Standard Interfaces

What you'll learn

• What standard interfaces are for, and when to use them instead of pins or channels

Prerequisites

• Complete Tutorial 3: Building Library Parts and Tutorial 5: Designing with Channels.

Steps

1Understand the idea

Many connections in a system are off-the-shelf: a USB cable into a laptop, a CAT6 patch cable between a switch and a computer, an HDMI cable to a monitor. You don't design these pin by pin, so drawing their wires is busywork.

A standard interface represents one of those jacks on a device (e.g. USB1, ETH0). A standard interface cable is the off-the-shelf cable that plugs into it, with a connector type on each end and a length. Connect two interfaces with a cable and Artifact knows exactly what part goes in the BOM, without any wires to draw.

Use them for commercial, plug-and-play connections. Use pins for anything you build yourself, and channels for multi-wire protocols you wire yourself.

2Know where they're defined

• On a device: the Interfaces: section of the Device editor.
• Cables: a Cables library item set to Standard Interface Cable.
• Custom types: if a connector type isn't built in, add it in Channels ⚙ Interfaces → Interfaces.

Only compatible cables can connect to an interface, so a USB cable won't attach to an Ethernet jack.

What's next

• → Tutorial 9: BOMs & Exports — standard cables show up in the BOM like any other part.