Free vias added and disconnected!!

[Jackie Oh!]

Hi there,

I'm a newbie to the forum as well as to Orcad Layout. I'm working on RF boards and am in the process of doing some ECO's on existing designs. I just did an ECO that 1) removed connections to ground from some free vias, but the vias stayed and 2) added free vias, about 100 of them!, on top of other free vias that were already there! Does anyone know why it does this and how to get it to not do it?

Thanks in advance,

Jackie Oh!

[terry clegg]

What did the .LIS file say when you did the ECO?
Where there any clues in there about removing any of these connections?
Which ECO did you use, if you used over ride attributes, then the .LIS file may not report any thing wrong but it does do some strange things, like tearing up tracks associated with plane layers.
If this is what you did then go back to your original and try Auto ECO on the files; this (at least I hope it does!) usually reports any thing it does like removing nets etc.

[Jackie Oh!]

Thanks, Terry,

It's too late for me to look at the .lis file as I've worked on the board since and have sent it out to be manufactured. But now that I know to look there, it'll be a help in the future.

I did use AutoECO and it didn't remove any nets, it just disconnected some of the free vias from the ground net. The vias were still there, they had just lost the connection. And then of course, it double up over 50 other free vias.

I'm trying to figure out how the "lock" property works on them during the AutoECO process. It seems some of them were locked while others weren't, but both were affected. Maybe a bug?

Jackie Oh!