11-07-2016 03:58 PM
I have a pretty serious problem with Version 14. I've never had this problem in prior revisions so I'm thinking it is new. I have an electrolytic cap in a Multisim schematic which is properly connected. The netlist report shows Pin 1 is connected to Net 5 and that is correct. However, when I forward annotation to Ultiboard, it is connected to pin 2. All checks come back clean and if I try to forward annotate the netlist it tells me there are no changes. But as you can clearly see in this side-by-side of the netlist in Multisim and Ultiboard, the net is connected to the opposite pin! This worries me a lot! How many times has it happened before and I just didn't notice because it was something like a resistor where which pin it is connected to doesn't really matter?
11-08-2016 02:45 PM
have you noted this particular behavior with just this one design, or have you been able to reproduce it with other designs?
11-08-2016 03:14 PM
This is the first time I've noticed it. As I mentioned before, if it happens to a non-polarized cap or resistor I would not notice it. Plus this is the first time I've taken an existing schematic that was done and laid out in a previous version, and opened the schematic in Version 14 and transferred it to Ultiboard 'fresh' using a different board outline. The part was correctly connected in the V10 files but backwards in V14.
I made a copy of the schematic and changed the part with a current version (smaller footprint) and not only did it correct the connections but Multisim also renamed the net 5 to a different number. I think this may have helped flag the connection change in the netlist. I saw something in the list of changes when I forward annotated about a 'pin swap' on that part.
So then I went back to the original schematic, did another forward annotate, and it changed the part back the and reversed the connections back the wrong way! I had to delete the part from the schematic and replace it with an equivalent part that I had created that uses a smaller footprint and it would now connect it correctly. I then went through and verified that particular part was no longer in the library. But I think if I open another older schematic that has that same part, it will do it again.