This is my second CadSoft Eagle tutorial, sponsored by element14 & cadsoft. In this second tutorial on CadSoft Eagle, I’ll show you how to turn your schematic into a board design that you can get manufactured! Specifically, I’ll cover part layout, automatic and manual routing, layer and grid controls, ULPs, ground pours, net classes, and much more! If you haven’t watched my first eagle tutorial yet, I recommend that you watch that first.
This tutorial has been made possible with support from CadSoft and element14. Learn more about Cadsoft Eagle here: http://www.element14.com/cadsoft
You can download CadSoft Eagle here: http://www.cadsoftusa.com/
You can download the files associated with this episode here: Eagle Tutorial 2 Files
Source materials for all my eagle tutorials can be found in my github repository.
Distributed under the GNU General Public (Open-Source) License.
Please Attribute and Share-Alike.
Watch this tutorial at element14.com, or on youtube. It’s embedded below:
62 comments
The video says it all. Its looks easy as well. But is it open source and if not whats the price of the licensed copy of the software.
Unfortunately, it’s not open source. You can visit the cadsoft website for pricing info on the non-free versions.
Great tutorial as usual. You always break the topics down to a level that is easy to understand and informative. I am a salesman that is constantly on the road and your tutorials are a great alternative to crappy local tv stations. I look forward to the final installment.
One thing that I would like to move after the board is finished is how can I get a low cost production manufacture?
The board is so nice that trying to make it by hand will get horrible at the end.
I’m wonder how can you get your complex board made?
My dream is make a board like yours with that final detail.
Can you share how can you make a cheap production board?
I agree with Hugo. It’s good to have a range of CAD software to use for the design process (including CADsoft Eagle) but can these schematics simply be sent to a manufacturer?
No, you need to generate manufacturing files. I’ll be showing that in the third video.
When will the 3rd tutorial? I’m eagerly waiting jeremy…
Hi Jeremy,
Most excellent tutorials!
Could you please give any indication as to when the 3rd tutorial will be available?
Also, what is your opinion on KiCAD vs Eagle?
Many Thanks
As soon as I can get to it. It’s been a busy few months. KiCad is a great option too. I prefer Eagle because there is a larger community around it.
Thanks for a great tutorial. I have used Eagle CAD to make a couple of boards but there were things I didn’t know how to do properly. Thanks to you I do now :-D
One thing I would say is be careful using ‘mils’ as a dimension term for something that will be seen in Europe. Since I use mills when I mean millimetre! I’m guessing you mean thous as in thousandths of an inch.
congrats
Last week loaded Eagle software, munbled around a lot (i’m french speaking) and finally found your two well made tutorials. Wish i had them first…
When will you be posting the third video? I need to know how to get the correct files for a PCB fabricator. This is the last part I am stuck on and your videos have been very helpful so far
Hoping to get to it very soon. Sorry for the delay – I’ve just been really busy.
Hello
I admire your work very much and thank you for the training work Thagom
I am a professor of physics and I am currently studying electronics
I encourage you very much and we are waiting for the third part of the Eagle
Peace for all the family and thank you
Hi jere your video are really awesome to learn the cadsoft eagle software. I build the schematic but there were unused pin of some IC that i have used in my design and when i run the drc it showed me errors stating that pin ‘unconnect’ of IC4. so my question is how we can solve this error?? i need help in it and I am waiting for the 3rd video of yours.
It’s not a big deal. Just ignore the error.
Hi Jeremy,
Awesome job with these two tutorials, just as with all the Arduino ones you did previously. I’ve watched every one you’ve released; and I’ve always learned something useful! Eagle makes a lot more sense to me now than it did before. It’s amazing how much of a difference just 2 ~30 minute videos made!
I hope your schedule and your relationship with Element14/CadSoft allows you to make more in this series; as well as in the Arduino series.
If you’re ever in the Atlanta, GA. area; I’d love to buy you lunch, just to say Thank You for all the incredible material!
-Monte
Monte-
I have many plans for additional videos in both series, but time is so limited, that it’s tough to find time to make them. I’m sure I’ll get to it eventually!
Glad to hear that. I understand the “never enough time” issue. Seems way too many people suffer from that; myself included.
I will definitely keep an eye out for new material!
All the best,
-Monte
Hi,
Thank you fot the two tutorials.
I hope that you will show also in your next video how to avoid multi layer, so that we using your 555 sample design only with the top layer, eventualy with a 0ohm resistors to connect traces over other traces. Hope that my english is understanable.
Thank you.
Where can i find the third tutorial?
Thanks for the great tutorial, it is ver useful. Will the 3rd tutorial be released? Best Regards,
Any sign of Video3 in this series. I think help on producing files for manufacture and pitfalls to avoid is still needed.
Thank you, great tutorial!
What happened to the rumored 3rd installment?
You’re fans are waiting!
Yes, there will be a third!
Yay! Dreams do come true.
No more neede be said… when? please
Thank you for your first two tutorials. Just a free-form chat about PCB ordering and parts would be awesome for part 3. Nothing complicated. Cheers!
I equipped myself with a laser engraver( to engrave plastic and wood, and engrave complex pcb with ease), a small cnc ( to pierce for holes or vias), a plastic cutter( to make stencils), eagle (standardto design, print the circuit) and plenty of other little things as a small pick and place machine to have fun placing components with ease), a controled oven for setting the paste etc, for retirement…
IM thinking of making 2 side pcb. So for those interested visit my website jpallaser.com and email me your requirements; maybe we can have commun interests.
I ordered 3 boards produced from this tutorial for $21 on OSH Park (http://oshpark.com). It was extremely easy to upload the Eagle file directly (without having to create gerber files).
Nice tutorial, thanks
Would like to see the third one. And would like to see a library tutorial for creating own parts. If possible together with the 3d option.
Thanks for now
Great tutorials. I’m also looking forward to third video!
Hi thanks for the videos.
Loving the tutorials! Are you gonna be able to get #3 soon?
H,
This is very interesting.
I’m a beginner in electronic pcb world.
I’m a Linux user and of course I’ve tried kicad. I found it very difficult to use, especially pcbnew.
Do you know a so good tuto to have a look to.
Thanks in advance
Regards
nb
Go watch Chris Gammell’s videos: http://chrisgammell.com/kicad-schematic-tutorial/
I’m having an issue with the manual routing. The autorouter only missed one connection which I then tried to route myself. The thing is that I can’t see the connection I made even though the airwire is now gone. Two vias appeared in the right spots but I can’t see the actual route. I’ve tried toggling the layers but can’t manage to see the connection. Should I assume it’s okay to manufacture since there are no more airwires?
Never mind, figured it out!
Hi, I did have this two times before, one time it went well, the othertime, eh not so much.
How I did solve this, I think it was pure luck and dont know how I did it.
Please, how did you do it?
I routed everything before the ground pour. Then after everything was routed I added the ground pour. Not sure if this is a smart way to fix the problem, but it worked!
Aha, thank you. Sounds familiair.
Hello Jeremy,
Thanks a lot for the tutorial. It really helped me a lot in designing PCBs. Looking for more such tutorials.
Thank You,
ARK
i am making alcohol breathalyzer for my project and i am not able to the sensor mq135 lbr
can plzz tell me from can i get it
Synergisepcb leads in printed circuit board manufacturing in USA using best bare boards in USA & latest PCB prototypes in USA.printed circuit boards
Jeremy
This tutorial is a couple of years old so you may already know this:
when placing a part on the board right clicking will rotate the part 90 degrees at a time, that way you don’t have to select the rotate tool.
Hi Jeremy,
I and my children have benefitted greatly from your tutorials on eagle and Arduino. Thank you.
My question relates to Eagle. I wish to create potentiometer traces on the PCB so I may have a compact linear POT for a micro RC project. I have found plenty of board houses that have the capability to do this but I do not know how to design this in Eagle. Any ideas?
Thanks for your time.
Kind regards
What part are you unsure about? Are you saying you just want to put arbitrary exposed copper lines on a PCB? If so, you can draw a rectangle using the rectangle tool and just assign it to the copper layer. Then, put a soldermax keepout rectangle in the same place to expose the copper.
Thanks for your reply.
I am not exposing copper but rather trying to specify a Variable Resistive Ink coating to create the Potentiometer Tracks onto the PCB itself and eliminate the need for a separate POT. A picture tells a thousand words:-
http://www.piher.net/sensors/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=19&category_id=1&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=31
I hope that clears up what I am asking about. I am trying to incorporate a linear servo onto a more complicated receiver board. This one has printed Potentiometer Tracks like what I am trying to do:-
http://www.hobbyeurope.com/rc/helicopters/800021-linear-servo
Kind regards,
Christian
Hi Jeremy, I am very new to Eagle cad. I just want to know how to solder mask the wires(Tracks)???
I meant “Open masking” of wires
Hello Jeremy,
Thanks a lot for the tutorial. It really helped me a lot in designing PCBs. Looking for more such tutorials.
Thank You.
PIR Motion Sensor
Hi Jeremy,
your eagle tutorials are great! I’m new to the software and these videos really helped me getting to know all the functionalities of Eagle.
In your 2nd video you talked about another video about high frequency signals and parasitic capacities you wanted to make.
Is this video available on your website?
http://www.hobbyeurope.com
Hi Jeremy,
I hope you’re doing well. I came up with the problem, when switching from schematic to Board by this error:
“Board and schematic are not consistent! No forward-/backannotation will be perfomed! Use the ERC command to get a detailed error report.”
When I wanted to make changes to schematic, it is not applied synchronously to the board and the error appears on the screen.
I would really appreciate it if you could guide me how to tackle with the problem.
Thank you very much for your help and support
Best regards
Omid Nazari
If you already have the shape of the board, layers, and position decided for the component, then draw the dimension of the PCB and arrange board by placing components and via on it. Then generate the netlist from schematic, upload into the board and then route the nets. Eagle software gives its user the facility to choose appropriate grid for designing, seeing each layer of the PCB like the original one overlapping each other and variety of routing options. This ease PCB designing which is one click away. You can on or off any layer using layer setting button to route each layer separately or as per requirement. The other option is making use of multilayer pool for PCB composition by allowing the Eagle software to auto-create the PCB. Then cross check all the layers, components, text and dimensions. Finally, use the design check rule option to final board layout and then finishing touch to the PCB.
multilayer pool
Generate Gerber files from the file browser option. Review it along with remaining necessary files for the manufacturing process. Submit these files and order to a PCB fabrication house. Eagle software design guide the designer at every step and make sure multilayer PCB designing gets successful.
Great video. I wish l could download these tutorials because of our unstable internet.
Very new to eagle but the video has made it easy to follow though there are few problems. Going through the video will help out l know.
More grease to your elbow
Please how do i convert PCB to 3D
Thanks
I came to your tutorial and find it very helpful. However with the current version the autorouting result missmatches your result (at 21:30 of your tutorial part2). Here I have stored an image to show that
https://ibb.co/album/hrWn1F
I would appreciate some clue (especially the manually part) so that can troubleshoot this problem. Thanks for your tutorials. Frederic
Hello Sir,
It is possible to view a 3D visualize of PCB Layout in this software.
Thanks & Regards
Harsh Vashisht