Question for those with Multichannel experience V9.x.y

Layout
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I have a PCBA project that I’m trying to get in from Altium and keep as usable as possible in KiCad. It’s probably well suited to a multichannel approach but never having used the Multichannel tool in V9.x.y I don’t know the best approach.

There are two PCBAs, one has two channels one has four channels, the channels are, and need to be kept, identical in component and layout detail.

I’m assuming that one the channels are created any changes made to the hierarchical schematics that define the channel can be pushed to the reference channel and then any changes made to the layout of the reference are automatically ? manually ? pushed to the replicated channels.

I know I can use the hierarchical schematic sheets in both the 4 channel and 2 channel boards . . . I’m less certain that there is a way to use the reference channel in two PCBAs . . . and be able to push updates to two PCBAs . . .

Can anyone who has direct experience confirm/deny my assumptions please ?

Anyone have any helpful suggestions of a workable, updateable approach please ?

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It seems to me that the best solution would be a combination of multichannel and design block for PCB (which does not exist in stable v9, looks like actively in development for v10).

In the meantime, you can try copy-pasting the updates into the reference layout of the other project. EDIT and update the reference designators by hand if needed. You’d then have to carefully run an “update PCB from schematic” with the checkbox about reference designators checked (not at computer to verify name/functionality). In theory you should then be able to re-run the multi channel tool as normal.

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