Have a question about CadSoft EAGLE?  Ask our Expert, Jorge!

Hi im helping a university lecturer to ask few question here.

she got a PCB Milling Machine from a taiwan company, but she cannot get the correct gerber file to drill the pcb.is it eagle able to do that?

she current using free version, but she claim that she unable to generate the gerber file from the trial version., is it full version will unlock this feature?

do you have any sample gerber file that i can give to her to do a test?

regard

isaac

Thank you. This does help.

On 11/6/2013 2:21 PM, Tony Ozrelic wrote:

hi,

 

i'm looking for a way to highlight a net or a part in the schematic

window and have the same net or part highlighted in the PCB layout

window.

 

The idea here is that I would like to visually confirm that all parts

and nets on the schematic are also on the board.

 

Hi Tony,

I can understand that initially you'll want to do that but with time

you'll be able to rely on EAGLE's F/B annotation.

Ideally you would want a dual monitor setup, but most don't have that.

What you do then is show both editors on the same screen, resize the

windows so that they share the monitor equally. Now if you activate the

show command on the schematic you can click on the various nets and see

them light up on the board.

hth,

Jorge Garcia

hi,

i'm looking for a way to highlight a net or a part in the schematic window and have the same net or part highlighted in the PCB layout window.

The idea here is that I would like to visually confirm that all parts and nets on the schematic are also on the board.

is there a way to do this?

thanks,

tonyo

On 11/5/2013 5:41 PM, Elliott L wrote:

My question lays in the autorouting and/or wiring algorithm. Can you

describe for me, in great detail, how the autorouting system works?

Where is the file that handles this? How does the entire EAGLE program

determine the best/shortest route to lay wires?

Hi Elliott,

In a nutshell, EAGLE's autorouter is a grid-based router. Its splits up

your board area based on the routing grid and proceeds to route until it

runs into a roadblock. At that point it will ripup a certain number of

already routed tracks defined by mnRipupLevel. It then starts to route

again. Section 7.7 of the manual describes this process in detail.

From this simple description you can infer that EAGLE isn't concerned

with best or shortest path, it's just trying to get everything

connected. By adjusting certain cost factors you can guide it to seek

the shortest paths, but there's no guarantee that it will.

You can load and save various cost configurations for the autorouter,

but the actual code is within the EAGLE executable.

hth,

Jorge Garcia

Cadsoft Support

I need to be able to orient the LED cathodes so that they are all pointing radially inward.

Use the R option to specify orientation.

Thank you Lorenz.  I'd suspected that scripting had a limit I was encountering.  Looks like I'll have to research ULP.

Bill Krueger wrote:

Thanks, I am aware of the various co-ordinate system options in eagle

and I am using polar co-ordinates. My script already does exactly what

you describe.  Using polar co-ordinates, the script moves the device and

places the LEDs on a circle or radius r and angle theta  ..., and

rotates the device.  That part works just fine.

 

However, this doesn't answer the question I'm asking. Let's assume that

pin 1 of the LED package I want to place is the cathode & pin 2 is the

anode.  What I also need to guarantee is that pin 1, the cathode,

points radially inward +once the device is already placed and rotated

correctly+.

 

As I mentioned, I can pre-orient all the LEDs in an unused area by

pointing all the cathodes in one direction and then run the script. 

Eagle is consistent in the way it places the LEDs on the board once

that's done.  However, if I don't orient all the LEDs cathode

orientation consistently before running the script, Eagle will orient

some of the LEDs with cathodes pointing inward and some with cathodes

point outward depending on the cathode orientation before I ran the

script.  So I do have away around this issue, but I was hoping for

something that didn't require manual tweaking before running the script.

 

What I'm asking is there a way to guarantee the cathode/anode

orientation using a script command?  I wasn't able to find anything in

the documentation that describes how that might be done via a script.

scripts are not able to access data from the board.

For that you need an ULP.

--

Lorenz

Thanks, I am aware of the various co-ordinate system options in eagle and I am using polar co-ordinates. My script already does exactly what you describe.  Using polar co-ordinates, the script moves the device and places the LEDs on a circle or radius r and angle theta  ..., and rotates the device.  That part works just fine.

However, this doesn't answer the question I'm asking. Let's assume that pin 1 of the LED package I want to place is the cathode & pin 2 is the anode.  What I also need to guarantee is that pin 1, the cathode, points radially inward once the device is already placed and rotated correctly.

As I mentioned, I can pre-orient all the LEDs in an unused area by pointing all the cathodes in one direction and then run the script.  Eagle is consistent in the way it places the LEDs on the board once that's done.  However, if I don't orient all the LEDs cathode orientation consistently before running the script, Eagle will orient some of the LEDs with cathodes pointing inward and some with cathodes point outward depending on the cathode orientation before I ran the script.  So I do have away around this issue, but I was hoping for something that didn't require manual tweaking before running the script.

What I'm asking is there a way to guarantee the cathode/anode orientation using a script command?  I wasn't able to find anything in the documentation that describes how that might be done via a script.

Bill Krueger wrote:

I'm doing a layout that has a circular array of LEDs packed tightly

together in an approximately 320 degree circle.  Based on the size of

the board (really small) and the number of LEDs (really large), there is

a need for precision device placement.  I use a script to place the LEDs

exactly where they need to be.  All the LEDs origins are centered on a

circle.  I've got the syntax for device placement, radial orientation,

and rotation mastered.

you are aware of the posibility to use polar coordinates and/or

relative coordinates (online_help/Editor_Commands/Command_Syntax)?

The script works fine for placing the LEDs in their appropriate position

and that hasn't presented a problem.However, there's one thing that I

have not been able to discover by reading the Eagle documentation nor by

experimentation.  I need to be able to orient the LED cathodes so that

they are all pointing radially inward.  Is there any way to force device

orientation (i.e. make certain that it's the LED cathodes and not the

anodes that point radially inward) based on pad or pin name or some

other attribute?

 

I've been able to accomplish this by "pre-orienting" all the LEDs on an

unrouted area of the board and then run the script.  What I mean by this

is that I'll manually move all the LEDs to some arbitrary area of the

board and orient them so that their cathodes all point to the right and

then run the script.  The script places the LEDs exactly where they need

to be with the desired cathode orientation.  If I flipped the LEDs so

that the cathodes all pointed left during my "pre-orienting", the

cathodes all wind up facing radially outward.  So, the device placement

rules are at least consistent.  However, this is a pretty kludgy way to

accomplish something I'd like to be able to do entirely via script.

rotating parts can be accomplished using the rotate command.

     mark (center_x center_y)

     move part_name (P radius angle)

     rotate angle part_name

(see online_help/Editor_Commands/Command_Syntax, ../mark, ../move,

../rotate, ../add )

--

Lorenz