Eagle CAD Terminology
hcwong
Posts: 38
Dear All,
Trying to learn the Eagle CAD to design my own PCB but go stuck with understanding some terminology used in the program. What is the meaning of the terminology used below :
1) wire
2) nets
3) busses
4) pads
5) vias
6) script file
7) CAM file
8) user language file
Anyone please assist.
Thanks in advance
Trying to learn the Eagle CAD to design my own PCB but go stuck with understanding some terminology used in the program. What is the meaning of the terminology used below :
1) wire
2) nets
3) busses
4) pads
5) vias
6) script file
7) CAM file
8) user language file
Anyone please assist.
Thanks in advance
Comments
this is a long list of questions. Before entering into a new job of writing another Eagle user manual, let me ask you this question:
Did you have a cance to read the original Eagle user manual? If you don't have it, I'm pretty sure you can d/l it from the Cadsoft site. Besides this, you might also click the Help button for more info, although I must admit that the Eagle on-line help does not match the standards of other softeware packages.
Besides this, I'm holding high the flag for a German product - Eagle Professional is my friend, after having a hard time finding out all (I'd better say "most of") the "bells and whistles". I'm using it frequently now for my projects.
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Greetings from Germany,
G
Of course I can get the info from the manual but I want to make a quick start and reading the thick manual is real tough. No doubt the manual gives a lot of details but it will also drown you with the mammoth info.
By the way, I had already figure it out. I had gone throught briefly their tutorial which is already 70 pages.
As you have good experience using the EagleCad, how do you set the autorouter to route 1·layer board. I am planning to·make my own PCB and making 1 layer board·is much easier compared to 2 layer board. Hope to get some pointers from you.
By now, I can say is that EagleCad is a good product. Easy to use as well. Hope their libraries are complete.
Thanks.
You have to first draw the board dimensions with the WIRE function in the DIMENSION 'level'. Then you can go to the top or bottom and draw your board.
VIAS connect TOP to BOTTOM on two layered boards. NETS and BUSES I have not yet used. #5 though #8 are not needed to get a printed circuit board image.
Is that a 'quick start'?
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G. Herzog in Taiwan
Thanks for the info.
If you have learn the autoroute feature, it works like a charm. You can route the board in no time.
Anyway, the Eagle tutorial is good. I know how to use the basic functions of Eagle in just one day. You can also figure out the meaning of the terminology used after going thru the document. I recommended it for beginners like me.
There is a bit of trickiness to get it to make a single-side only board.
I use the free version and you can only have 2 layers. When you click on the auto router button in the board window, there is a drop down list option for preferred direction (to run traces). The free version only has 2 layers, 1 top and 16 bottom. In that dropdown list, you select characters to tell it which is preferred direction to run traces on the pc board. Usually on two-sided boards you try to run traces vertical on one side and horizontal on the other.
In that dropdown list, - is horizontal, | is vertical, / and \ are for 45 degree angles. There is also * , which I guess means anyway is fine.
Here is the trick, there is also an N/A option, choose this for 1 top and it will not run traces on that layer. only on the bottom.
In most cases, using only single sided setting below will not route all wires on one side of the board, there are balance airwires unrouted because the wires need to cross the bottom tracks. I can route the remaining airwires manually·but is there any other autoroute way? I saw a tutorial with the name 'singlesided.brd' which the autorouter can·autoroute·the board for single sided with a few jumper wires (top tracks). How do we do the setting so that the autoroute will route·almost all the connections on·the bottom side and have a few·tracks on the top side·where the wires crosses. The·tracks in the top side can be replaced with jumper wires instead of copper track. This way we can save some prototyping cost by using single sided board.
Hope you understand what I meant.