Using "power ports" for global signals

[bluenote]

Hi one and all,

I have a query about using "power ports" for ordinary signals.

Other than drawing "etiquette", is there any reason why one shouldn't do this.
I've tried this out and all works out perfectly.

In my head, I can't see how AD knows a power rail from a banana.
But does AD treat "power ports" in some special way.

I ask because I am working on a huge design - and now have to add 64 monitoring circuits to an already complicated hierarchal design.
Doing this, as a special case, simplifies drawing effort.
But I'm am conscious that corner cutting often works out bad in the end.   

Any comments, insights, wisdom?
 

[krokodyl1220]

If you use a power port connected to some component  pin types (such as output) you can get erc errors.

You can obviously disable them, but then you might miss some other true error. Apart from that I don't know.

[thm_w]

How does this simplify drawing effort over using a normal port or net label?
Its mostly a style choice, other than the ERC classification krokodyl mentioned.

[ajb]

I guess if you really do have an enormous hierarchical design and you need to get a lot of signals from various points within that hierarchy it might be easier to use power ports than to have to link a whole bunch of ports and sheet entries 

As long as the usage is clear to future users of the schematic, and the naming doesn't collide with any actual power connections I guess it wouldn't necessarily be a problem.

Another option you might consider is using a bus or harness, which would allow you to pass an arbitrary number of signals in and out of a sheet with only one sheet entry.  Using a bus requires some sort of sequentially named nets (like 'monitor_1, monitor_2, ... monitor_64), so you'd have to deal with reconciling those to more meaningful names at some point, but you can pick off whatever bus entries you need at each individual point.  Harnesses would allow you to have meaningful labels for the constituent signals, but you have to break all of the entries out in every harness connector, so that might get cumbersome. 

Or maybe you could use offsheet connectors?  Maybe other options depending on the overall project structure and where the signals need to pass to/from within it.

[bluenote]

Thank you everyone for your replies and wisdom.

Potential ERC errors is a good point.
And others who may work on the design may get tripped up by this - assuming a signal on a power port is actually a power port, when it's not.

I think that to move forwards, I'll use a harness. I can then map "Monitor[1..64]" to the signal "name" being monitored in software. Thanks AJB.

Sometimes in life, there are no corners there to be cut 

Thanks,
bluenote