Re: gEDA-user: Specifications

[Art Fore <art.fore@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 2006-07-19 at 15:09 -0700, ldoolitt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 19, 2006 at 02:56:28PM -0700, Art Fore wrote:
> > We only need about 18 inches X 18 inches and up to 24 layers. How about
> > ground planes? Does it also handle split ground planes?
> 
> Heretic!  Ground planes are by definition not split!
> Fortunately for you, PCB is agnostic on the subject.  :-)
> Yes, it can handle split ground planes.

Split ground planes are useful when you have Digital and Analog circuits
on the same board. You do not want to overlap digital and analog ground
planes unless you want noisy analog circuits.
> 
> > What about the schematic capture, does it do hierarchial schematics?
> > That is where, for example, you may have 32-channels of identical
> > cicuitry and you do a schematic of one channel, then on the upper level,
> > you use a symbol to represent that schematic 32 times.
> 
> I can't speak for gschem.  I use xcircuit, and it handles
> this just fine (admittedly with a little help from perl).
> But simple cross-probing between the schematic and layout
> is beyond that lashup.  My approach to multichannel design
> mandates that the part numbers are coded with channel number.
> For example, all resistors for channel 1 have the form R1xx,
> and all resistors of the form Rx01 serve the same purpose in
> their respective channels.  Not doing this leads to madness.

Yes, the channel # along with the refdes is the only way to go. In
DxDesigner, it is very easy. You just add REFES-PREFIX= and the prefix
to your upper level symbol. Since you will already have done the refdes
on the underlying schematic, it will just add the channel prefix to the
refdes on the lower level schematic.

Will look at xcircuit.
> 
> > DxDatabook also interfaces to your corporate parts
> > database and you can link a datasheet to the part so you can have the
> > datasheet at the click of a mouse.
> 
> If your corporate parts database is publicly documented, we can
> arrange to use it.  gEDA tools don't keep secrets.

I have a Postgresql database of about 3,000 parts, mostly surface mount,
if anyone is interested. I can export it to many others also. Have to
dig it out of my packed items, I am headed for Taiwan for a year as a
consultant, though. Need to do it anyhow as I have reinstalled WinXP
running in a virtual machine under Suse 10.1. (DXDesigner and PADS are
the only two programs I run under Windows)
> 
>     - Larry

Would like to go to gEDA as ePD (DxDesigner (aka Viewdraw), DxDatabook)
is so expensive as is PADS Power PCB, about $40,000 to $60,000,
depending on options. Can't stand Orcan, it has caused too many
problems. I do find the cross-probing and DxDatabook very valuable, time
saving, and better accuracy though.

Art



_______________________________________________
geda-user mailing list
geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user