# Circuit board software



## rwaudio (May 22, 2008)

EVfun said:


> I haven't designed my own circuit board before but I see there is plenty of different options out there. I'm running Mac, so the options seem more limited (Eagle PCB and ?).
> 
> I'm trying to do a simple enough layout. It involves 2 DPDT relays and a handful of TO-220 diodes. It is designed to combine brake lights and turn signals in the rear, parking lights and turn signals up front, and other minor features. It will work with a 3 wire turn signal switch and single dash mounted signal indicator. I can make this work with a pref board with soldered wire wrap connections. A proper board would be more professional and some other VW people have expressed interest. I'm not trying to make money, just make my ride look its best and help others in the process. Wiring seems so foreign to many people, while I find it simple.
> 
> Can anyone point me to some good tutorials for PCB design software? I've built plenty of things on pref board, but haven't tried my hand at board design.


Eagle is great for what you are trying to do, I'd download the free version, your board sounds simple and should fit within the limitations of the free one.

If you only need a few boards I like using http://oshpark.com/ for prototypes. Their online tools are good and they take eagle files directly which saves you having to export gerbers, gives you an instant preview and they're purple...

I used them for the front/rear panels of a limited edition amp.










There are tons of tutorials for eagle, but 10 or 12 years ago when I switched to eagle I liked the tangent tutorials. http://tangentsoft.net/elec/movies/


----------



## PStechPaul (May 1, 2012)

I use a rather high-end PCB design system called PADS, from Mentor Graphics, and there are probably many tutorials that would be applicable to other design software. You might be able to use their free limited version for a simple board such as you need. It is convenient to have a schematic capture program as well as an autorouter which can all be linked together in real time via OLE.

Another package that many people recommend is Kicad, which is an open source project with a large installed user base and an active forum.





 
I have only briefly tried Kicad many years ago and I also tried Eagle at that time, but I preferred PADS.


----------



## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

There is also DesignSpark, completely free with no restrictions.

It works well, but it does have a learning curve. It's less commonly used than the others.


----------



## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

I downloaded the free Eagle software but am having installer problems. Right now I'm running an older version, 5.9.0, that was already installed. I will log out of this computer and log in on the main account and try to install 6.5 for Mac again. 

The first and most obvious question I have is how does one sort through all the libraries? The names seem to find the right type of part, but that gets me a big list. The little images in the library page aren't dimensioned and the names are not very helpful so I have to drop it to see if it is right. For some things, connectors in particular, there are soooo many choices and the names seem next to useless. I just want some holes 0.2 inches apart for a terminal strip. Is there perhaps some generic package libraries? (TO92, TO220, ect) I suppose that is a schematic problem.

I have found the built in Eagle "help" to be next to useless. So far I'm mostly learning by clicking things. I know a couple of engineers at work that could create what I want in about 30 minutes, but this isn't work related (and it doesn't help me learn.) I'm going so slow.

Oshpark looks like a good way to get a few prototype boards.


----------



## rwaudio (May 22, 2008)

It does take a bit of getting use to, all of them do, and some MUCH more than others. I've also used Altium which seems much more powerful and professional, however it also has a difficult learning curve.

Once you get use to browsing (not searching) the libraries you'll find what you need most times. The search function in eagle is brutal.

have a look in con-phoenix-508 for some 0.2" connectors.

if you aren't using the schematic portion and just creating a board it doesn't matter what device you pick, so for a TO-220 I'd just browse the v-reg library. If you are using the schematic section you can easily create your own parts by copying symbols and footprints from other parts.

Eagle is far from the best, however it is probably the most widely used entry level package, meaning there is a lot of help and a lot of plug-ins/library's/compatibility. Youtube is a great place to find tutorials on it as well. I'd also suggest stepping up to a 6.xx version.


----------



## PStechPaul (May 1, 2012)

Once you get your PCB design software, you will need to get the boards made. I have used a local guy who can take PDF, JPG, or hard copy artwork, plus a drill chart, to make small quantity single or double sided prototype boards for cheap. But they do not have plated through holes or silkscreen. I made a calculator to determine costs, and it includes his email and other information:

http://enginuitysystems.com/files/Atlas_PCB_Calculator.xls

Most other board fabs require Gerber files and Excellon drill files, which are usually produced by most software packages. 

Other PCB fabs that do well for prototypes (and low quantity production) are:
www.pcbfabexpress.com
www.zoompcb.com (Chicago)
www.pcbcart.com (China)


----------



## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

I'm wondering about something... When I started in schematic mode it would only draw lines horizontal and vertical and them make me use move to get some goofy looking lines, but at least the lines where not covering other pins I needed to connect too. At some point during my work in schematic it started to also draw lines at 45 degree angles, making readability much easier to manage. What did I do? I need to do it again -- I have lost it!

Sometimes, when I make a change in the schematic it seems to make the change in the board lines right away. Sometimes it doesn't. What is causing that? I removed some lines from the schematic and they didn't remove from the board view. When do the two sync? At one point I made them not sync in the warnings, how did I do that? (I want to avoid that)

One more question. It appears to default to 16 mil trace width. I need wider, perhaps 50 mil for some things. Is there a way to set that before running autoroute? I found the wrench icon for hand changes, but I think that will mess up routing at some point.

I would like it if someone would look over my files. I have a host of warnings and the schematic is a little messy, but everything seems to be right and since there are only 7 parts on a small 2.5 by 2.8 board it isn't very complicated. 

I want to use oskpark for the boards but there is a little problem. They only accept Eagle 6.4 files and I have 6.5. I've emailed them about it, and thought I ask here about work-arounds. It does seem to upload and show correctly but I backed out so someone can check the board.


----------



## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

I thought I would post a couple of links I found that are more basic newbie level information about using Eagle.

This one is mostly about schematic mode. 

This one focuses on circuit board layout. Its a lot bigger and I've only read a few sections so far.


----------



## rwaudio (May 22, 2008)

EVfun said:


> I'm wondering about something... When I started in schematic mode it would only draw lines horizontal and vertical and them make me use move to get some goofy looking lines, but at least the lines where not covering other pins I needed to connect too. At some point during my work in schematic it started to also draw lines at 45 degree angles, making readability much easier to manage. What did I do? I need to do it again -- I have lost it!


There are a number of modes when placing nets or wires, if you right click after placing one end of the net/wire you will see it toggle through the choices. You can also see it toggle in the toolbar where you could select the desired one directly.



EVfun said:


> Sometimes, when I make a change in the schematic it seems to make the change in the board lines right away. Sometimes it doesn't. What is causing that? I removed some lines from the schematic and they didn't remove from the board view. When do the two sync? At one point I made them not sync in the warnings, how did I do that? (I want to avoid that)


It typically sync's in real time as long as both the schematic and board are open. If you close one or the other it will give you the sync warnings. Due to how it shows air wires (on the board) it may not be obvious that the change has happened when modifying the schematic. Older versions also didn't "redraw" the screen right away so sometimes you'd get old stuff that wasn't really there, I thought it was gone in the new versions but there could still be a hiccup.



EVfun said:


> One more question. It appears to default to 16 mil trace width. I need wider, perhaps 50 mil for some things. Is there a way to set that before running autoroute? I found the wrench icon for hand changes, but I think that will mess up routing at some point.


If you plan from the schematic stage you can determine power trace widths, signal trace widths etc. then anytime you use that type of net it would always be that width in the autorouter. I don't like the autorouter and typically route everything by hand. I typically select the trace width from the menu when I start to route a trace, as you say it's a bit of a pain to change it later.



EVfun said:


> I would like it if someone would look over my files. I have a host of warnings and the schematic is a little messy, but everything seems to be right and since there are only 7 parts on a small 2.5 by 2.8 board it isn't very complicated.


I'd be happy to look at your files, assuming I can open them, I don't think I'm on 6.5 yet. robin at rw audio do t com



EVfun said:


> I want to use oskpark for the boards but there is a little problem. They only accept Eagle 6.4 files and I have 6.5. I've emailed them about it, and thought I ask here about work-arounds. It does seem to upload and show correctly but I backed out so someone can check the board.


Eagle updates are typically not huge in the .x versions, only in the whole number changes, it will probably work just fine. The guy behind oshpark is good to deal with, he'll let you know if there are any issues before it gets made.


----------



## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

rwaudio said:


> There are a number of modes when placing nets or wires, if you right click after placing one end of the net/wire you will see it toggle through the choices. You can also see it toggle in the toolbar where you could select the desired one directly.


Found that, thank you.


> It typically sync's in real time as long as both the schematic and board are open. If you close one or the other it will give you the sync warnings. Due to how it shows air wires (on the board) it may not be obvious that the change has happened when modifying the schematic. Older versions also didn't "redraw" the screen right away so sometimes you'd get old stuff that wasn't really there, I thought it was gone in the new versions but there could still be a hiccup.


The software is capable of reporting differences between the schematic and board layout when I error check. Is that from traces being routed on the board and then changed? If so it looks like I would have to go back to the air wires and do everything again if I change the schematic which seems a bit excessive.



> If you plan from the schematic stage you can determine power trace widths, signal trace widths etc. then anytime you use that type of net it would always be that width in the autorouter. I don't like the autorouter and typically route everything by hand. I typically select the trace width from the menu when I start to route a trace, as you say it's a bit of a pain to change it later.


I didn't figure out how to set types of traces. Then again, I found out what you mean about using autorouter. It does some weird things, especially right around pads. I set all the traces by hand, leaving me with a question about a single via (I can't see how to size them) that is in the brake light traces. Just playing around I left the signal traces at the default 0.16, made front parking/turn traces 0.04, and rear brake/turn traces 0.05



> I'd be happy to look at your files, assuming I can open them, I don't think I'm on 6.5 yet.


Thank you for the offer. I have a few remaining question about text. Each part I dropped seems to have some text associated with it, I'm not sure if it will be printed on the board or not. With such a low parts count I don't need these. I tried to add descriptive text to the terminal strips and got "no vector font" and "overlap" errors. Thanks for all your help!


----------

