No connection flag on hierarchical bus

[HaLed]

Hi everyone,
In my design I try to make good use of hierarchical sheets so I can save layout time by using the replicate layout plug-in. This lead me to the point where I have a basis sheet with several buses coming out. Now one level further up, in different cases, I use some of these buses while the other stay unused. My idea was to simply connect the hierarchical label of the bus to the no connection flag if it is not used. This seems to not work. Is there a different way I could make KiCad understand that the bus of a certain sheet is intentionally not connected?
Maybe I am also over using the hierarchical sheets…
Thanks a lot and I am looking forward for your suggestions

[paulvdh]

I’m trying to learn STM32 programming.

In the time I used “HAL” (Some library from ST) I was searching 4 function calls deep to find an empty function with the comment: /* You can add code here. */
I just wasted time following those function calls.

What is the use of a bus going nowhere?
Why not just delete it from that hierarchical sheet?

[HaLed]

The idea is that the basis hierarchical sheet contains several components around a µC that are always around it. One level further up I then want to use this basis sheet several times and connect each instance of the basis sheet to different HW peripherals (via the different busses leaving the sheet).

[paulvdh]

I think we have some misunderstanding here.
It seems that your idea of “up” and “down” a hierarchy is opposite from the way I interpret it.

With “uC” I usually think of a micro-controller, which does not have buses, but just I/O pins because all peripherals are integrated on the chip. (But they often do have I2C, SPI and other serial buses). You probably mean a microprocessor system such as the Z80 68000 etc, which have address and data buses.

Address and data buses with numbered signals work in KiCad. Control buses with named signals are not fully implemented.

Maybe Rene’s tutorial on hierarchical sheets is useful to you:

Hierarchical or flat schematic design, what is best for me? (How to deal with multi page schematics?)

Disclaimer: An unofficial colour scheme has been used to make the screenshots of this lecture. You can find it in https://github.com/pointhi/kicad-color-schemes (blue-tone scheme) Introduction The official documentation for this topic: http://docs.kicad-pcb.org/5.1.2/en/eeschema/eeschema.html#hierarchical-schematics KiCad in general is more geared towards the use of hierarchical design. Small flat designs are easily possible as well but making complex systems as a flat design is not as easy. W…

I am not good with generalisations, I need more concrete examples to give better answers.