Orcad to Pads

[OLY29]

I am running a netlist from Orcad capture 9.1 to Pads PCB 4.0. I am having a problem with 2 IC's not being connected. I have run a wirelist from Orcad and the net show up on both parts. When I run a Pads2K netlist both parts only have 3-4 connections and none of the buss shows connected. What am I doing wrong?
Steve

[randychase]

The nets don't show up in the ASCII netlist?

That is odd. Never heard of it.

If you want, you can email me the DSN file and I will take a look at it. I am not an Orcad expert, but I have some familiarity with it.

[Tom]

Steve,

I've attached the OrCAD Netlister to produce a PowerPCB V4 netlist format. Just put the file in the folder C:\Program Files \ OrCAD \ Capture \ Netforms > and unzip it. Then select it the next time you exract a netlist.

[OLY29]

Tom I put the .DLL file in the netforms directory but I can't select it when I want to run my netlist. How do I select the PADSPWR4.dll so I can use this netlister? It does not show up as one of the netlist types.
Steve

[randychase]

Steve, I outputted a netlist from your Orcad schematic. It worked fine with all the nets as they should be.

The question is, are you having a problem when you read it in to PowerPCB or during the netlist part? Have you looked at the actual ASCII file and seen if the nets exist?

On mine, they do..which makes me think there may be another problem when reading it in..or a part problem.

Did you get any errors when you read in the netlist?

[Tom]

Steve,

You have to exit OrCAD and restart it before you can see the .DLL pop up on your screen as an available netlist option. There are hundreds of people using this netlister and I never heard of any problems yet. If all else fails, reboot your computer.

[OLY29]

Tom, I rebooted more that once but I still can't see this come up as a valid netlister. i am runnung version 9.1 of Orcad so could this be the problem?
Thanks
Steve

[Tom]

Steve,

No one has ever had problems like you're encountering. These netlisters are for OrCAD 9.0 and above. I'll attach the PowerPCB V3.0 netlister. Try it. PowerPCB V4 will accept it.

Randy told me that he got a clean netlist from your schematic. Maybe if you sent me the DSN file I can have one of your OrCAD Guru's check it out.

[OLY29]

Tom and Randy I owe both of you a cold one for helping me with my problems. I just discovered that I was loading the file in the wrong directory. The problem with the missing nets was that one of my parts was not being loaded in PCB so it was deleting my nets to the ic's. I have fixed the part and all of the nets are connected.
Thanks for your help.
Steve

[randychase]

Originally posted by OLY29
Tom and Randy I owe both of you a cold one for helping me with my problems. I just discovered that I was loading the file in the wrong directory. The problem with the missing nets was that one of my parts was not being loaded in PCB so it was deleting my nets to the ic's. I have fixed the part and all of the nets are connected.
Thanks for your help.
Steve

That is where I was heading towards. If the netlistis okay, it's a problem with the parts. Always review the error messages when you input a netlist. And if there are any errors, fix them until it reads in clean.

Glad it all worked out. It's all good because we all learn.

I like dark beer. :)

[julimills]

If the Orcad schematic has any P-Spice symbols in it, they will not produce a netlist. Those parts will just be ignored by the netlister.

[Tom]

Very interesting. I did not know that. Maybe because none of the engineers I've worked with ever used P-Spice symbols. This is another good reason to switch to Viewdraw for a totally integrated solution. Someday.......