NAME¶
xgsch2pcb - gEDA/gaf gschem -> PCB workflow GUI
SYNOPSIS¶
xgsch2pcb [project]
DESCRIPTION¶
When designing a printed circuit board (PCB) it's often desirable to create a
'schematic' which shows the components to be used and their connectivity in an
abstract fashion. The connectivity information is then used to help when
designing the actual circuit board.
gsch2pcb is a command-line tool, part of the gEDA suite, which is used to
generate and update a PCB layout. It works with schematics created by
gschem, part of the gEDA suite, and layouts created by
pcb, a
PCB layout system commonly used with gEDA.
xgsch2pcb provides an intuitive, user-friendly graphical interface to
gsch2pcb.
The main window is divided into three main areas:
- •
- The toolbar at the top offers the usual options to quit the
program and to load and save project files.
- •
- The left hand 'Schematic' frame shows a list of schematic
pages that the PCB layout will be based on. The 'Edit schematic' and 'Edit
attributes' buttons respectively launch gschem and gattrib
to edit the selected schematic page.
- •
- The right hand 'Layout' pane shows the name of the PCB
layout file associated with the project. The 'Edit layout' button launches
pcb to edit a file, and will offer to update your PCB layout if
necessary. The 'Update layout' button forces an update of the PCB layout
even if one isn't strictly necessary.
The update process will carry out the following actions to modify your layout,
after launching
pcb if isn't already running:
- 1.
- Remove any elements from the layout that are not in the
schematic.
- 2.
- Find any elements that are in the schematic but not in the
layout, and add them to the layout (in the top left corner). N.b. that
it's probably a good idea to leave this corner of your layout clear until
the layout is more or less finalised, to avoid new elements interfering
with elements which have already been placed and routed.
- 3.
- Clear your rats and load a new rats nest.
- 4.
- Update the component pin names to match the pin names on
the schematic symbol.
Note that the update process won't modify your PCB file on disk, and will take
into account any changes you have made since you last saved.
