I just finished a PCB coil and asked the PCB editor of P99SE how long the copper trace actually is (report - netlist status) to get an idea of the DC resistance to see if I need bigger or thicker traces.
The reports reads "Length:-85018 mils".
That cannot be right, as far as I can remember length should always be a positive number....
Ah, but how long have you known Protel :-)
Obviously there is some sort of overflow, but how do I find the correct length (assuming that the overflow is no more than one bit)? I can only remember that there was a simple trick, but I cannot remember the trick itself.
Any of you remember it enough to put me back on track (no pun intended)?
Well, I don't remember the advice, but it occurs to me that there are two possible sources for the erroneous report. One is, as suggested, overflow; the other is a wayward trace that has one endpoing in negative or overpositive space, i.e., outside the workspace. But the latter does not seem terribly likely to me.
One idea would be to delete a few tracks in the coil and run the report again. I'd try one track in the middle to start; measure the length of the track before you delete it. Then run the report on one side; if it seems normal and about right, run the report on the other side, and presuming that it, too, is normal, add the two results together plus the length of the deleted track. Then restore the deleted track, you might even be able to use Undo. If this doesn't work, it might be that the cut-down section(s) are still larger than the maximum register value.
(The total Protel workspace is 100,000 mils wide; the number you report is on the order of that size. So your total length *might* be about 115,000 mils, but I'm a bit surprised to see overflow from that number. I haven't expected Protel's math work that way. Is 115 inches about right? Might it be much larger?)
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