PlaceSignalHarness

Applied Parameters: None

Summary

This command is used to place a Signal Harness object onto the active document. A Signal Harness is an electrical design primitive. It is an abstract connection that enables the logical grouping of different signals including buses, wires and other signal harnesses, for increased flexibility and streamlined design. Signal Harnesses allow for the creation and manipulation of higher level abstract connections between subcircuits in your PCB Projects. They allow for a more complex design within the same schematic workspace, thereby increasing readability of designs and building potential for re-use.

Access

Signal harnesses are available for placement in the Schematic Editor only, by:

• Choosing Place » Harness » Signal Harness from the Schematic Editor main menu.
• Clicking the  button on the Wiring toolbar.
• Right-clicking in the workspace and choosing Place » Harness » Signal Harness from the context menu.

Use

After launching the command, the cursor will change to a cross-hair and you will enter signal harness placement mode. Placement is made by performing the following sequence of actions:

1. Click or press Enter to anchor the starting point for the signal harness.
2. Position the cursor and click or press Enter to anchor a series of vertex points that define the shape of the signal harness.
3. After placing the final vertex point, right-click or press Esc to complete placement of the signal harness.
4. Continue placing further signal harness objects, or right-click or press Esc to exit placement mode.
5. Use the Backspace or Delete keys to remove the last harness segment placed.

When placing a signal harness there are 3 'manual' placement modes, 2 of which have Start and End sub-modes. The mode specifies how corners are created when placing signal harnesses and the angles at which signal harnesses can be placed. During placement:

• Press Shift+Spacebar to cycle through the 90 Degree, 45 Degree and Any Angle modes.
• While in the 90 Degree or 45 Degree mode (known as true orthogonal modes), press Spacebar to cycle between the Start and End sub-modes.
• During placement, the current placement mode is displayed in the Status bar. You can change modes at any time during signal harness placement.
• In modes other than Any Angle, the line segment attached to the cursor is a look ahead segment. The segment you are actually placing precedes this look ahead segment.

Tips

1. A T-junction in a signal harness is automatically connected by a junction (Compiler-Generated Juntion). If the Break Wires At Autojunctions option is enabled, on the Schematic - General page of the Preferences dialog, an existing signal harness segment will be broken into two at the point where an autojunction is inserted. For example, when making a T-Junction, the perpendicular signal harness segment will be broken into two segments, one each side of the junction. With this option disabled, the signal harness segment will remain unbroken at the junction.
2. For information on how a placed signal harness object can be modified graphically, directly in the workspace, see Graphical Editing.
3. While attributes can be modified during placement (Tab to bring up associated properties dialog), bear in mind that these will become the default settings for further placement unless the Permanent option on the Schematic – Default Primitives page of the Preferences dialog is enabled. When this option is enabled, changes made will affect only the object being placed and subsequent objects placed during the same placement session.