“Why do I need unique net names across all my sheets?”
“Why do I have multiple net names that are the same once I import my design to the PCB editor?”
In Altium Designer, there are many ways to set up your project for hierarchical design. If you choose the wrong one, some of the more advanced features that lured you to Altium may not work. One of the reasons that I switched to Altium back in 2007 was the promise of being able to set up a complicated circuit with net rules, PCB directives, and controlled impedance, and not have to replicate that work for every channel. The following is a recipe to get your design set up for the best design re-use.
- With a schematic doc in the project open, check the “Append sheet number to local nets” in Project / Project Options, then Options tab.
- Number all your pages, both pre-compiled and compiled:
– In AD17, the menus were Tools / Annotation / Number schematic sheets – this changes the page numbers in the schematic files themselves
– Tools / Annotation / Annotate Compiled Sheets – this changes the page numbers in the project definition. This controls what page number it will be when you create a schematic pdf in an outjob, where you have re-used the same sheet in the same project. - Change your component naming convention to $Component_$ChannelPrefix$ChannelIndex. This fixes many net name conflicts with multiple sheets.
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