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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 10:06:29 -0700
From: Dave Curtis <davecurtis AT sonic DOT net>
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To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Subject: [geda-user] gsch2pcb -- remind me how it works
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Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com

It's been a while since I've done pcb's, but getting back into it. I'm 
trying to help my daughter make a PCB for a science fair project, and 
I'm hitting some dumb problems with gsch2pcb that I know I once new how 
to solve....

We're using whatever versions of gEDA are in the Ubuntu 12.04 repo.

Problem #1: A footprint for every slot shows up in board.pcb

The problem is with slotting.  The netlist looks sensible enough, but 
lots of stuff like:

unnamed_net26 U9a-4 J18-2

and the .pcb file has footprint instances for both the 'a' and 'b' slots 
of U9.  So, it's acting like gsch2pcb is ignoring slotting. Slot 
attributes seem to be set correctly.  I thought gsch2pcb ignored 
trailing lower case letters in refdes, which triggered correct netlist 
handing?  Also, I thought pcb was OK with having trailing lower case 
letters on refdes in the netlist, and ignored them... is my memory correct?

So when we went through with gattrib, I had my daughter assign the same 
footprint attr to every symbol... my memory is a little fuzzy on if that 
is correct... should only one symbol per package have a footprint attr?

Problem #2: Where are the rats?

In pcb, after 'optimize rats' only ground and one other net show up.  
What's up with that?

TIA
-dave