Re: gEDA-user: footprint=none

[Bill Wilson <billw@wt.net>]

On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 11:46:36 -0500
Eric Winsor <ewinsor@srl-sdl.org> wrote:

> This should work great.  Connectors that are not designed to be soldered 
> directly to a PCB would then continue to be footprint=none.  Then:
> 
> 1. When they are placed in a PCB schematic they will fall into option 2 
> and the designer will then have to pick the pad patern he desires to 
> hard wire the connector to.  Here I am assuming that I have to pick 
> another footprint in gschem before I run gsch2pcb.  Am I correct?
> This allows for none to be used as a place holder too.

That's right, if you don't pick a footprint before you run gsch2pcb
then the generated netlist will have nets for a component that's not on
the PC board.

> 2. When they are used in a cable schematic they will be fine because no 
> PCB layout is to be done and gsch2pcb will not be used on the schematic 
> file.

Yes.

> However, if a third case of the designer placing the cable schematic in 
> with the PCB schematic happens then option 3 occures because the 
> designer will have to either use graphical lines in place of nets and 
> use the "empty-footprint none" option or deal with the PCB warnings of 
> an incomplete layout.
> 
> This encourages seperating schematics into what will be soldered on the 
> PCB and what is not.
> 
> Are we thinking the same?

That all sounds like what I was thinking.  I think for simple cases if it's
noted on the schematic that a component is off the PC board, say a panel
mounted switch or something, it would be OK to have it with an empty
footprint and then draw to it graphical lines labeled as an off board
hookup.  But for more complex wiring I agree it would be cleaner to just
have separate schematics.

Bill