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jwags818 , 09-15-2016, 04:13 PM

Starting into a new board that uses many of the same features I did on a previous board. I have snippets made of all the pcb groups I want to reuse. Now I had already imported components from the schematic. So when I put the snippets in and update the pcb it removes the snippets as opposed to the loose components. How should I have approached this? What is the best way to reuse parts of a previous design?

mairomaster , 09-16-2016, 03:05 AM

Hi @jwags818 ,

I personally never use snippets. When I want to re-use something, I just copy the schematic/pcb blocks. Just keep in mind that when copying schematic symbols, their unique IDs will reset. That might create problems when you importing changes from the new schematics to the new PCB, due to the components not being linked by UIDs anymore. For that reason you can initially leave the same designators and link the schematic/pcb components, so that the pcb components get the proper unique IDs. They you can change the designators according to the new project.

robertferanec , 09-16-2016, 07:44 AM

Hello @jwags818, excellent answer from @mairomaster. I do it exactly the same way.

jwags818 , 09-16-2016, 08:13 AM

Since the parts in common were like 90% I did a saveas for the schematic sheets rather than cutting and pasting them into a new sheet. It keeps the designators the same this way. Any issues with this approach that I am not seeing?

robertferanec , 09-16-2016, 08:21 AM

That is what I would do too. I almost never start a project from blank sheets. I usually import (or use Save As ...) the closest schematic/pcb which we have and use it as a starting point.