Eagle Tips, Tricks, Help and other Useful Information

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RnFR
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Post by RnFR »

ok. i was using a width of 0 so that i could get a nice tight outline around the traces. with a larger trace width, you get a big bubbly space around your traces for the ground plane that i wasn't very fond of. i guess i may have to make it bigger. once you have all of your traces and your ground plane drawn, eagle won't let you draw anymore traces. so i was having a problem that way as well. maybe i have to draw the short traces before the ground plane. also, maybe could i use the rectangle function and assign that to ground to get it to connect? i'll try some things out and report back.

-----

alright!

you have to erase your ground plane, rat's nest, and then you can put in small traces before you lower the width, make a new ground plane, and then you are good to go.

thanks for the help madbean!
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Post by RnFR »

one more thing- if the part is connected to ground properly in the schematic, you shouldn't have to assign the trace to ground separately. it should connect to ground when rat's nested.

i want to say thanks again to madbean. your insights have been very helpful!
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Post by RnFR »

alright, got another eagle question-

when exporting images and printing, how do you get a 1:1 ratio so that your layout is the correct size every time? is there some way to export into a .pdf, or do you always have to resize after printing?

this one is probably a bit simpler, maybe not, but how do figure out the exact size for your layout? is it shown somewhere in eagle? or do you just have to count it out with the graph?


thanks!

abe.
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Post by Broadcaster »

Depends on what you will print to - the easy way is to export to say 600dpi and drop it into an empty document the size you will print (A4 in may case, since I use overhead transparencies) with the same resolution, so it stays 1:1. Once the A4 document is filled with PCBs I print without any scaling. It's more a question of image editing than Eagle, you just have too keep your resolution the same and have a template in the correct size. The problem is to get the material you will print to in smaller sizes, if you don't want to wait until an A4 or whatever is filled... but A5 is half an A4 and so on, so with scissors this can be overcome. If all fails and you're lost there are measurement tools in any picture editing software and you can measure known pinouts and scale by hand (no fun there). Well, there are other ways but this works for me.

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Post by madbean »

What you want to do here is manage the size by units. My approach is to first set my grid to MM in layout, then draw out the approximate size I'm wanting in the dimension layer. I use the datasheet for the enclosure as a guide. For example, a 1590B will accommodate a 54mm or so PCB (side to side) and maybe 65mm lengthwise. So, first I set the grid spacing to 54mm with a multiple of 1 and draw out a rectangle. Then I set it to 65mm and draw out another square.
g1.gif
Next I set to my normal grid spacing (25mil with a multiple of 4) and draw out another rectangle just outside the others on the left and bottom, and the next nearest grid line inside the others on the top and right.
g2.gif
Finally, I delete the original two rectangles and line up the left and bottom guides to fit inside the allowed work area.
g3.gif
Once the layout is done, I actually delete the dimension guides. This is because I use ground pours and I let that define the edges of my PCB. When you use dimension guides and groundpours, sometimes the groundpour can be effected depending on how close it is to the dimension lines.
g4.gif
When I'm ready to export, I just make traces and pads visible and export the .png as monochrome and at 600 DPI. Then I load it in Photoshop, add the text I want and print. This way you never have to worry about the size of anything. You just print it at the correct DPI (600, in my case) and it comes out perfect. Plus, if I'm designing a drill guide, I can copy the PCB over to it to see how well it fits in with all the switches, pots, etc. As long as you are using the same resolution on everything there is no question over size.

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Post by RnFR »

wow, great stuff guys. madbean, thanks a lot for the in depth diagrams. i think i'm following you, i'll give it a shot. one question- how do you draw the dimension lines? they are always already up when i start a new project, so i haven't had to learn how to draw them yet. is it just drawing rectangles in the dimension layer?

this eagle thread is really becoming a great resource!
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Post by madbean »

There is an actual 'dimension' layer you can choose---same place where you choose 'top' 'bottom' layer etc. Just choose the layer, grab your wire tool, set the width to "0" and rock on out.
g5.jpg

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Post by RnFR »

madbean wrote:There is an actual 'dimension' layer you can choose---same place where you choose 'top' 'bottom' layer etc. Just choose the layer, grab your wire tool, set the width to "0" and rock on out.
g5.jpg
that's what i figured. thanks again!
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Post by Mr. G. »

How do you get all of the pads and drill holes the same size?

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Post by madbean »

Mr. G. wrote:How do you get all of the pads and drill holes the same size?
You can alter the drill diameters and pad sizes by running the ULP "change pad in library". There is a tutorial for this on the gaussmarkov website.
pad1.gif
Alternatively, you can just use design rules to restring the pad sizes. It will scale the pads and drill sizes up. I typaically use 26 min and 28 max.
pad2.gif

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Post by bgmrbanana »

Port or convert Eagle cad to Macspice circuit simulator.

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Post by Mr. G. »

Thanks a lot madbean! works like a charm :thumbsup

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Post by culturejam »

Is there a question here?

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Post by bgmrbanana »

bgmrbanana wrote:Port or convert Eagle cad to Macspice circuit simulator.
Need help.

How port or convert Eagle cad to Macspice circuit simulator?

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Post by JiM »

What do you want to do ? What do you mean by "porting" ?

Eagle is a schematic/layout program, it can export netlists. The light version is free, but it's not a Free Software (source code is not available) so it's not possible to port it to other platforms. Besides, it already runs on Mac.
I suppose Macspice is a Spice simulator for Mac. It should be able to import netlists, but anyway you need to edit a bit to specify simulation parameters, sources and sinks, etc.
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Post by bgmrbanana »

JiM wrote:What do you want to do ? What do you mean by "porting" ?

Eagle is a schematic/layout program, it can export netlists. The light version is free, but it's not a Free Software (source code is not available) so it's not possible to port it to other platforms. Besides, it already runs on Mac.
I suppose Macspice is a Spice simulator for Mac. It should be able to import netlists, but anyway you need to edit a bit to specify simulation parameters, sources and sinks, etc.

I have Mac version of Eagle. I try to import netlist to macspice the result was garbage.

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Post by bgmrbanana »

I figured it out their intermediate step when import eagle to macspice. You import in to text editor they recommend textwrangler http://www.barebones.com/products/textw ... ndex.shtml
http://www.macspice.com/Tutorials.html

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Post by RnFR »

I'm exporting an image of a schematic, and i can't find it using my finder. i've tried it twice(actually much more than twice!) and it asks me if i want to overwrite the file of the same name, so i know it's getting exported. i just can't find the file for the life of me! it's driving me crazy. anyone know what folder the exported files end up in, and why it's not showing up in my finder?
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Post by madbean »

By default it will export to the same directory your eagle project files are stored in.

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Post by RnFR »

how do you change the location? i recently pulled my hardrive out of my laptop, and i had to reload all my eagle libraries. this could've been changed as well.
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