Re: [kicad-users] what is an unspc pin ?
Thank you, Andy. You solved the problem. I didnt catch that unspc was standing for unspecified not enough sleep, too much alcool or something like that J The problem was coming from the ULN28xx lib. The common input pin is not declared as a power pin by default . Everything is running fine now. Modifying ERC rules was not an option masking an error is not very elegant, and the problem would have been reported later on the DRC Tnks again, Andy. Marc De : kicad-users@yahoogroups.com [mailto:kicad-us...@yahoogroups.com] De la part de Andy Eskelson Envoyé : vendredi 3 juillet 2009 00:31 À : kicad-users@yahoogroups.com Objet : [SPAM+Header] - Re: [kicad-users] what is an unspc pin ? - Email found in subject The DRC works by a set of rules. Unspecified pins ALWAYS generate a warning by default. You have a few options. Ignore the warning a carry on. Do NOT to use unspecified pins, Perhaps a passive could be used instead. Modify the rules so that the warning is not generated. Click on the ERC button and then select the Options tab If you look at the Unspec pin you will see that it is set to generate warnings when connected to any other type. You can click on the little coloured squares to change the rules. DO BE CAREFUK as you might set things such that you could miss some critical errors. Andy On Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:16:34 - F6ITU marc.ola...@decision.fr mailto:Marc.olanie%40decision.fr wrote: Hi I have a serie of ERC errors telling me Pin passive connected to Pin unspc what does it mean, and what could be the action to take... I did'nt forget to create my power flags, and I had to multiply the +5v inputs to avoid such errors. But I cannot kill the last 3 remaining errors.. All those errors are pointing to power supply inputs or IC's pins connected to VDD/+5v Tnks Marc Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links
Re: [kicad-users] Re: Missing rat nest wires in Pcbnew
The good grid size is one that matches the libs... Normally the default is fine. What can happen is that if you create your own parts, and use a different grid size then things don't align. As a silly example, say you set the grid to 55ml when designing the part, and still used 50ml for the normaly layout. That would cause all sorts of problems. I've learnt to be very careful with grid sizes when creating parts. :-) OK with ERC that's fine. It's probably a name mismatch as Alan suggests. Dont forget that there very often there IS NOT a 1:1 relationship between a lib and mod. You could have a BC108, 2N3904, and any number of other transistors. They would all have the same footprints, so you would hope that they would have the same pin names, i.e. ebc however some get numbered pins. Then you have FETs, sgd pins rather than ebc but still the same footprint. I've found diodes with pins 1 2 when a k would be better. When I find such problems I normally create another module and name it something like TO92-ebc or LED-5mm-ak. Andy On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:23:31 - acidb...@ymail.com sunblast...@gmail.com wrote: I always do an ERC check, till it gets to 0. Whats a good grid size? I always use the default,which i think is 50ml, should i try something smaller? BTW this always happens in kicad, i could never figure out why. --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, Andy Eskelson andyya...@... wrote: Every connection you make should have a wire in the rats nest. Have you run an ERC on the circuit? The most common problem is that you forget to add junctions when there are more than one connection on a wire. (I'm always doing this) Another problem is that you mess up the grid size and the connection does not quite connect to a pin. In both cases the ERC check you throw up a list of bad connections and draw a little arrow where the problem is. Andy On Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:35:13 - acidb...@... sunblast...@... wrote: when i open Pcbnew, after CVPcb, i noticed some of my led's and resistors aren't connected, no rats nest. Shouldn't every module have a connection ? Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links
Re: [kicad-users] what is an unspc pin ?
Andy Eskelson wrote: Ignore the warning a carry on. I think it's dangerous to make users ignore warnings or errors. It's very easy to miss a genuine one if you're already expecting some non-zero amount of complaints. Modify the rules so that the warning is not generated. That's rather sweeping as well. Furthermore, the rules get reset each time you run eeschema, so the workflow would get rather messy. I wouldn't care so much about unspec pins, but it's also fairly common to spread a high-current output over multiple pins, and this also gets us conflicts. A similar case would be multiple power sources in a serial or parallel configuration. One solution may be to have a list of known exceptions that are then ignored. I just posted a proof of concept implementation to the kicad-devel list. An example of such an exception file is here: http://svn.openmoko.org/trunk/gta02-core/gta02-core.erx Using component references and pin numbers gives use very fine granularity. I.e., one can silence precisely the one error that's not an error, without affecting anything else. - Werner
Re: [kicad-users] what is an unspc pin ?
Warnings are just that, a warning it's up to the user to heed or ignore. Nothing sweeping about that. Modify the rules, to be done with care as I pointed out, and I do agree that most of the rules should be left alone. Unspecified pins are set to generate a warning all the time - so as they are unspecified then I think it's reasonable to use them for a special purpose - the rules being reset is a bit of a pain however. Exception lists... sorry to say this but that's clumsy, long winded, and not obvious to the untrained eye. It may well be necessary for some projects and I can see it's use (I do hope you have suggested that the error output of the ERC is usable as an input) . For most uses I think that the addition of some user pin types would solve many of these problems. Assigned on a per-project basis, and you simply tag an existing pin with a user type and then specify what it connects to. a user pin connection would over-rule the standard ERC Just my 2pennyworth :-) Andy On Fri, 3 Jul 2009 05:46:16 -0700 Werner Almesberger wer...@almesberger.net wrote: Andy Eskelson wrote: Ignore the warning a carry on. I think it's dangerous to make users ignore warnings or errors. It's very easy to miss a genuine one if you're already expecting some non-zero amount of complaints. Modify the rules so that the warning is not generated. That's rather sweeping as well. Furthermore, the rules get reset each time you run eeschema, so the workflow would get rather messy. I wouldn't care so much about unspec pins, but it's also fairly common to spread a high-current output over multiple pins, and this also gets us conflicts. A similar case would be multiple power sources in a serial or parallel configuration. One solution may be to have a list of known exceptions that are then ignored. I just posted a proof of concept implementation to the kicad-devel list. An example of such an exception file is here: http://svn.openmoko.org/trunk/gta02-core/gta02-core.erx Using component references and pin numbers gives use very fine granularity. I.e., one can silence precisely the one error that's not an error, without affecting anything else. - Werner Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links
Re: [kicad-users] Re: Missing rat nest wires in Pcbnew
in eeschema the pin has a name. in pcbnew the pin also has a name. the component and the module are independent and were made by different persons. So it is possible (probable) that the pins have not the same name. Alain acidb...@ymail.com escreveu: Not sure i know what you mean. I think your saying if i assigned the wrong module to a part in Cvpcb it won't get wired in pcbnew ?? --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, Alain Mouette ala...@... wrote: You probably have diffent names in eeschema and pcbnew. Example: a trandistor with B-C-E and a module with 1-2-3 Alain acidb...@... escreveu: I always do an ERC check, till it gets to 0. Whats a good grid size? I always use the default,which i think is 50ml, should i try something smaller? BTW this always happens in kicad, i could never figure out why. --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, Andy Eskelson andyyahoo@ wrote: Every connection you make should have a wire in the rats nest. Have you run an ERC on the circuit? The most common problem is that you forget to add junctions when there are more than one connection on a wire. (I'm always doing this) Another problem is that you mess up the grid size and the connection does not quite connect to a pin. In both cases the ERC check you throw up a list of bad connections and draw a little arrow where the problem is. Andy On Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:35:13 - acidblue@ sunblaster5@ wrote: when i open Pcbnew, after CVPcb, i noticed some of my led's and resistors aren't connected, no rats nest. Shouldn't every module have a connection ? Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links
Re: [kicad-users] what is an unspc pin ?
Andy Eskelson wrote: Warnings are just that, a warning it's up to the user to heed or ignore. What I mean is that it's easy to miss warnings if your system always generates some. You're much less likely to miss a warning if your system normally doesn't complain. This applies also to compilation, Web browsing, etc. Likewise, if you disable an entire class of diagostics, you may easily miss new problems. Exception lists... sorry to say this but that's clumsy, long winded, and not obvious to the untrained eye. It tells you if it has hidden any exceptions. projects and I can see it's use (I do hope you have suggested that the error output of the ERC is usable as an input) . The current ERC format would be very hard to use for this, since it doesn't include the full information. Also, you probably don't want to just make all problems disappear too often, but instead examine every one of them carefully. Those warnings are there to help you, not to add more bureaucracy to your life ;-)) For most uses I think that the addition of some user pin types would solve many of these problems. Assigned on a per-project basis, and you simply tag an existing pin with a user type and then specify what it connects to. a user pin connection would over-rule the standard ERC Yes, pin type overrides could be used to solve this problem as well, and they could help with some other issues as well - including making the constraints even tighter. If someone implements pin type overrides, I think there should also be some visual indication that such an override is in effect, or it will get very hard to review such schematics. - Werner
[kicad-users] Re: Missing rat nest wires in Pcbnew
ok I think i'm beginning to see. Now i just need to find I tutorial on how to make/change modules. --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, Andy Eskelson andyya...@... wrote: The good grid size is one that matches the libs... Normally the default is fine. What can happen is that if you create your own parts, and use a different grid size then things don't align. As a silly example, say you set the grid to 55ml when designing the part, and still used 50ml for the normaly layout. That would cause all sorts of problems. I've learnt to be very careful with grid sizes when creating parts. :-) OK with ERC that's fine. It's probably a name mismatch as Alan suggests. Dont forget that there very often there IS NOT a 1:1 relationship between a lib and mod. You could have a BC108, 2N3904, and any number of other transistors. They would all have the same footprints, so you would hope that they would have the same pin names, i.e. ebc however some get numbered pins. Then you have FETs, sgd pins rather than ebc but still the same footprint. I've found diodes with pins 1 2 when a k would be better. When I find such problems I normally create another module and name it something like TO92-ebc or LED-5mm-ak. Andy On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:23:31 - acidb...@... sunblast...@... wrote: I always do an ERC check, till it gets to 0. Whats a good grid size? I always use the default,which i think is 50ml, should i try something smaller? BTW this always happens in kicad, i could never figure out why. --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, Andy Eskelson andyyahoo@ wrote: Every connection you make should have a wire in the rats nest. Have you run an ERC on the circuit? The most common problem is that you forget to add junctions when there are more than one connection on a wire. (I'm always doing this) Another problem is that you mess up the grid size and the connection does not quite connect to a pin. In both cases the ERC check you throw up a list of bad connections and draw a little arrow where the problem is. Andy On Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:35:13 - acidblue@ sunblaster5@ wrote: when i open Pcbnew, after CVPcb, i noticed some of my led's and resistors aren't connected, no rats nest. Shouldn't every module have a connection ? Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links
Re: [kicad-users] what is an unspc pin ?
Agreed that's the problem with warnings... as you say it's the same with the compiler errors some systems generate. I must admit that once or twice I've given up on some software due to it generating so many warnings that I simply could not be bother to sift through the error file to find the real problem. The visual indication of a user pin is a good idea, I suppose the obvious choice would be colour and / or shape. Colour is not over used in eeschema so I think I would lean more to than than shape. Andy On Fri, 3 Jul 2009 08:51:34 -0700 Werner Almesberger wer...@almesberger.net wrote: Andy Eskelson wrote: Warnings are just that, a warning it's up to the user to heed or ignore. What I mean is that it's easy to miss warnings if your system always generates some. You're much less likely to miss a warning if your system normally doesn't complain. This applies also to compilation, Web browsing, etc. Likewise, if you disable an entire class of diagostics, you may easily miss new problems. Exception lists... sorry to say this but that's clumsy, long winded, and not obvious to the untrained eye. It tells you if it has hidden any exceptions. projects and I can see it's use (I do hope you have suggested that the error output of the ERC is usable as an input) . The current ERC format would be very hard to use for this, since it doesn't include the full information. Also, you probably don't want to just make all problems disappear too often, but instead examine every one of them carefully. Those warnings are there to help you, not to add more bureaucracy to your life ;-)) For most uses I think that the addition of some user pin types would solve many of these problems. Assigned on a per-project basis, and you simply tag an existing pin with a user type and then specify what it connects to. a user pin connection would over-rule the standard ERC Yes, pin type overrides could be used to solve this problem as well, and they could help with some other issues as well - including making the constraints even tighter. If someone implements pin type overrides, I think there should also be some visual indication that such an override is in effect, or it will get very hard to review such schematics. - Werner Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links
Re: [kicad-users] Re: Missing rat nest wires in Pcbnew
In your other post you mention a 0.1uF and a 1uF cap as examples. In eeschema you need to add from the devices lib a C for the 0.1 and a capapol (polarised cap (electrolytic) for the 1uF Add the wires, annotate the circuit, then generate the netlist Then run CvPCB. Select C1 for the 0.1 and C1V5 for the 1uF Save the result, which will generate a new netlist, and then import that into PCBnew You should find that all your wires are there. While you are in CvPCB, goto the 10th icon on the top bar, (Display footprints list documentation) that's a pdf file of all the included footprints with Kicad. It's very useful to have that handy when you are selecting the footprints. For documentation there is some: libs are covered in the eeschema docs, and footprints in the PCBnew doc. There is also a tutorial. You should find them in: /usr/local/kicad/doc (for linux) c:program files/kicad/doc (for windows) You have to drill down into whatever lang. you want. There is a help folder and a tutorial folder. Do run through the tutorial a few times, as it takes a bit of practise to get the hang of things, the key point to remember is that the pin names and numbers must agree between the libs and modules. Also remember to save your libs and modules in your OWN directories, this just safeguards against a new kicad version overwriting anything you have done. Andy On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:10:37 - acidb...@ymail.com sunblast...@gmail.com wrote: ok I think i'm beginning to see. Now i just need to find I tutorial on how to make/change modules. --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, Andy Eskelson andyya...@... wrote: The good grid size is one that matches the libs... Normally the default is fine. What can happen is that if you create your own parts, and use a different grid size then things don't align. As a silly example, say you set the grid to 55ml when designing the part, and still used 50ml for the normaly layout. That would cause all sorts of problems. I've learnt to be very careful with grid sizes when creating parts. :-) OK with ERC that's fine. It's probably a name mismatch as Alan suggests. Dont forget that there very often there IS NOT a 1:1 relationship between a lib and mod. You could have a BC108, 2N3904, and any number of other transistors. They would all have the same footprints, so you would hope that they would have the same pin names, i.e. ebc however some get numbered pins. Then you have FETs, sgd pins rather than ebc but still the same footprint. I've found diodes with pins 1 2 when a k would be better. When I find such problems I normally create another module and name it something like TO92-ebc or LED-5mm-ak. Andy On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:23:31 - acidb...@... sunblast...@... wrote: I always do an ERC check, till it gets to 0. Whats a good grid size? I always use the default,which i think is 50ml, should i try something smaller? BTW this always happens in kicad, i could never figure out why. --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, Andy Eskelson andyyahoo@ wrote: Every connection you make should have a wire in the rats nest. Have you run an ERC on the circuit? The most common problem is that you forget to add junctions when there are more than one connection on a wire. (I'm always doing this) Another problem is that you mess up the grid size and the connection does not quite connect to a pin. In both cases the ERC check you throw up a list of bad connections and draw a little arrow where the problem is. Andy On Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:35:13 - acidblue@ sunblaster5@ wrote: when i open Pcbnew, after CVPcb, i noticed some of my led's and resistors aren't connected, no rats nest. Shouldn't every module have a connection ? Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at
[kicad-users] Re: Missing rat nest wires in Pcbnew
Whoops! I spoke too soon everything worked except the 0.1uf caps. back to square 1. --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, acidb...@... sunblast...@... wrote: Thanks Andy your the Man! That worked! One more thing, in my schematic i had to use the power-flag tool for v+ and gnd. Do i have to enter those manually in PCbnew, since there not on my board ? --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, Andy Eskelson andyyahoo@ wrote: In your other post you mention a 0.1uF and a 1uF cap as examples. In eeschema you need to add from the devices lib a C for the 0.1 and a capapol (polarised cap (electrolytic) for the 1uF Add the wires, annotate the circuit, then generate the netlist Then run CvPCB. Select C1 for the 0.1 and C1V5 for the 1uF Save the result, which will generate a new netlist, and then import that into PCBnew You should find that all your wires are there. While you are in CvPCB, goto the 10th icon on the top bar, (Display footprints list documentation) that's a pdf file of all the included footprints with Kicad. It's very useful to have that handy when you are selecting the footprints. For documentation there is some: libs are covered in the eeschema docs, and footprints in the PCBnew doc. There is also a tutorial. You should find them in: /usr/local/kicad/doc (for linux) c:program files/kicad/doc (for windows) You have to drill down into whatever lang. you want. There is a help folder and a tutorial folder. Do run through the tutorial a few times, as it takes a bit of practise to get the hang of things, the key point to remember is that the pin names and numbers must agree between the libs and modules. Also remember to save your libs and modules in your OWN directories, this just safeguards against a new kicad version overwriting anything you have done. Andy On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:10:37 - acidblue@ sunblaster5@ wrote: ok I think i'm beginning to see. Now i just need to find I tutorial on how to make/change modules. --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, Andy Eskelson andyyahoo@ wrote: The good grid size is one that matches the libs... Normally the default is fine. What can happen is that if you create your own parts, and use a different grid size then things don't align. As a silly example, say you set the grid to 55ml when designing the part, and still used 50ml for the normaly layout. That would cause all sorts of problems. I've learnt to be very careful with grid sizes when creating parts. :-) OK with ERC that's fine. It's probably a name mismatch as Alan suggests. Dont forget that there very often there IS NOT a 1:1 relationship between a lib and mod. You could have a BC108, 2N3904, and any number of other transistors. They would all have the same footprints, so you would hope that they would have the same pin names, i.e. ebc however some get numbered pins. Then you have FETs, sgd pins rather than ebc but still the same footprint. I've found diodes with pins 1 2 when a k would be better. When I find such problems I normally create another module and name it something like TO92-ebc or LED-5mm-ak. Andy On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:23:31 - acidblue@ sunblaster5@ wrote: I always do an ERC check, till it gets to 0. Whats a good grid size? I always use the default,which i think is 50ml, should i try something smaller? BTW this always happens in kicad, i could never figure out why. --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, Andy Eskelson andyyahoo@ wrote: Every connection you make should have a wire in the rats nest. Have you run an ERC on the circuit? The most common problem is that you forget to add junctions when there are more than one connection on a wire. (I'm always doing this) Another problem is that you mess up the grid size and the connection does not quite connect to a pin. In both cases the ERC check you throw up a list of bad connections and draw a little arrow where the problem is. Andy On Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:35:13 - acidblue@ sunblaster5@ wrote: when i open Pcbnew, after CVPcb, i noticed some of my led's and resistors aren't connected, no rats nest. Shouldn't every module have a connection ? Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your
