Zuken Tips and Treats–Halloween Edition

It’s that spooky time of year when ghosts and goblins are around every corner! That means it’s time for the annual Zuken Tips and Treats–Halloween Edition.

Our ghoulishly clever team of support engineers has created some spooktacular Zuken tips and treats that will chase those goblins away from your design process, so you have more time to carve pumpkins and bust ghosts.

E3.series Tips and Treats

Prevent Modifications With Read-Only

When it comes to Zuken tips and treats, here’s one that will entangle you. There are times when users would like to insert free graphics and texts onto the project sheets. These graphics and texts will provide additional information on your project. To prevent modifications to these objects, you can set them to read-only. To do this, you will define a read-only level and apply it to the graphics and texts. The following video demonstrates how to define and use the read-only level.

Find Lost Dialog Boxes

It’s scary when dialog boxes disappear! This video shows how to use the Windows + Right Arrow key to find and move the active dialog box across screens. This action helps the user find dialog boxes faster when using multiple monitors; it allows the user to move the dialog box. Don’t be a scaredy-cat. Give it a try!

Execute Scripts

This next tip is sure to give you goosebumps when you realize how to easy it is to execute scripts. This video demonstrates how to create add-on commands so that you can execute scripts directly in E3.series. After following the steps in the video, you will have a new toolbar with icons that allow you quickly and effectively run add-on commands. Now that Zuken tip is a real treat!

Reduce Wire Waste

This next tip adds a witchy twist to using E3.series! The Twisted Wire Parameters option allows the user to more accurately calculate the required length of a wire when using twisted pairs. Not adding additional length to accommodate twisted wires results in inaccurate length calculations. Using the Twisted Wire Parameters helps reduce the chance of cutting wires too short and wasting resources. It also eliminates the need for further calculations for twisted wires within a harness. In this video, we show you how to set up and use the Twisted Wire Parameters option. Time to get twisted!

CR-8000 Tips and Treats

Convert to Any Version

It’s a fearful thing when you attempt to open that old design and get an error message about it being the wrong version. But have no fear, data converter is here! Just another one of the many Zuken tips and treats to make your day a little less scary.

A designer should have the ability to receive or send data to other users with different versions of the CR-8000 installed. For example, if a designer is working on a design in CR-8000 Design Force version 2022 and needs to send that design to someone using version 2019, they’ll need to downgrade the data to that version before sending it.  This process was previously only available as a batch program. The Convert to Any Version utility is now available in CR-8000 Engineering Desktop Version 2022, and makes it very easy for the designer to convert database versions. This utility will come in handy many times and dispel any fears you once had.

Design Concurrently

Imagine getting together with your favorite ghouls in other parts of the country and working together on the same design. CR-8000 Design Force has an optional feature called Concurrent Multi-Area Design. This feature allows multiple users to edit the design concurrently. Using this Zuken tip will help shorten design time for large-scale board designs. With the improvements in 2022, TEN users can edit the same design at the same time. Now you and nine of your favorite ghouls can have a monster bash! Watch the video to learn how.

Differential Pair Lengthening

It’s time to bust some ghosts with this next trick! There are times when it is critical for the positive and negative nets in differential pairs to maintain the correct spacing and impedance, otherwise spooky things happen on your design. The only way to shorten or lengthen a differential pair lengthening pattern is by using Compose. The Compose command makes it possible to adjust your diff pair lengthening pattern without having to remove it and start over. Without Compose, you can only select one side of the diff pair lengthening pattern. Now that you know this trick, when it’s time to bust some ghosts, who you gonna call?

Now you have more spooky ways to save time. It’s your turn to have a witch of a time testing all of these new Zuken tips and treats. Have a spooktacular Halloween!