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I am drawing a schematic project in PCB Designer and facing the following warnings when I compile the project:

Adding items to hidden net +3.3V

and

Adding items to hidden net Ground

When I double click one of them, For instance (Adding items to gidden net +3.3V), all +3.3V on the schematic sheet are highligheted!

Any idea what does that mean and how to remove the warning!!

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1 Answer 1

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Some Altium parts (mostly logic chips) have the supply and ground automatically connected to a supply net (you can spot these parts by their lack of visible power pins), I've never really understood the advantages, try putting a net label or something on a capacitor with the same names as the hidden nets and connect them to your existing power and ground rails as normal. Otherwise those pins might not get connected properly to the rest of the circuit. Altium will still compile with warnings though (one of my boards had several hundred warnings once because the schematic was in mm and the parts were in inches)

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    \$\begingroup\$ Ah, the curse of the invisible power pins.... \$\endgroup\$ Commented Apr 27, 2016 at 0:48
  • \$\begingroup\$ Faced with the same problem: adding items to hidden net GND while compiling the project. How do I track the problem? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jun 11, 2020 at 14:29
  • \$\begingroup\$ @RomanMatveev it is not specifically a problem if you already have a net called "GND", if not, then you can connect a power net label called "GND" to whatever your 0V net is called. The parts causing this issue will be some active device with no visible power return pin, i.e. something that should have a ground connection but has no visible schematic connection for it \$\endgroup\$
    – Sam
    Commented Jun 13, 2020 at 0:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Sam, i think i've found it: it could be crystal resonator with ground connection, with only two pins visible on schematic. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jun 13, 2020 at 7:15

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