Move selected parts of schematic to board

Question

I'm really not too sure if Eagle can do this but I have a schematic, a very large schematic with roughly 1800 components in it. I know that's a lot but its mainly resisters, caps and transistors with a hand full of IC's. What I want to know is if there is away to select a group of components on the schematic and bring just that selection to the board to roughly lay it out? I think P-cad can do this but I can't use that anymore. If I bring in the whole schematic over makes it impossible to place and route the components with the nasty ratsnest.

Does anybody know if this is possible? I'm very new to Eagle but not PCB design. Thanks!!

rachaelp · Answer

Hi Nick,

With the way EAGLE works ALL the components will appear in the board, there isn't a lot you can do about that I'm afraid.

However, there are a couple of things you can do:

1) Your biggest problem seems to be the ratsnest or air wires. You can turn off groups of air wires to make things easier to see. For example:

RATSNEST ! +5V0D 0VD AGND

would turn off all the air wires for the nets +5V0D 0VD and AGND.

You can even turn off all air wires with:

RATSNEST ! *

And then turn them on specifically for the nets in the group you wish to route so they are the only ones visible (may be a bit fiddly)

You can turn them all back on again with:

RATSNEST *

2) There are some ULP which will allow you to select groups of components in the schematic and then group move them in the layout so you can grab a bunch of related stuff in one hit and place it down away from all the rest of the unplaced stuff. I have a ULP called pickgrouped.ulp which I obtained from another member here when I was first starting out with EAGLE and it helped me out a lot on the first big design I had to do using it. You can find this ULP if you look at the answer marked as the correct answer from this thread: How can I select components booth in schematic and layout at the same time?

Best Regards,

Rachael