EAGLE PCB DESIGNING TUTORIALS FOR  BEGINNERS-2(6-STEPS)

   In the previous post we had gone through the basic of designing a circuit in eagle basically schematic,now we will learn a more interesting part in eagle that is actually designing the "BOARD". Your board file actually determines the way your circuit will look.

     Hope you have eagle installed and have made a simple schematic of any circuit that may be yours or from the internet ,now we will learn how to convert this simple schematic into a aPCB.

     1)  Open the .sch file that you have created using EAGLE.
 
     2)  Now click on FILE and then click on "Switch to Board" it will ask whether to create a new .brd file        then click on yes it will we saved in the same folder as the schematic(.sch) file.

     3)  The following window will appear.It will have all the components placed outside the board shown     with withe line.

    

     4) Using the group and move commands move all the components inside the board(the board is shown with a white rectangle on the screen).

GROUP THE COMPONENTS

RIGHT CLICK AND SELECT MOVE GROUP


    
DONE!!!

    

   5) Arrange the components as required on the board.

      Let us now have a look at  some important commands that would be useful further.

•   LAYER:   This icon contains the list of all the layers and there colour on the board ,the layer can be either made visible or invisible by selecting them. A blue mark on the side indicates the layer is visible.This is usefull while printing ,in which we don't want all the layers but only three layers are required like TOP,PADS VIAS and BOTTOM if you have any text or dual sided PCB                           

             

•     AUTOROUTE: This is the command you would love to use because it does most of the designing work for us but sometimes not all the work.This command tries all the possible combination of connecting the terminals and find a optimum path for us. 

      what do you think about this!!!!!!

          

          Auto-Route worked for me this time!!!!!!!!!!!

•      RATSNEST: This command tells us if there are any air wires in the circuit.Air wires are the wire that are not routed in the board file.

•     ERC(Electrical rule check): This shows all the electrical errors that are there in the circuit like clearance between two paths and drill size etc.

          Now lets get back to work

   6)    We had come up-to the 5th step i.e Our componets are now arranged on the board now lets try "ROUTING" them. Routing is nothing but as the name suggest a route or path of copper between two terminals which are to be connected to each other.So since in our circuit we have many terminals there are many routes as well, Thus as the size of the circuit increases the number of route increases,increasing the complexity of the circuit so what comes handy at such situations is the "AUTO ROUTING" command which has been discussed and hope you are familiar with it now.

So now lets AUTO-ROUTE:

You may think it is done but no it is not.It still requires some finishing because while printing the circuit there are some physical constraints.you should move the adjacent wires apart and maintain a safe distance between them and see to it that while printing they are not very close to each other.

  can you see the changes i have made??? just use the move command and move the wires as you want.

So finally you have designed your own customized PCB.

In the next post i will take you through the process of printing this PCB on the screen to actual paper with proper "DIMENSIONS"

HOPE THIS HELPS.

 THANK-YOU