Electrical – Altium – Linking Sheet Entries/Ports with Net Labels

altiumcompilerpcbpcb-designschematics

I am struggling to find a way to get the compiler in Altium to see a Sheet Entry/Port (tried with both) and a net label on the same sheet to link.

This redacted schematic page shows what I have (this all on one page, with the relays themselves and drivers etc. all on a second page):

Schematic with Off sheet connector and unconnected net label

But when compiled, it complains of two nets with the same name (that's sort of the point…)

Compiler error

And in the PCB, it wont link the two together:

Board with no connectivity

I have found a workaround and that is to add the net label next to the off-sheet connector/port:

enter image description here

The problem with this however is that there's not always space to have each net name written out twice.. For the relay1 and relay2 signals used in this example, the off-sheet connector sits right next to the title block for the schematic sheet. It can't move any further to the right to accommodate what would be useless duplicate text.

Anyone know of any settings to allow net labels and off-sheet connectors/ports to connect on the same sheet?

EDIT:
I've though of another workaround, though it's much more of a bodge – a tiny Net label that's basically invisible:

Bodge...

Best Answer

According to Altium documentation, Off Sheet-connectors are only useful for connecting between multiple child-sheets of a given parent page (https://www.altium.com/documentation/altium-designer/sch-obj-crosssheetconnectoroff-sheet-connector-ad). To me, that reads like it only works with hierarchical projects.

Also, you can't connect a Net Label with an Off Sheet-connector, only another Off Sheet-connector.

If you are using a flat project structure, you should use either Net Labels or Ports. If you are using a hierarchical structure, you need (or ought?) to add your sheet entries to a top level schematic (and also use Sheet Entries on both sheets).

An advantage of using ports is that you can add an automatic label next to each port that shows where it connects to (Reports -> Port Cross Reference)