On 10:17 AM 22/08/2001 +0100, Richard Thompson said:
>Hi
>Can anyone tell me how to place a component on to a schematic without being
>on a pcb and vica versa? (using syncronizer on Protel 99SESP6)
>
>ie. on a scematic I have symbols in the library for safety critical
>information etc by certain components. info only, no footprint. however
>(D)esign/Update (P)cb thinks it should update this to the board then
>complains that it can't find a footprint!!
>
>Then on a pcb i have things like holes and heatsinks that i do not want on
>the schematic and again the Synconizer complains and/or tries to delete them
>depending on which way i am synconizing!
>
>Am I missing something simple?
>
>As always Many thanks
>
>Rich
No you are not missing anything - but read on. Long discussion including
some possible work arounds follow - none totally satisfactory.
I have been baying for a long time on more control of this sort of
thing. I want some PCB design rules/component attributes that allow you to
mark a component as not being updated by the synchronizer (no changes, no
deletions, no touchies). On the Sch side it would also be useful at times
that there be non-PCB symbols. **But** the DRC should continue to warn of
mismatches to ensure users are reminded that they asked that some
components/symbols not be updated.
On the Sch non-PCB symbols though, maybe it would be acceptable to have the
ability to break open a symbol into component entities - so you can place
from a library but then explode it so it no longer appears on the
PCB. This allows control by the user, would not work for parts with pins
but I am trying to think if that is an issue. Is there a use for a Sch
symbol with pins that does not appear on the PCB.
I wonder if you Select-All in the Sch Lib editor whether it places the
object or the individual entities, or works at all? This might be a method
of keeping commonly used text blocks in one place and then being able to
copy them into your Sch. I just tried it. Copying and pasting from the
Sch Lib into the Sch copies most objects - just not the pins from my quick
test. This might be a sort of work around.
The other way may be to have your standard non-PCB items in a readily
available Sch from which you copy and paste.
Alternatively you could have standard template text available through a
Client Basic add-on. Could even read from a text file and then you select
what to place from a drop list. Would work for standard text strings
anyway. Could even be placed in a text frame - the Sch:PlaceTextFrame
process can help here. This doesn't help if you want more than text -
though the Client Basic macro could be extended to place other entities as
well - but they are not grouped like a symbol would be. (Another possible
improvement for Sch - ability to group and explode collections of entities).
On the PCB side - it would be great to be able mark components as not being
synchronized, but since we can't basically the only option is to place the
components and then explode to free primitives. It would also be nice to
be able to group entities into groups so that free primitives could be
moved as a block without having to resort to components to do so. Unions,
as implemented only apply to components (I think).
Not much joy but maybe something for Protel to consider and others to pick
holes in and come up with better solutions.
Hooroo,
Ian Wilson
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