I can take pedantic. I knew DB wasn’t the correct description for this unit but wasn’t sure what exactly it should be. Thank you for the correction. Carrying on.
Is this where you would use “3 units per package”?
That would make sense to me.
I agree, except for specialized usages where one would group pins by function (or by what pins are needed on a particular sheet in a hiearchial schematic), breaking it out by row makes the most generic sense.
Oh, I noticed a copy-paste error there @jos. On your A and B parts you forgot to add the internal graphics. I know this was probably just a quick and dirty example to help @bwilliams60, but if you ever plan on using that symbol you may want to add that small (aesthetic) detail.
1 Like
@SembazuruCDE, are you referring to the missed connection on pin #1, 22 and 43 or is there something else I am missing?
Also, how did you make the circle inside the symbol (female terminal?) and if it was male, how would you fill it?
I am looking at the circle function but when I use it, the circle comes out rather large.
Since that connector consists of three physical rows it somewhat suggests a three unit part as an initial approach,
Well spotted 
The properties of those graphical elements for the 20 contacts can be set common to all units, however the remaining two for units A, B need to be by themselfs.
Actually, I had missed that until you pointed it out. I was referring to the missing line and circle on pins 21 and 42. Those bits are aesthetic only. Jos changed the grid TEMPORARILY to draw the fancy pictures. If you want an empty circle, you can edit the circle properties to remove the fill. As to changing the graphic circle based on connector gender, that is up to you. If you want to match the style of the standard libraries they have male pins with circles filled with foreground, and female sockets with circles that aren’t filled.
So you don’t get even more confused, those circles that you see on the pins in this screenshot:
Those are the connection points of the pins, not graphical circles. I.e. when you draw your schematic that is the end of the pin that you want to connect the wire to. On the schematic, you should see that open circle until you connect a wire to that end. (Unconnected wire ends on the schematic will have a small square the same color as the wire.) Once you connect a wire to the pin (or place a no-connect symbol), that small circle will vanish letting you know that you have made a connection there. Or in the case of the no-connect symbol, you’ve verified to KiCad that you intend for the pin to float. If you see a small green square overlapping a small dark red circle where you are trying to connect a wire to a symbol you will know that no actual net connection will be made there when exporting to the PCB. Likely you have a grid problem (see the note below).
A big note about drawing schematic symbols and the grid. When placing the pins for your symbols you MUST place them on the same coarse grid that you use for drawing the schematic. Currently, EESchema requires that wire ends and pin ends be within 0.001mm (I think, could be wrong, but it is very close) to make a net connection. Unfortunately, there is not yet any sort of object snap in EESchema, so you must rely on the grid snap to connect wires to pins. EESchema defaults to a 0.05" grid out of the box so the standard libraries are designed to either a 0.1" or 0.05" grid (smaller grid only if necessary for spacing).
Okay here is what I have so far. Is there a way to connect these wires without the mess or am I going to have 62 wires running on this schematic. Also, what about the right size where it goes outside the frame? How do I fix that?
Try flipping your connector vertically to make the routing easy, or make use of the local labels to name your pins, less clutter but more typing.
Would it be better for me to put more pins in each row? It is only the schematic right? Placement is more for the PCB section??
Are you aware of labels? In a lot of cases these make it a lot easier to get a readable schematic for such high pin count components.
I went ahead and connected all my junction posts to my 62 pin and now I have this:
I guess labels would make it much easier? Or cleaner.
Whats next?
Next step is to assign footprints and send to the PCB. Arrange the footprints to where they need to be and route. The board outline will be drawn with lines on the Edge.Cuts layer.
As an asside, I probably would have used the 3-unit style symbol for this connector. Because the pin numbers are interleaved, I think the 3 units would make more sense when trying to figure out the pinouts later. At least you did connect J1 to pin 1, J2 to pin 2, etc.
Yes I agree. Is that where I would put “3” units per package?
It is all a big lesson for me and I thank you guys for your help. Next one I will know what to do.
Yes.
And no. 
Without knowing what the circuit is intended to do and what the connections actually do, then 3 based on physical properties of the connector makes sense. Now, if we know what some of the pins will connect to we might suggest a number of units based on circuit logistics. If 10 of these pins were power pins, they could be lumped together in one unit. LED matrix? Another logical unit.
1 Like
At the beginning of the article I put a picture of a similar unit. It is just a breakout box. It connects to a control module and then you plug your DVOM into it to take measurements only. Low current. No power, no ground, Just ports.
Okay I have ran the annotation and the electrical checks and now I am looking at footprints. My part # from Digikey is A-HDS 62 A-KG/T. I see 4 footprints in the footprint library. Do I choose one of these or do I build my own?
That is what you are dealing with as connector.
There are quite a few variants of ‘DSUB-62-HD_’ in the footprint library. You want to check with above data sheet and/or your mechanical requirements.
The last page of this datasheet is a perfect example of “even datasheets can be wrong”. The diameter and radius specced out for the panel cutout cannot be 15mm. The normal jack-screw is based on #4-40 thread size, and the clearance hole for a #4 machine screw according to my Screw Chek’r is a #33 drill (0.113", 2.8702mm).
I will check it over and pay close attention to the details. I don’t want to do this twice for obvious reasons. I will post it back here in a day or so when I have it ready. Thanks for the help.
Okay I am looking at the first drawing for footprints and two questions come up.
- What is the edge pin offset and housed mounting holes offset?
- Here is a link to may part. Is the mounting hole incorrect for this drawing? Can I modify this footprint to fit this part?
http://www.assmann-wsw.com/fileadmin/datasheets/ASS_4897_CO.pdf
