How to flip a component on pcb and stay on same side

Ronald Laguardia wrote on Fri, 28 October 2016 14:23

Can't you just bend the pins back the other way?

I think you missed the point of the original question. The silk screen on

the board will be wrong if all you do is bend the legs the other way and

pop it in the board the other way round, not to mention that the reason for

the OP wanting to flip it on the layout was most likely so the routing goes

the most convenient way. This is about using radial caps with the leads

formed to 90 degrees and having the ability to flip it round in the layout

so the board is correct and shows the correct fitment. The correct answer

is still to use variants within the device to allow the specification of

alternative packages with the connections the other way round.

--

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

Can't you just bend the pins back the other way?

On 05/09/16 19:12, Jerry Sy wrote:

I think you need to look outside your little bubble. lol.

Well!

I have been very polite and helpful to you because I'd assumed you were

a genuine person looking for help past a slight block. But if you're

going to respond by being rude then I will certainly not be helping any

further.

Am 05.09.2016 um 20:12 schrieb Jerry Sy:

not to me and a lot of others.

OK Buster. It is Ok if you speak for  yourself but imho you do not speak

not for others.

Those "others" may speak for themselves if they want to.

And last but not least you don't speak for me. Get that behind your ears.

--

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / With best regards

Joern Paschedag

not to me and a lot of others.

The fact that if you do a search you will find numerous results discussing this same thing is proof positive this is not intuitive.

I think you need to look outside your little bubble. lol.

Thanks for the explanation. Now I understand. and the confusion stems from the interchangeable usage of package and variant.

When one looks at the UI, you see one column called package and a second column called variant.

When you say add a new variant, the obvious intuitive action is to add a variant to the package.

It will be less confusing to just say add a new package to the device, then one will right click to add a new package.

since a package is automatically associated with a variant, I suppose that is where the parlance of add a variant originated from. But since the way the UI is presented distinguishes package and variant, one would add a variant to the package rather than add a new package (with the associated new variant) to the device.

I hope thread clears up any confusion in the future for anyone searching to find answers and lands on this thread.

Rachael and Olin have both answered this in their own, respective,

inimitable ways However...

On 05/09/16 08:22, Jerry Sy wrote:

It is not intuitive.

Not to you but it seems quite natural to some others.

 

Device A

Package A variant ""

Package B variant B1

Package B variant B2

Package B variant B3

 

The way you've written this table clearly illustrates the incorrect

mindset that makes it seem "not intuitive" to you. As I tried to explain

before, the correct way to write this is:

Device A

   Variant ""   -> Package A

   Variant B1   -> Package B

etc.

The point is, Variant is a parameter of the DEVICE and NOT of the

PACKAGE. Get that fact understood and all of the supposed weirdness just

floats away.

Jerry Sy wrote on Mon, 05 September 2016 03:22

Device A

Package A variant ""

Package B variant B1

Package B variant B2

Package B variant B3

 

If you edit B3, the same change appears in B1 and B2.

No.  You edited B, not B3, so of course variants B1-B3 changed.  Stop and

actually  think how device definitions work before flailing around or

delcaring it stupid.

Each device in a library is a set of bindings between a symbol (what goes

in the schematic) and a package (what goes on the board).  The binding

includes information like what pins of the symbol represent what physical

pads of the package.  Each such binding is called a "variant".  This refers

to a variant of the device, not any package or symbol.  The various

bindings within a device need to be uniquely labeled somehow.  That somehow

is the variant name.

Devices can currently only refer to a single symbol, but each variant can

reference any suitable package in that library.  Note that devices

reference symbols and packages.  The symbol and package definitions exist

separately in that library.  If you edit a symbol or package, all device

variants within all devices in that library referencing that symbol or

package will change.

If you want two different packages, you have to make two different

packages.  Then you can point two (or more) variants to those packages to

use them.  This is what you want.  A package defines physical layout.  You

want two layouts that are different from each other, so you have to make

two packages.  Once you do that, you edit the device that references the

original package and add a variant to reference the new package.  When you

go to add the device to the schematic, you have to chose between all the

variants in the package to decide which one you want to use this time.

Think about it.  This works the way you want it to work and pretty much the

way it has to work.  Bindings are references and don't contain copies of

what they are binding in their own private hidey-hole somewhere.  You

wouldn't want them too.  That would make fixing or enhancing a package a

mess because you'd have to track down all the bindings that use the package

and fix all the separate copies.

--

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

I think Rob has explained where things got a bit confused quite well so I wont rehash his explanation. In your situation creating package C was the correct things to do. It's still a variant within the device, but it's a variant with a different package.

In the case above where you have package B pointing to variants B1, B2, B3, a use case for this could be if you have say a standard symbol for an NPN transistor and a SOT-23 package and you create a generic NPN component using these, then there are several combinations of pinouts possible for connecting B,C and E of the symbol to pins 1, 2 and 3 of the package. You use the variants to change the mapping of the symbol pins to the package pads. So in the terminology you gave above:

Device NPN

Package SOT-23 variant CBE // Maps pin 1 -> C, 2 -> B, 3 -> E

Package SOT-23 variant BCE // Maps pin 2 -> B, 2 -> C, 3 -> E

etc....

Note, this is not how I do transistors in my libraries but this is an example of how you could use the package variants in a useful way how you were trying to do.

Best Regards,

Rachael

It is not intuitive.

Device A

Package A variant ""

Package B variant B1

Package B variant B2

Package B variant B3

If you edit B3, the same change appears in B1 and B2. What's the point?

I ended up creating Package C.

If you think about it, it is the exact same part, just positioned differently, so it really is not a different package.