Connectors

Device Connectors and Harness Connectors in Capital Systems Integrator

In Capital Systems Integrator, physical device connectors and physical harness connectors are managed in tandem with slot connectors. When a physical device connector and physical harness connector pair is created under a slot connector, the pins on the physical connectors are mated to each other and referenced by a cavity of the slot connector.

When working with device connectors and harness connectors, you need to be aware of the concept of constrained placement. Constrained placement is when you place a Capital Logic Designer device that has a footprint definition with device connectors or a footprint into a Capital Systems Integrator slot. In this case, there are constraints on what you can modify on the slot.

The physical device connector displays below the slot connector in the Design Browser (Design tab) but the pins for the device connector are not listed. You can edit a device connector by right-clicking on it and choosing the Properties option from the pop-up list. See the Editing the Attributes and Properties of Objects for more information about editing an object's general attributes and properties. If there is a corresponding functional connector in an associated Capital Logic Designer design, you cannot edit the properties of a physical device connector. A physical device connector is not represented graphically in a diagram window.

The physical harness connector does not display explicitly in the Design Browser (Design tab) but you can edit it by right-clicking on the slot connector and choosing the Properties option from the pop-up list. When you then edit the name, properties and part specification for the slot connector, this applies to the physical harness connector too. See Editing the Attributes and Properties of Objects for more information about editing an object's general attributes and properties.

If a Capital Logic Designer device is specified with a harness-based footprint, when that device is placed in a slot, the slot connectors (and physical harness connectors and physical device connectors) are created corresponding to the Capital Logic Designer device and its footprint definition. Part specifications are assigned to the harness connectors. You cannot change (except update) the part assignment for the harness connector unless you unplace the device.

The footprint does not specify the physical device connector directly and you can choose only a connector part number with the correct number of cavities (and it is preferred a mate-able part) when assigning a library part number.

If a functional device that has functional device connectors defined for it is placed in a slot, the slot connectors (and physical device connectors) are created corresponding to the functional device and its functional device connectors. This fixes the part assignment and names on the physical device connectors. In addition, any properties on the functional device connectors are copied to each corresponding physical device connector and are fixed.

If a new slot connector is created because of a device-based footprint placement, then there is no physical harness connector created until later when a harness connects to it.

The physical harness connector is not specified directly by the functional device connectors and only a connector part number with the correct number of cavities (and it is preferred a mate-able part) can by chosen when a library part is assigned.

If either the physical device connector or the physical harness connector has a part number, the number of cavities on the slot connector is fixed. Cavities cannot be added nor deleted from such a slot connector.

Cavity names are the same as the pin names for the physical harness connector. When a part number is assigned to the physical harness connector, the cavity names of the library connector definition are used. You can modify cavity names only when there is no part number assigned to the physical harness connector. If you change the cavity names, this also changes the names of pins on the physical harness connector.

When they are created, the slot connector name is the same as the physical harness connector name. You can view and edit the name of the physical harness connector or the name of the physical device connector by right-clicking on the connector and choosing the Properties option from the pop-up list.

When you assign a part to a physical harness connector or to a physical device connector that already has pins (because the slot connector has some cavities), but the mated physical connector has no part assigned yet, the part selection is constrained to connectors with the same or a greater number of cavities. Additional cavities and the corresponding pairs of physical connector pins are created or removed as necessary when the part number assignment is accepted.

In this case, the names of the cavities from the part definition must map to the existing physical pins.

When you auto-place a footprint device, Capital Systems Integrator automatically maps the connectors using mapping rules. See Placement of a Device or Ground Device in a Slot for more information.

If a slot is integral to a harness, you can assign the integral physical connector for a library part. The system reuses the existing slot connectors and their cavities (if there are any) when possible.

For example:

A physical device connector is associated with two integral slot connectors. Slot connector 1 (VC1) has 2 cavities and slot connector 2 (VC2) has 4 cavities. The device connector in the footprint has 6 cavities and its name matches the name of the physical device connector. When the footprint is placed, the 2 cavities on VC1 are mapped with 2 library pins and the 4 cavities on VC2 are mapped with 4 library pins.

Mapping Cavities and Pins

When you use either the Properties dialog box or the Place Device dialog box (for a constrained placement) and this results in a connector part number being assigned to a slot connector, physical device connector or an inline connector that already has cavities/pins, those cavities/pins are mapped automatically to the cavities from the library part in the following way:

Capital Systems Integrator attempts to map the existing cavity/pin name to the same name in the library part.
If there is no match for the above, Capital Systems Integrator attempts to match the existing, mated physical connector cavity/pin name to one in the library part.
If there is no match for either of the above, Capital Systems Integrator selects a cavity at random.

You can use the Cavity Map dialog box to re-map the names of cavities/pin between a physical device connector and a physical harness connector. See Mapping Cavities and Pins between a Device Connector and a Harness Connector for more information about using that dialog box.

During, or after, the placing of a new device, you can use the Connector Map dialog box to map footprint-defined connectors to physical connectors. See Placement of a Device or Ground Device in a Slot for more information about the Mapping tab and its use.

Invalid

Constrained Placements

A constrained placement can become invalid if you change the footprint definition in Capital Component Manager or the Capital Logic Designer device. The synchronize action adjusts the changes from Capital Logic Designer with Capital Systems Integrator. For automatic synchronization (that is, when you switch from a Capital Logic Designer diagram to a Capital Systems Integrator diagram), invalid placements are updated only where the devices being placed have a device-based footprint. The synchronize action that is invoked manually updates the placements for both footprint types. You can also manually update the harness-based footprint placements by editing the properties on the devices and slot connectors in the slot.

You can use the design rule checks for Capital Systems Integrator to check for invalid constrained placements. See Running Design Rule Checks Manually for more information about running design rule checks.

Parent Topic:

Connectors