Introduction

This is the PCBA Visualizer User Guide Load CPL and will guide you through the steps necessary to load your CPL data.

Load CPL

The second part in the preparation of assembly data consists of the Component Placement List (CPL). This is also known as Parts list, Centroid file, XY file, Position file, Pick and Place file. This file specifies the exact position of each component on the board. A component is defined by its reference designator. Next to that we need the component position as X and Y values. If possible centroid positions should be given instead of Pin1 positions. Finally we have the rotation of the component.

In case there are components on both sides of the board, the component side should be mentioned.

In case you supply Eagle BRD files, there is no need to give the CPL. This information is automatically extracted from the BRD file. A similar implementation of KiCAD files will follow shortly.

When no positioning information is loaded, all components defined with their reference designator in the BOM are shown in the components list with no position defined.

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Use the Load CPL button on the top right to load a CPL file into the application.

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Select CPL file

In case no CPL file was loaded yet, the Upload CPL window is shown with a Browse button to select the CPL file to upload.

In case a CPL file was already uploaded, a message comes up allowing to select whether to load a new CPL file, or to reload the already loaded CPL.

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Determine columns

Refer to the Determine columns section for the BOM.

Determining the scope

Refer to the Determining the scope section for the BOM.

Define column mapping

Click next to go to the column mapping section.

In order to interpret the supplied data correctly, you need to assign a meaning to the columns.

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Above each column is a listbox with possible labels. The following labels are available:

  • Reference designator – The reference designator of the component.
  • Center X/Center Y – The X/Y coordinate of the component centroid. Use the image32 icon to define the unit of the coordinate. By default the unit is mm. In case the unit is specified in the value (e.g. 147.6 mm), this unit takes precedence over the unit specified in the column.
  • Rotation – The rotation of the component given in degrees. Positive values are counter clockwise.
  • Side – The board side where the component should be placed. Use the image32 icon to define the mapping between the values in the file and the built-in top and bottom values.

Submit

Click the Submit button to load the data into the PCBA Visualizer.

In case no Side column is defined, a popup will come up to define the side to be used for all defined components.

In case not all values are mapped in the Side column an error will be given.

The position of all components defined in the BOM list will be overwritten with the info from the loaded CPL file. Other components will be left unchanged. This way it is possible to load CPL files to top and bottom side separately.

In case the CPL file contains reference designators that are not defined in the BOM they will be added with Undefined components in the BOM.

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