How to Sync Schematic to PCB

[Rookie101]

My predecessor did not create a netlist to create his PCB's. He simply edited the schematic and PCB separately, thus they no longer talk to each other. I'm new at ORCAD, first time user. I'm looking for some guidence on how to go about trying to get the Schematic to reflect the current PCB in production before I start making my changes to the design. HELP!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you.

[mahui625]

no way.If ok,please tell me.

[BOCircuits]

You will have to reverse engineer the OrCAD PCB layout file. The first thing you can do is save the OrCAD PCB .max file as a .llb You can do this in the SAVE AS, choose llb. This will give you all the PCB footprints used in the PCB file that your predecessor made.

Use these .llb PCB footprint names in the schematic file for PCB footprint. Generate the schematic netlist (.mnl). Since your predecessor was updating schematic and PCB, there is a resonable chance things will match. When you go to generate the ECO update, at least your PCB will be saved as "filename-1.max, thus not corrupting the original .max file used in production.

This is about the only way to try and establish a relationship between the OrCAD .dsn schematic and OrCAD .max PCB. You will probably go thru some editing to get it to be right.

The above is all assuming your using both OrCAD Capture and Layout software. If the PCB is done in a different software package, then you just have to experiment with outputing netlists to sync your PCB database.

Hope this helps, good luck.