Dot allowed as characters allowed in netlist?

Simple: Alert the user that the symbols library is corrupt and offer to either abort the whole update or replace this library.

Better: Don't let the user do that. A good CAD will prevent that. For example, Eagle does.

It is easy.

1. Prescribe a rigid structure in that file and do not let the user get away with violating it.

1. Lock all factory-provided library models so they cannot be altered by the user. The user can only generate new symbols and is allowed to copy and past from factory symbol but not to factory symbols.

2. When updating ignore everything that is not factory-locked and leave it in place. Leaving it in place is key.

LTSpice gets heavily subsidized. In the end, of course, we pay for it. In this case by shelling out $3/ea/1k for a switcher chip that would otherwise cost 50c. We do that because it can be simulated and the 50c can't or doesn't have a behavioral model so sims would take way too long. For all those projects where time is of the essence or NRE matters more than production cost. That would be about 50% of my "design from scratch" projects and I've made LTC and AD big bucks over the years. So have many others. Why? Because of LTSpice (and the good support that LTC had).

Maybe some day. I'll have to figure out what the advantages are, especially if my legacy files won't run. If so then the latter would almost be a show stopper for me.

Probably they had a silk screen ink shortage. Or maybe they had just killed another ex-spy overseas and couldn't buy from Dupont because of an embargo.

I called it "DIA3.4MM" and at least PADS let that fly, which is what my main layouter uses.

We use names like MTHOLE4 for a #4 clear mounting hole. It's a circle with a wire stub on the schematic. But it's the pad stack, not the name, that controls the pad and drill.

PADS is a nice PCB package, but there is basically no support any more.

This client wants everything metric and I'd like to have the accurate drill diameter in there. Metric or imperial, there are different diameters for tighter or looser fit and that has to be spec'd. It's also called out in the module spec which the layouter gets as the master document but that can be overlooked too easily.

I guess the same may be true for pre-Autodesk Eagle. Now the support newsgroup server doesn't answer anymore. I bought a V7 license before it was over and that hopefully will last me until the soldering iron falls out of my hand.

That's not actually a pattern. where does the exponent go? where doest he unit go? you give 3 different examples.

On actual parts the markings are 452 and 7134

If you can't read what I wrote, you need new glasses. Heck, half the crap I have to read is much less legible than well formed text with underscores in place of spaces.

I don't really give a rat's rear what you think is ugly. I think functional is beautiful and spaces screw up functionality, so therefore are ugly as all get out in a file name.

So here is a file name starting with the word here which is already in this sentence here which makes it very hard to tell what this here file name is exactly. So what is the file name? See, even humans can't properly cope with spaces in file names.

Rick C.

PS For extra credit, what is the file extension? Are spaces allowed there as well? here.space and more

I would write that as 4m5 m. The 4m5 is the number, the final m is the unit. I would also favour writing 1 mm^2 as 1u m^2, because I think that the multiplier 'prefixes' should apply to the number rather than to the unit, but that's not likely to please anyone.

Oh well.

Jeroen Belleman

Would you dinension something 4m5 m on a mechanical fab drawing? Would machinists know what that means?

Why not use proper scientific, SI units? 4.5 mm

A PCB symbol could be DRILL_4.5mm but a real PCB needs a total pad stack, and usually that is native to the layout software.

This anti-decimal-point thing is weird.

No, I wouldn't, because I know it would only confuse. It's just a way of writing numbers that I would have liked to see because it seems like a clear and compact method to me.

In my line of work, the default unit is mm and tolerances are to be specified according to ISO standards, so the the preferred marking might be something like '4.5 H9'.

Jeroen Belleman

or you could write 10na ot 10zb and confuse everyone :)

I don't know what a and b are, but it's perfectly clear that we have 1e-8 of one and 1e-20 of the other.

Jeroen Belleman

I said it would confuse everyone. it confused me, I meant Zb

ares and barns - two SI-ish units of area.

Both ares and barns are 'convenience units' used by specialists. I happen to be working in an environment where the latter is used all the time, in fact. I'm of the opinion that convenience units should be stamped out, in favour of pure SI units, always, everywhere.

That said, the use of multiplier prefixes with area units are a blemish on the SI system, where suddenly the interpretation changes from to . I'm not even sure if that applies to barns, but it does to meters.

Jeroen --Begone barn, are, gal, angstrom, AU, parsec, etc.-- Belleman

on a

Though I have no problem with the 4K7 notation and I have actually started using it, I only use it on resistors. I don't know of any "standard" for ot her components. I do sometimes use "104" instead of 0.1uF or 100nF, especia lly since many caps are labeled that way.

Anyone who writes a number using a leading decimal point (without a zero in front of it) around here is looking for trouble.