gray modules shown at the right) are generated and added to the jig.

Use the Gerber button to generate a Gerber file of the test circuitry PCB outline and pin locations, for import to your CAD system. Connectors and indicators may be placed at the front and/or back edge of the PCB. This PCB must be ordered together with the test jig.

Automatic test pin placement

Test points that have been defined in the Assembly Data Manager (with the Test Point component class) may be automatically imported as test pins. The user need only specify a receptacle size (diameter) and pin head style.

Other tweaks

When publishing a test fixture, it is now possible to attach a STEP file (3D model) of the PCBA to be tested. This is strongly recommended when publishing a Macaos Integrated Test Jig.

As test pins are added to the fixture, the centroid of the test pins is shown as a hexagon.

Assembly Data Manager improvements

We have made additional tweaks to streamline ADM usability. Our goal is to make the process of verifying PnP and BOM data as quick and painless as possible. Here's a list of the tweaks:

BOM Import

• If designators are separated by a comma, semicolon, or space, the separator character will be automatically identified in most cases.
• An option has been added to treat the hyphen (-) as a valid designator character, instead of treating as a designator range character.
• Up to three Value columns (in the source grid) may be specified.
• If desired, all capacitors and/or resistors may be marked as "equivalent or better" during import.
• Right-click on a column to search and replace text in the selected column.
• A button has been added to clear all BOM import configuration settings.

Other tweaks

• The shortcut key for opening the component search dialog has been changed from Ctrl+O to Ctrl+D in order to make it easier to use with only the left hand.
• Additional commands have been added to the right-click menu of the component tree, to remove approval state, remove alternate manufacturer part numbers, and more.