Roy J. Gromlich wrote:
> For those who never saw the PADs utility I was referring to, its
> advantage is probably not clear, so I will elaborate.

The fact that you can get yourself into the trouble you describes in the
first place sounds like a big disadvantage to me.

> On occasion one picks a part from the library and misses the fact that
> you wanted a thru-hole part and accidentally picked an SMT part.

This is unlikely to happen in Eagle since you are shown a picture of the
board footprint when selecting the variant of a part.  I have never made
this particular mistake in Eagle.  Even if you did, it would be obvious once
you started working on the board layout.

> Or you
> specified an IC using a part number which specified the wrong temp
> range or tolerance.

There is no way for it to know your intent in this case as the selection is
perfectly legal.  I guess you'd have to catch this when creating the BOM.

> Maybe you wanted a bi-color LED with three leads
> and picked the part number for a two lead device.

There is no way to make that mistake in Eagle since the schematic symbol for
a two leaded and three leaded LED would necessarily be obviously different.

> None of these are killer issues, and you would almost certainly pick
> them up when checking the assembly proof copies, but then what do you do
> about it?

You are asking questions about Eagle for a process that applies to Pads.
This doesn't make any sense.  Once you learn Eagle, you'll see how
inapplicable your questions are.  The process is very different.

If you do notice you picked the wrong package while working on layout, all
you have to do is CHANGE PACKAGE and select the correct one.

> In PADs these were not easy to correct without deleting parts
> and replacing them - and that often produced strange results in the
> netlist when done manually.

If you really blow it in Eagle and put the wrong part in, not just the wrong
package for that part, you go back to the schematic, delete the part and add
the correct one.  The fact that you're asking about the netlist shows you
haven't even tried Eagle.  Eagle users don't ever generate, look at, or give
a crap about netlists.  I guess the important distinction is that Eagle is
one integrated package.  The schematic editor and board editor are not two
pieces of software you run independently by tossing a netlist over the wall.
In Eagle they are two views of your project that are "live" at the same
time.  You have to go out of your way and ignore a bunch of warnings to get
them out of sync.

> The utility in question would list every part in the design which
> differed in any way between the schematic and layout files.

Again, you don't have separate parts in the schematic and layout.  They
can't be different because each refers to the same project database.  You
add parts to your project and define their connectivity in the schematic
editor, then define their placement and interconnect routing in the board
editor, but they are the *same parts*.

> Not a must have item, just a nice to have.

Even better, a mechanism for not needed such a kludge in the first place.


*****************************************************************
Embed Inc, embedded system specialists in Littleton Massachusetts
(978) 742-9014, http://www.embedinc.com
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist