General Eagle Help Thread

[Pars]

I downloaded the recent 5.20 Eagle (Mac) and am getting alot of stop mask errors (layer 29) in a DRC check now. I can make it worse by reconfiguring the DRC rules for masks, but I can't eliminate these? Any thoughts? The top layer has a ground plane, but deleting the ground plane does nothing for the errors.

 

[Pars]

NM... turning off layer 29 (tstop) takes care of the errors. Took awhile to find a reference online though (typical for Eagle).

 

[amb]

Turning off the tstop layer removes it from the DRC check. But this is the top side soldermask, and the DRC might be revealing some real issues...

 

[Pars]

Quote:

Originally Posted by amb /img/forum/go_quote.gif Turning off the tstop layer removes it from the DRC check. But this is the top side soldermask, and the DRC might be revealing some real issues...

With 330 errors? Perhaps some libraries are hosed. If it were the same part or set of parts, and I had defined them, I could believe that; but its not. Zooming in on errors I can't see anything amiss. I'm certain I have used at least some of these parts in a commercially done PCB as well, but will need to verify that. It is even showing errors for the mounting holes (MOUNT-HOLE2.8 from the holes.lib). And I didn't have this problem running version 5.10.

 

[tangent]

5.1 had known drawing bugs that wouldn't show up in DRC. Perhaps it's showing you some of these, or perhaps their tightening down of the DRC checking logic is now making it a bit pickier than it has to be.

If you can't see the problem in EAGLE, sometimes you can in a Gerber viewer.

 

[Pars]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tangent /img/forum/go_quote.gif 5.1 had known drawing bugs that wouldn't show up in DRC. Perhaps it's showing you some of these, or perhaps their tightening down of the DRC checking logic is now making it a bit pickier than it has to be. If you can't see the problem in EAGLE, sometimes you can in a Gerber viewer.

Possibly. These designs passed fine in v4.1x also.

 

[tangent]

Are all the DRC errors clustered around custom parts? Not just yours, but anything that didn't come with EAGLE. If so, try opening one of the libraries, nudge something around to make the file "dirty" and save it back out. Then go back to the BRD file, use the command that makes it reload the libraries (forget the name) and see what DRC does then.

 

[Pars]

Other than the holes, almost all of them are TO-92 transistors. I like the elongated pad in-line package, so have switched these to use that. They are mostly 2SA970 / 2SC2240. Also, stuff like the 2-pin Molex KK connectors show errors.

Turning off layer 21 (tplace) cuts the number of errors down to 107. The remaining errors appear to be the part name overlapping the pad. Turning off layer 25, tname, removes the rest of them.

I would class this as a bug.

 

[pinkfloyd4ever]

so I was watching the first Tangent eagle tutorial...where the hell do you find a true 3 button mouse these days? I didn't think they even made em anymore. I sure haven't seen any in several years. He did say the clickable scroll wheel doesn't work as a center button in eagle right?.....damn Linux people.....

 

[amb]

All the mice with clickable scroll wheels I've tried works as the middle button, and works just fine on Linux as well as Windows.

 

[pinkfloyd4ever]

SWEEEET

 

[tangent]

I haven't quite kicked the habit of talking too fast in these tutorials. At that point in TT #7, I was differentiating old-style mice with only two buttons from the newer style with two "real" buttons plus a wheel. A clickable wheel counts as a third button, and is actually preferable to ones without the wheel since EAGLE uses the wheel for zooming. As you watch the tutorials, you'll see me using the wheel for this a lot.

 

[wquiles]

Warren,

I just finished the Eagle tutorials from your web site - thank you "very" much for taking the time to put these together

Will

 

[tangent]

You're welcome!

Requests are welcome. I'm a little distracted from video/screencast work at the moment, but I will definitely be getting back into it soon, after I clear the decks a bit.

 

[wquiles]

Warren,

The project that I am working on at the moment is not audio related, but it is most definitely "General Eagle Help", so I hope it is appropriate for this thread

I am working on a regulator for incandescent bulbs, to use in flashlights, similar to what Willie Hunt did many years ago:
Lightbulb Voltage Regulators

Unlike most of Willie's boards, the one I am making has to be round, and it has several holes for both mounting, and to transfer battery power, as the board has to fit inside that space at the top of this prototype battery holder:

Thanks to your Eagle tutorials, I have created a board, but I am still getting a few errors on Eagle. I had to define a new pad with a large hole so that I would have an exposed copper area, as using a via for a hole would have solder mask around the via and it would not be conductive.

Now, I am doing here some things I am not sure if they are right. Besides the 3 conductive pads for the 3 rods, I also need to plain holes - I don't care if they are conductive or not as they have no electical connection to the board. I just did 2 circles on layer 20 (dimension layer) which are the top most and right most "holes", but I am not sure if that will make the manufacturing board drill holes in there or not. Ideas?

Also, I am getting a few errors that I can live with (some dimension errors about being close to the edge and so forth), but I am getting some "drill size" errors on my vias, but I don't know what is wrong. I am also getting some "stop mask" errors, which I guess are about clearance issues?

I feel that I am now very close, but need a little bit of help to get this one ready for first pass on a manufacturing house.

Will