Electronics > Circuit Studio

Can you use CS without a schematic ?

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mikeselectricstuff:
Just started looking  at CS - been using PCAD for many years.
My normal design flow does not start with a schematic ( there are many reasons for this - will probably do a vid sometime!).
I put down parts & pads, create nets within the PCB layout by rubberbanding between , then place & route.
I've been playing around with CS and can't immediately see a way to work like this - I've not found any way to create nets within the PCB editor.
Is this workflow possible in CS?

trophosphere:
It is possible to create nets within the PCB editor.

With a blank pcb file opened, go to the ribbon menu and navigate to Tools>Netlist>Edit Nets... This will open up a dialog box that will contain all nets in your pcb. Hit the 'Add" button and then fill out the needed information - e.g. net name, trace width, and via sizing. Click the "Okay" button and the newly created net should then appear in the first list box.

Assigning nets to pads can be done by double-clicking on the pad of interest to get into the properties dialog box and then selecting the net under the properties section.

mikeselectricstuff:

--- Quote from: trophosphere on August 02, 2016, 04:41:10 pm ---It is possible to create nets within the PCB editor.

With a blank pcb file opened, go to the ribbon menu and navigate to Tools>Netlist>Edit Nets... This will open up a dialog box that will contain all nets in your pcb. Hit the 'Add" button and then fill out the needed information - e.g. net name, trace width, and via sizing. Click the "Okay" button and the newly created net should then appear in the first list box.

Assigning nets to pads can be done by double-clicking on the pad of interest to get into the properties dialog box and then selecting the net under the properties section.

--- End quote ---
I'd figured out the latter after importing a PCAD design, but that whole process is tedious enough to be a complete dealbreaker.

Someone:
Its possible to turn off the short circuit checking and draw PCBs freehand without a netlist, I've done this in Protel for some simple designs that are more constrained in shape/position than in PCB design rules. Just to check for you I fired up AD and put some parts down, you can freely draw in connections between parts but the "Create Netlist From Connected Copper" command doesn't seem to function but "Configure Physical Nets" did assign nets to all the connected copper and then the design rules all run normally. You could very well run "Configure Physical Nets" periodically while routing and do a board entirely without a schematic and still end up with a good coverage of interactive and offline design rules.

mikeselectricstuff:
I don't often want to draw without a netlist (although this can be useful for things like large arrays), I want to create the netlist quickly and easily within the PCB editor.
With PCAD, I go into  "place connection" mode, drag a connection line between pads - if it's a new net it pops up a dialog with a default net name (NETxxxx) , which I can either edit or just hit enter to use the default.
I can also right-click on a pad and do "add to net" from a list of the nets in the design.
As for DRC, it can manually route using the design rules so you generally end up with most rules met. Subsequent dragging of parts & tracks can break the rules but you can just run manual DRC which tags issues for manual fixing. ,

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