MrPink
01-23-2002, 12:23 PM
Howdy, again!
I'm further along down the learning curve, now. What I have been doing is working manually on a new board while the engineers tinker with what they really want on it. This has been an ideal thing, because I've had to use lots of the tools in PowerPCB and have gotten to learn about and become able with them.
The preliminary information about the new board I have is very, very good, and I have all the mechanical detail. I also have the vast majority of the schematic, but up until now, have not had a netlist. What I have been doing is literally manually placing, numbering and routing things I know will not change, and this has been a really good immersion in this whole process.
Here's the thing: when I manually make a connection (all this is in ECO mode, since you can't route a non-net connection otherwise), PPCB creates a netname by default, usually something like "$$$xx". I know what a lot of those netnames should actually be, but there seems to be no way to reassign a different signal name to an existing connection once it's made (or while one is making it). I ignore this for the time being, assuming that the software is smart enough to know that imported netlist names will take precedence. This is a logical thing to want to have happen. And there are now a lot of connections with all sorts of temporary netnames...
Now, it's time to import the real netlist. I do that, and get some interesting errors. PPCB is smart enough to realize that some connections are already made, but then it does the thing I most don't want it to do. It mixes the nets, and adopts the temorary name for the merged net. Suppose the connection is N01794, for pin 2 of an inductor L1 to pin one of a capacitor, C9. I get a messsage like this: "Mixing nets N01794 L1 2 $$$47 L1 2 L1.2 C9.1." It also deletes signal N01794.
I can't find a way in the software itself to work around this, but I have thought of one way to deal with it. See if this makes sense:
1) Export the whole job to ASCII, and include every option.
2) Manually edit those temorary netnames (since the error log notes them all) in the ASCII file to the correct values, and save.
3) Import the whole thing.
Shouldn't this work? Is there an easier way?
-Pink
I'm further along down the learning curve, now. What I have been doing is working manually on a new board while the engineers tinker with what they really want on it. This has been an ideal thing, because I've had to use lots of the tools in PowerPCB and have gotten to learn about and become able with them.
The preliminary information about the new board I have is very, very good, and I have all the mechanical detail. I also have the vast majority of the schematic, but up until now, have not had a netlist. What I have been doing is literally manually placing, numbering and routing things I know will not change, and this has been a really good immersion in this whole process.
Here's the thing: when I manually make a connection (all this is in ECO mode, since you can't route a non-net connection otherwise), PPCB creates a netname by default, usually something like "$$$xx". I know what a lot of those netnames should actually be, but there seems to be no way to reassign a different signal name to an existing connection once it's made (or while one is making it). I ignore this for the time being, assuming that the software is smart enough to know that imported netlist names will take precedence. This is a logical thing to want to have happen. And there are now a lot of connections with all sorts of temporary netnames...
Now, it's time to import the real netlist. I do that, and get some interesting errors. PPCB is smart enough to realize that some connections are already made, but then it does the thing I most don't want it to do. It mixes the nets, and adopts the temorary name for the merged net. Suppose the connection is N01794, for pin 2 of an inductor L1 to pin one of a capacitor, C9. I get a messsage like this: "Mixing nets N01794 L1 2 $$$47 L1 2 L1.2 C9.1." It also deletes signal N01794.
I can't find a way in the software itself to work around this, but I have thought of one way to deal with it. See if this makes sense:
1) Export the whole job to ASCII, and include every option.
2) Manually edit those temorary netnames (since the error log notes them all) in the ASCII file to the correct values, and save.
3) Import the whole thing.
Shouldn't this work? Is there an easier way?
-Pink