Ultiboard - connecting pins to each other on footprint

[m22oswald]

I have a shielded connector with two mounting screws.  Both screws are connected to the shield, so if I want to ground it I only have to connect my GND net to one of the hole pads.  It doesn't matter which one, because they are common to the shield.

My setup:

In Ultiboard, the footprint has two pads - one for each of the mounting screws.

In Multisim, my symbol has one pin for the shield.  I've mapped that pin to both of the Ultiboard footprint pads.

Now my problem:

In Ultiboard, the GND net connects to both of the footprint pads.  I've attached one to a GND trace, but not the other.  So Ultiboard constantly throws a DRC error because I have a pin that's not connected.  I know that I can manually disconnect the pin from the net, but I think there must be a way of doing this automatically.  What I mean is, how can I group two pins together on the footprint so that either one can be used to connect to a net?  Maybe this is pin swapping, but it looks to me like I can only do pin swapping in Multisim and then only if my symbol has multiple pins that are the same.  I have a few components like this, and I want to set them up in the database so that when you place them on a board, you don't have to manually remove any pins.

I'd appreciate any advice.  Thanks so much.

[stressed_user]

Hi Oswald,

I don't think that what you want is possible..

Also, you mention to get a DRC error? why? There's no fault, just a pin that is not connected yet...

You would get a message when doing a connectivity check, no?

If you get a DRC error, and it is related to this part, then you can do this:

-I would suggest to leave both connected in your schematic symbol

-In the ultiboard spreadseet view, select the DRC error that links to that pin, and right-click "add to filter"

then you'll disable this warning, but only for this specific layout.

succes!

stressed user

[m22oswald]

Thanks for the reply.  I was hoping that there was a way to do it with pin swapping (because I don't really understand how pin swapping works).  And you're right, it wasn't a DRC error I was getting but a connectivity error.

[Buechsenschuetz]

From the point of view of EMC, it is NOT advisable to connect only one pin of a connector housing to GND. Connecting all pins will yield lowest impedance between any point of the housing and GND. Even if you measure 0 ohms with an ohmmeter (which uses DC for measurement), this does not mean that the impedance is just as low for RF, or in other words, there might be (unnecessary and unwanted) inductivity. 

"Pin swapping" means that you can swap pins, say, of a multiple-input AND gate. If you see that it would be more convenient to connect a different input to a certain signal than indicated in the schematics, you can swap the input in questions with another one. You will have to re-annotate this from the board to the schematics. 

[m22oswald]

Thanks - that's a good point.   I'll keep that in mind.