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Technical hints from Premier EDA Solutions Ltd.

 

 

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Component Clustering

Item ID

PC2004-3-19

Author

Tony Folan

Applies to

PCB Design: General

Created

27/03/06

Last modified

27/03/06


Overview:

Use DDE hotlinks to identify components in PCB (in this case components belonging to a channel). Once they are identified in PCB we will use the Design Manager to cluster them together and place them accordingly. The process can then be repeated until all channels have been placed.
 

Checklist:

  • Open PCB and Schematic and open your design.
  • Check DDE Hotlinks are enabled in both PCB and schematic. (Options >> Configure).
  • Libraries relevant to your design have been added (Library >> Setup).

In Schematic, select the components that you wish to cluster in PCB.
This can be done simply by using Ctrl+Left Mouse Button(LMB) or using the Options >> Block Selection command to drag and select Parts.

Make your selection then right click >> Highlight… Now the parts are highlighted (they should remain yellow as they are also selected).



Switch to PCB. We should see that the matching components are now highlighted.

Select Edit >> Select Highlighted. Now we can go to the Design Manager panel to view the selected components in the components list.

The best way to do this is to switch to the component view (found at the top of the dialog ) and sort by the 'Selected' column. This will bring the selected components to the top of the list. Use Shift+LMB to select the components from the list. They should be greyed out as shown below.


Select the selected components from the top of the list then RMB to reveal a drop-down menu. From here select Cluster >> Reference Designator. You will notice that the cursor has now changed to a crosshair. This signifies that we have changed to a place mode. The next time we click the LMB it will place down the cluster of components. We can click and hold the LMB at this point to see what we are positioning. Or we can release the LMB, place the cursor over the top of the cluster and press the Space Bar to then attach them to the cursor. Once we have placed them we can use the R key to rotate (Shift+LMB to sub-select items such as text) the components into the position required.

                 

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