Switch Executive multi-card matrix setup

[iyeager2012]

I've had a couple of oppurtunities to use Switch Exec for signal switching in some of ATE applications, but I've always felt like I'm not really using the software to it's true potential. So, I thought I'd run it past the group to see if anyone with Switch Exec experience could perhaps enlighten me on a better architecture to use to handle the following hardware situation;

Attached is a piece of an overall system schematic that uses 3, 10 channel relay cards (2586). The idea is that we have a 5x6 matrix of signals, the 5 signals in are AC, OP, CL, N, and CS. The signals out are DUT connections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The goal is that the signals in can route to a number of different DUT connections, but each connection can only have on signal to it. For example, you could have N routed to DUT connections 2 and 4, but no other signals routed to either 2 or 4. Pins 1-10 of each connector are CH0-9 on the card, Pins 11-20 are COM0-9. Thus, to connect  AC to DUT connection 1, you would turn on relay 0 on card 1. The connections are defined by DUT type. 

What I did was define my routes with string names that are easy to programmatically create, i.e. Route group DUT_TYPE=40 consists of the following routes, AC-BLADE_1, OP-BLADE_3, N-BLADE4, CL-BLADE_6. And so on and so forth. There were only 10 DUT_TYPES, so it was mostly painless to set up. However, if the customer wants to add new DUT_TYPES they have to dig into the switch executive setup and could end up fat-fingering an entry. To prevent this, on the test software I look at the strings and ensure I only have one of each 'BLADE_' value. I'm thinking, however, that there must be an easier way. 

I tried creating hardwires for the BLADE_1 ... BLADE_6 lines, and the AC ... CS lines, but it doesn't prevent me from route two lines to BLADE_2.

Any thoughts on the topic? 

-Ian

[Frank-L]

iyeager2012,

Have you considered setting up a mutual exclusion? I am not sure what the schematic is showing (I am guessing by the j designation that these are connectors), but assuming that each J is a 10 SPST module...

Based on the second paragraph I would:

1. create an alias "AC" on j11 pin1.
2. create hardwires from j11 p1 to j11 p6, j12 p1, j12 p6, j13 p1, and j13p6.
3. do steps 1 and 2 for all the other AC OP, CL, N, CS connections.
4. create an alias "DUT_Blade_1" on J11 pin11
5. create hardwires from j11 p11 to j11 p12, j11 p13, j11 p14, and j11 p15,
6. do steps 4 and 5 for all the other blade connections
7. Add all the inputs (AC, OP, etc) to a mutual exclusion
8. NISE will then be able to figure out how to connect AC to DUT 3 using "find route" and will prevent connections between AC and OP and CL etc