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Alternative symbols for easy rotation

autodeskguest

When placing a common library part such as a resistor or capacitor it's

often necessary to rotate it to fit in with how you are drawing a certain

part of your schematic. For any one device, library symbols can currently

only be drawn in a single rotational position so when you then rotate the

part your text is now no longer how you would like it and you are required

to smash the device and manually replace all the text in the right

positions and orientations. This is okay for a handful of components but

not good for a large design. It's fine for a hobbyist just throwing

together small projects for their own use but as a professional design

engineer, when I present clients with schematics I have drawn they need to

look professional and this is causing additional work to achieve this.

 

It would be nice if several versions of a symbol (up to 4) could be

provided which would automatically be cycled through upon rotate if they

were available. This would mean we could create nice sets of symbols in our

libraries and rotate away to our hearts content safe in the knowledge that

we wouldn't be building up a mountain of smash and reposition work down the

line.

 

A quick fix I tried for this was to have -H and -V variants of resistors,

capacitors etc but this just became a pain in the BOM! (pun intended!)

 

Many thanks,

 

Rachael

--

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

 

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  • rachaelp wrote on Wed, 18 November 2015 09:41

    A quick fix I tried for this was to have -H and -V variants of

    resistors, capacitors etc

     

     

    That's what I do to, sometimes -L -R -U -D and the like.  My BOM system

    undestands the -XX naming of devices and realizes that all the variants are

    in fact the same device.

     

    Actually, it's not that quick a fix.  It takes more time to make library

    parts and keep all the -XX variants of each device up to date.  The extra

    work is mostly in the device editor since the package is the same, and the

    symbol is what you want different between variants in the first place.

     

    I find writing the commands to set up a device in a script file helps.

    That allows incremental tweaking to get it right, then usually small

    modifications are required to run the same script in the other -XX variants

    of what are otherwise the same device.  Yes this is a pain, but it is

    unfortunately the only alternative that Eagle has given us.

     

    I'm a little worried about selecting the different symbols only by

    specifying orientation.  There needs to be some mechanism to explicitly

    select a symbol regardless of orientation.  I do like the idea of being

    able to tie different symbols to different rotations as default, which then

    allows you to cycle thru them with the right mouse button instead of

    actually doing the rotation.  That would probbaly cover 99% of the use

    cases.  Some explicit selection still needs to be possible, but doesn't

    need to be as quick as a single mouse click.  If the part is smashed, then

    the symbol selection by rotation must be shut off.

     

    In any case, I've wished for some way of having alternate symbols per

    device also, for the same reason you state.

    --

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

     

Reply

  • rachaelp wrote on Wed, 18 November 2015 09:41

    A quick fix I tried for this was to have -H and -V variants of

    resistors, capacitors etc

     

     

    That's what I do to, sometimes -L -R -U -D and the like.  My BOM system

    undestands the -XX naming of devices and realizes that all the variants are

    in fact the same device.

     

    Actually, it's not that quick a fix.  It takes more time to make library

    parts and keep all the -XX variants of each device up to date.  The extra

    work is mostly in the device editor since the package is the same, and the

    symbol is what you want different between variants in the first place.

     

    I find writing the commands to set up a device in a script file helps.

    That allows incremental tweaking to get it right, then usually small

    modifications are required to run the same script in the other -XX variants

    of what are otherwise the same device.  Yes this is a pain, but it is

    unfortunately the only alternative that Eagle has given us.

     

    I'm a little worried about selecting the different symbols only by

    specifying orientation.  There needs to be some mechanism to explicitly

    select a symbol regardless of orientation.  I do like the idea of being

    able to tie different symbols to different rotations as default, which then

    allows you to cycle thru them with the right mouse button instead of

    actually doing the rotation.  That would probbaly cover 99% of the use

    cases.  Some explicit selection still needs to be possible, but doesn't

    need to be as quick as a single mouse click.  If the part is smashed, then

    the symbol selection by rotation must be shut off.

     

    In any case, I've wished for some way of having alternate symbols per

    device also, for the same reason you state.

    --

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

     

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