tracing nets across multiple sheets - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: vini_i
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2015, 04:13:17 am
content: how do you track nets across multiple schematic sheets?i've been working with several layouts made by other people. the design is quite large and spans multiple sheets. for example sheet one has a atmega 1280 and all of the support circuitry. a second sheet has a atmega 328p with all the support circuitry. the two chips are connected with uart lines. the uart lines use nets with labels on both ends. i know that these are connected and it's easy to track. but there are others that i don't know where they go and reading every single net on every single page is tedious and possibly impossible.i've tried using the search tool but it only takes me to one location. if i'm on sheet with the 1280 and i search U2TX it will show me the net on the 1280. if i'm on the sheet with the 328 it will show me the 1280 again.is there any way to track every net with the same name?

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2015, 04:19:57 am
content: Gaaaaah!Thisis what happens when people don't learn how to draw proper diagrams.My condolences.

author: vini_i
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2015, 04:25:13 am
content: follow up question,what would be the correct way to draw this?

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2015, 04:42:32 am
content: Use wires, not names, so they can be followed (use namesin addition) - with emphasis on avoiding the commonly resulting pile of spaghetti. Group them into buses when it aids readability (so you don't have a hundred wires crossing each other); use a top-level hierarchical view to interconnect the sheets (I assume EAGLE supports this). If a signal takes a distant path, put a note by each end stating where the other end is. And if its nottoomuch of a pain in EAGLE, rearrange component pins to group like signals together, making it easier to interconnect directly.Remember, your diagrams are as much for the human reading them as they are for the netlist generator. Put some thought into how you want to present the information in them - it'll go a long way to avoiding confusion.

author: baljemmett
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 09, 2015, 02:49:10 pm
content: Quote from: vini_i on January 09, 2015, 04:13:17 amTry a 'SHOW U2TX' command - that should highlight the specified net wherever it occurs in the schematic - unfortunately the free version that I use doesn't support more than a single schematic page, so I can't test whether it works across pages but hopefully it does...Also, to add to c4757p's advice (which is fine advice as it is), the LABEL command in EAGLE (used to show the net name near each net in your screenshot) supports an XREF flag, which can allegedly automatically include the page number and location of the next net segment; again this is something I can't test with my license, but might be worth experimenting with to see what happens.

author: Christopher
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2015, 03:16:22 pm
content: Eagle (AFAIK in version 5/6) has no way of having a top-level schematic. So this shit happens a lot to me!

author: vini_i
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2015, 01:43:22 am
content: thank you for all your suggestions. the show command works reasonably well. it shows every net with said name on the sheet. if on another sheet it shows the net on that sheet.the xref you were referring to works as well. i found that if placing a label on a net with xref enabled, it will show the sheet number dot frame column, frame row.this works on already existing schematics.