Re: gEDA-user: futurenet question

[Ferenc Márton <martonf@datapress.hu>]

Hi everybody,

> well, you'll note that the 'pinlist' one is missing something fairly
> important, the package/footprint name for each part.
> -Dan

I don't know how it should work, but one is sure: we always tell each 
footprint to our pcb designer, or we refer to the desired footprint in some 
attrib, typically the value, like this resistor: 1k_0805, or this 
microcontroller: PIC18F452_TQFP. In ranger, when importing, a list pops up, 
containing the components and the footprints, or "outlines", as ranger says.

But let's start from the beginning, what I've found out with Dan's 
futurenet.scm received yesterday, and the Ranger2 demo.

;; Known areas of uncertainty:
;;  - is the netlist case sensitive?

It seems to me not. Apparently ranger converts everything to upper case.

;;  - any restrictions on netnames with regards to length and
;;    characters?  For example "unnamed_net4" is long, lowercase,
;;    and has an "_".  "+5V" starts with a "+".  Is this allowed?

Max length is 8 characters. I had to convert every unnamed_net* to u_net*.
Symbols like _ and + seem to be allowed.

;;  - Where does the footprint go?  Neither pinlist I've seen had
;;    footprints.  

See above.

;;  - How are DATA,3 and DATA,4 used?  In one example, DATA,4 is 
;;    not used.  In the other DATA,3 and DATA,4 are identical and
;;    appear to be set to the value (10.0k for example) of the part.

DATA,2 is the "refdes" in geda, and it becomes "futurenet partcode" in the 
pinlist without the number, and ends up as "ranger partcode" without the 
number.
A ranger partcode and the number makes the ID in ranger. There is a conversion 
table, making e.g. "IC" ranger partcode from "U" futurenet partcode, so the 
refdes "U1" in geda becomes finally ID "IC1" in ranger.
Ugh, could you follow?

DATA,3 and DATA,4 (separated with a comma) makes the "description" (max 19 
chars) in ranger. When using ranger schematic, the "device name" (max 5 
chars) and the "device value" (max 13 chars) gets into DATA,3 and DATA,4.

So the "res" device name and the "4k7" device value makes the "res,4k7" 
description. So putting the "device" or "description" (or any other) attrib 
into DATA,3 is an open question, but I recommend putting "footprint" into 
DATA,4. Thus the pcb designer will know all the relevant info of a component.

BTW, the footprint is called "outline" in ranger.

why orc@d makes DATA,3 and DATA,4 identical? no idea.

;;  - In the "PIN" and "SIG" lines, what are the various fields really
;;    doing?
;;    It seems that for a PIN line, its:
;;    PIN,,<netname>,1-1,5,<net attribute number>,<pinnumber>
;;       so what are the "1-1" and the "5"?  On the <net attribute
;;       number> I've seen "23", "25", and "100".  Maybe these
;;       indicate signal vs power or some sort of routing preference?

100 means power rails, and 23 means ordinary signals, according to the info I 
received from seetrax.
The other numbers? no idea.

;;    For a SIG line, the format seems to be
;;    SIG,<netname>,1-1,5,<netname>

seems to be ok, according to my experience with ranger2 demo.

;;    But I've seen one example that had:
;;    SIG,GND,1-1,5,A

but for this, no idea.

;;    Despite this, what exactly are "1-1" and "5"?

no idea.

I could send the help file of ranger2, if any of you can read the wind#ws hlp 
format. I got some of the above info from that, not only from experimenting.

Many thanks so far, I hope to include a nice scm into geda at the end.

Regards,

mfer