kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Rene Pöschl <poeschlr@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 15/01/18 10:00, Maciej Sumiński wrote:
> Perhaps we should have an ERC rule
> that warns about invisible pins being connected to a wire, any thoughts?

Invisible pins are used for three distinct applications.

The first one is to remove clutter by hiding pins that should not be
connected. ERC will complain if you connect such pins if they have the
electrical type "Not connected".

The second application is to create "power labels". A invisible power
input pin is handled as a global label. These pins are meant to be
connected.

The third application is again to remove clutter by stacking pins. Here
you have one visible pin and several other invisible pins at the same
location. (Normally all these pins have the same name and electrical
type. With the exception of power input pins, power output pins and
output pins.)
Such pins are again meant to be connected.

This means a ERC rule that complains about connecting hidden pins will
create too many false positives. Having a lot of false positives means
users will start to ignore ERC output.

It might be a good idea to have a symbol checker that complains if
invisible pins are used differently than i described above.
In other words: complain for invisible pins if they are not part of a
stack or of types NC or power input.