Brad, Yes, and it can be quite common if you are not careful.
Sometimes I will select a PAD and think I have a COMPONENT, and the result is that I will move that PAD independent of the COMPONENT, either by dragging it or changing its location in a dialogue box, irrespective of primitives being locked or not. Whenever I think that I may have moved a PAD, I always go back to the library and "update" the COMPONENT to make sure everything is back in the right place. While I cannot list all of the various modes in which it is possible to select a PAD when you think you are selecting something else, this usually has happened to me when I am doing things very quickly, and while I am not aware just what all of the rules involved are and therefore can't say exactly what I did to select a PAD as opposed to a whole COMPONENT, I realize that the pad has moved without understanding how I selected it. I know that different rules apply in different modes. For example: If I have an IC in a dense layout with tracks underneath it on several layers, and I try to select a pad by holding down the left mouse button, I will usually see a box offering either the COMPONENT itself or several tracks or other objects that are underneath the PAD I am attempting to select, but it will not contain the PAD itself. However if I double click on the same PAD, that box will have the PAD listed in it and will allow me to select the PAD and open a Dialogue on it, where, among other things, I can change its location. I know that several times when I have wanted to move a COMPONENT a precise distance, say 5 mils in the +X direction, I have quickly selected the COMPONENT, changed the X coordinate value, and then closed the dialogue box only to find out that I had selected and moved only a PAD of the COMPONENT rather than the COMPONENT itself. Is it possible that this could have happened to you? JaMi Smith -----Original Message----- From: Brad Velander [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2002 10:48 AM To: Protel EDA Forum List Server (E-mail) Subject: [PEDA] Footprint pads moving during or after copy/paste/move processes. Hi all, why do I usually get these weird ones? One of our engineers just came to me with an alignment issue for a couple pads within a footprint on a test pcb. Sure enough two pads within the 8 pad device are visibly shifted on the board. Checked the PCB file and the pads are shifted. Checked the library and the part is correct. Better then all of this so far, the test board involved actually had this section of circuitry copied from the main board after the main board was completed, the main board does not have the problem. Here is the events that led to this problem. I designed the main (full) pcb, everything is correct. I selected a subsection of the circuit and copied it to make a small test board. When I pasted this subsection into the test board I moved, rotated the selection to fit within the test board outline. Then I edited some component locations and attached pertinent traces. I did not, read never, unlock the primitives of the problem footprint. The result, I have a footprint where three pads are visibly shifted from their original locations within the footprint. It is a 8 pin ceramic package with a pinout similar to the number pattern below. The device is centered over an origin of 0,0 in the footprint library. The first pattern I show is as it should be, the second pattern is how it turned out, note 2 and 6 pads are shifted alternately left and right, pad three was also shifted vertically downwards slightly towards the center of the device. 1 2 3 1 2 3 8 0,0 4 8 0,0 4 7 6 5 7 6 5 Has anybody ever seen this problem? Any ideas on it's cause? How would you check for it in the future, without checking every single footprint? Remember, the original board this was copied from is fine, I didn't unlock the primitives of the component after copying it. All I did was paste, rotate, move the copied selection. Sincerely, Brad Velander. Lead PCB Designer Norsat International Inc. Microwave Products Tel (604) 292-9089 (direct line) Fax (604) 292-9010 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.norsat.com See us at Booth S8155 at NAB 2002 in Las Vegas April 8 - 11. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
