Part Matcher

The Part Matcher matches components of a PCB design with part libraries and copies the information (properies) stored there to the components in the PCB Investigator.

Part Matcher


For the matching process the mostly unique part number (MPN) is used, but can be extended by the manufacturer to avoid confusion if several manufacturers use the same MPN.

This following picture shows how to match components of the board with part libraries.
partmatcher

1. Select Manufacturer Part No: You can choose between "Part Number", which shows a fixed attribute of the part, or "Property", where you can select any property which contains the value for the MPN. This setting is used to match parts in the selected libraries.

2. Select Manufacturer Part No: Additionally, the manufacturer can (but does not have to) be included in the search (selection of an attribute of the component in which the manufacturer is located). This setting is used to match parts in the selected libraries.

"+" -add new library "-" -delete last library to search

4. Components List of all components in the current design with selected values for Manufacturer Part Number and Manufacturer. Highlighted components does not have values for the selected Manufacturer Part Number and Manufacturer property and can not be searched by the Part Matcher. The checkbox can be used to select the components which should be matched by the Part Matcher.

Overwrite Rule

This setting is only available if Search Mode = Full.
library
Overwrite all Properties: All properties that are already on the part are overwritten by properties from the library. Missing properties are copied to the part.
Append new Properties: No properties will be overwritten - only new ones will be copied to the part if they are not available

 

Search- and Match Mode

 

Search Mode

Incremental: In the first library all parts are searched, in the following ones only those parts are searched that were not found in the previous ones (default setting!).
Full: All parts are searched in each library. What happens if attributes are present on the part can be set via the setting under the respective library.
 

Match Mode

Complete: All parts are matched and the attributes are copied to the part.
Update: Only parts are used which have newer data than the parts on the PCB. To do this, the "LastChangeDate" of the respective package of the component is compared with that of the part found from the library.
 
 
 

Settings

 
settings
 
  • Preferred List Path: You can specify a LiteDB file containing important MPNs that will be highlighted in manual search
  • Description Property: Where is the part description located in the component?
  • Library: Library in which parts can be moved later that were not found by the part matcher
  • Show Result Dialog: Show or hide the result dialog after the Part Matcher has been executed.
  • Auto Copy Intermediate: All parts which are not found are automatically copied to the intermediate library after the Part Matcher has been executed. In this case all attributes and properties are copied per part.

 

Show Result Dialog

Overview of all found and not found parts grouped by MPN. With right click on not found parts you can choose between
  • Select All: Select all parts to copy to intermediate library
  • Unselect All: No selection for intermediate library
  • Double click on entry: Zoom to the selected component on the board

Copy to Intermediate Library

Copy all selected not found parts to your intermediate library. In this dialog you can choose the attributes and properties which should be copied.

 

Manual Search

You can search here manually for components in a selected library which were not found or do not have the MPN and/or Manufacturer Property.
  • Filtering by parts in the library
  • Filters are prefilled if possible (depending on properties of the part)
  • Click "Load": Start search
  • Preview is shown on the right side if MPN is selected on the left side
  • Arrow left button: Part from library is assigned to the selected component (but not saved yet!)
  • "Remove": Removes assigned part from the library from the component (also not yet saved, the entire assignment is only applied with "Apply"!)
  • With "Apply" all assigned parts are copied to the components on the PCB (same process the Part Matcher does when it has found parts)
  • Default setting is used: -Match Mode:Complete -Overwrite all Properties
  • If a Preferred List (see Settings) is defined and the MPNs match the MPNs of the filtered parts, the MPNs will be prioritized and displayed at the top of the result list.