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I'm making a 64x64 led matrix project. And I have a lot of componets there: 4096 leds, 1024 resistors, etc. So, when I try to import components from a schematic to a pcb file, Altium hangs and crashes after some time. How I can solve that? Thanks

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    \$\begingroup\$ What has Altium tech support said? \$\endgroup\$
    – Tyler
    Jul 3, 2017 at 20:15
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    \$\begingroup\$ Running out of memory would be my initial guess. Check task manager to see if memory consumption rises greatly before crashing? If so, some options would be to get more physical memory or increase virtual memory. \$\endgroup\$
    – horta
    Jul 3, 2017 at 20:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ solve it by buying 64 strips of 64 ws28xx-type driven leds, far cheaper and most of the wiring is done! \$\endgroup\$
    – Neil_UK
    Jul 3, 2017 at 20:16
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Tyler, I didn't ask them yet \$\endgroup\$
    – Anatoly
    Jul 3, 2017 at 20:25
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    \$\begingroup\$ I imagine the routing is going to be pretty repetitive. If you really need to send a board out today and Altium keeps being bugged, as a workaround I would suggest creating a footprint that combines maybe 16 LEDs + 'routing' in 1 component and placing an array of those on board. \$\endgroup\$
    – Hans
    Jul 3, 2017 at 20:39

2 Answers 2

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You could try using compile masks to import the schematic components into the PCB in chunks. This will mask out the components from the design compiler, so they won't be compiled and ERC'd, nor will they be imported into the PCB.

Then you can delete the next mask, re-compile, annotate schematics, import into PCB, and rinse and repeat. This way you don't have to delete components, just draw masks over stuff (which is just dragging rectangles) -- it's silly, but will let you chunk up the import.

What version are you using, and where are your components actually stored (Vault, SVNDbLib, etc.)? Maybe you're eating a performance hit from a network drive or something as well. Getting everything local to your machine you can may help as well.

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Altium is funny that way. Best first thing to do is to delete all of your user preferences to get them back to default state.

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