initial automatic component placement grid is wrong/how to change it

On 08/30/2014 03:54 PM, peter wrote:

I'm using Eagle Pro 6.6.

 

I noticed a behaviour that has me very frustrated and I can't find a way

to fix it.

 

If I create a Schematic with say 64 LED's (SMD devices to created with a

grid on 0.1mm in the library)

 

And wire them up appropriately in the schematic.

 

then switch to the PCB view, the 64 LED's are automatically placed on

the board outside of the default PCB area, but they are placed in a n

array  pattern that i have no control over, and that seems to be

slightly off when I then set the PB grid to 0.1mm for placement...

 

from row to row of LED's they are slightly misaligned when i pick them

up to place them they don't line up correctly with LED's that were

dropped in the array on the line above, or to the right...

 

So I am having a devil of a job laying out my final array or LED's

according to an exact alignment as the components are off some fraction

of my grid that I can't adjust for (even with the fine grid set very

fine), and anyway that is now extremely time consuming (imaging 1000

LED's that all need to be manually aligned rather than snapping to an

exact grid.

 

Is there a fix for this initial automatic grid when initially creating a

PCB to work on ?

 

Any help or ULP's to fix this would be appreciated...

 

I even took a look at editing the .brd XML file and while is looks

possible it is too daunting of a task and possibly more manual and

probably error prone.

To clarify, the schematic is drawn with the standard 0.1" grid, but when

creating the board a default 0.05" grid is used to drop all of my

componenets onto in an array to the side of the default PCB area, but

row to row and column to column placements are off once the placement

grid is set to my 1mm grid by fractions of a mm but its enoght o make

final placement of the components impossible without setting a

ridiculously fine alternate grid setting.

there must be a way to make eagle default to a metric grid on the PCB

layer before it has already dropped all my components on there for me to

then place.

AARGH..

I'm not sure I understand the problem, but I'll try to help...

The array on the left side is merely a holding area, a temporary place for

all the parts.  As far as I know, there is no way to control that area at

all.  The parts are all placed there in order by part type.

You can set the grid to anything you want (set your defaults in eagle.scr),

and then move each part from the temporary area into your board outline.

As far as I know, the usual procedure is to grab one part at a time and

move it to the board.  Are you trying to move a group of parts all at the

same time?

You can see a thread with some thoughts about how I've dealt with this at:

http://www.element14.com/community/thread/31802/

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

I'm not sure I understand the problem, but I'll try to help...

The array on the left side is merely a holding area, a temporary place for

all the parts.  As far as I know, there is no way to control that area at

all.  The parts are all placed there in order by part type.

You can set the grid to anything you want (set your defaults in eagle.scr),

and then move each part from the temporary area into your board outline.

As far as I know, the usual procedure is to grab one part at a time and

move it to the board.  Are you trying to move a group of parts all at the

same time?

You can see a thread with some thoughts about how I've dealt with this at:

http://www.element14.com/community/thread/31802/

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.