I have a 4-channel amplifier design, I created the schematic within a hierarchical sheet and then created the pc layout for it. Each section has 4 channel out puts, and I need 4 sections. I copied the hierarchical sheet 3 times to create 4 copies, then used the Replicate Layout to copy the pc layout for all sections, and that all worked great. But now the schematic hierarchical sheets are permanently linked and I cannot make individual edits on the sheets. For example, sheet one has 4 hierarchy OUTPUT pins designated as: AMP1OUT1, AMP1OUT2, AMP1OUT3, AMP1OUT4. Now all 4 sheets have those identical heirarcy designations. If I go to sheet 2 and change hierarchy output designation AMP1OUT1 to be AMP2OUT1 (which is what I want) then that change shows up on all sheets. I cannot make individual changes to the hierarcy pin output designations, any change on any sheet is duplicated across all sheets. Is there a way to get the hierarcy IN and OUT designations on each of the hierarchical sheets to be able to be individually specified instead of any change on any sheet instantly appearing on all of the sheets? Is this a side-effect of using the Replicate Layout tool?
This is by design. It is just one schematic sheet, referenced four times in your project. The only thing (that I know of) that uses some trickery to make those instances different is the RefDes of the schematic symbols.
If you use hierarchical labels to break out the outputs to the “root” sheet, then just give them names of “Out_1” though “Out_4”. and you can put other labels on them on the root sheet.
Thanks for the reply, actually I found the answer already. It was a stupid mistake that all of the hierarchy sheets were using the same file name. I just deleted the 3 new sheets and then re-created them being sure to specify a new unique file name for each sheet. All is good now.
This is the normal way to use hierarchical sheets. If you use all different schematic files for the instances of your amplifier, then the Replicate Layout plugin does not work anymore.
Good to know … then I guess I accidentally did it the right way (LOL). I created the instances of the hierarchy sheets using “copy” on the root, and then with them all using the same file I created the multiple blocks of the pc with Replicate Layout. I then went to the root file and deleted the 3 extra sheets and then re-entered them one-by-one specifying a unique new filename for each sheet. Now the sheets are independent and I can lable the IN and OUT pins of each as required. Fortunately all of the reference designations remained the same, so when I went to the pcb and did Update from Schematic, only the net names for the OUT pins changed to the new names I had entered. Whew.
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