Pincount Utility

[Stephen]

Hello group,

Well coming from an old PCAD enviroment and service bureau there was a neat little utility that would do a pin count directly from the netlist. This is helpful in determining density and for quoting purposes. The file is called pincount.exe and I can still use it in a DOS window so long as I translate the PADS netlist into the PCAD format. Does anyone out there know of a utility for PADS that will do this directly from the .asc netlist?

Thanks,

Steve R. Toothacre

[phillipr]

stephen

There is a Vbscript you can run.
look in padspwr/ole/unsupported_user_samples/
Count smt pads per side.BAS



It gives a count on smd pads per side, then through hole pins.

[Stephen]

Hi phillipr,

This vbscript will not tell you this from the .asc netlist. Working for a service bureau we get a netlist that does not have the library decals in the footprint field correctly. For example the engineer has captured the schemaic in Orcad and in the netlist format for PPCB the format reads like this:

C1 .1/50
C2 .47

Instead of:

C1 0603
C2 CAP\EIAC

I do not want to do the work and spend the time of modifying the netlist and package it into a .pcb file to quote the design and not get the contract for one reason or another. The utility or vbscript is not required after the board is packaged and placed as you can find this info by just going to File/Reports/Statistics. Thanks for your input though,

Steve R. Toothacre

[Stephen]

Hi Friends,

I have found that you can get a pincount by running Tools/Compare Netlist with a blank database and generate an ECO file by using the existing design (blank) and the New Design with Changes option by selecting the .asc file you want to get the pin count from. What you have to make sure to do is use the correct header for the version. The netlist I received from the engineer just had *PADS2000* and this would not work, but as soon as I changed the header to the version ie for V3.0 or V4.0 it worked like a champ. It will give you a total part and pin count without having to make any other modifications to the netlist. ~~SWEET~~

Try it you'll like it,

Steve R. Toothacre