Greetings, Pirates, and welcome to the Library Basics Series! If you’re having trouble finding the parts you need in all of the free libraries that come with Autodesk EAGLE, then you’ve come to the right place. Parts form the foundation of all our electronic designs, and by learning to create your own, you’ll level up your engineering skills significantly. But making your personal parts isn’t easy. It requires plenty of patience to become a datasheet detective, and you’ll need an excellent attention to detail to make sure you’ve placed your pads precisely.
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Are you up for the challenge?
First, The Basics
Just what is a library you ask? Great question! In Autodesk EAGLE, all of the parts that you place on your designs are stored in libraries. These provide an easy way to keep parts organized based on their category. For example, you might have a library for a general category like capacitors. Or specific communities like Sparkfun have their own dedicated libraries that contain a variety of parts for specific projects.
Libraries and the parts within are connected in a simple hierarchy in Autodesk EAGLE. This makes it easy to understand how everything’s connected. Here’s how it’s organized:
- Libraries. All of your parts will be stored in your personal library folder in Autodesk EAGLE. Each part will contain a device, symbol, and package.
- Devices.Within every library, you’ll have one or multiple devices. These devices include both a schematic symbol and a package in one accessible location.
- Symbols.Within every device, you’ll have a symbol, which provides a visual representation of a part for use on a schematic.
- Packages.Within every device, you’ll also have a package, which is the physical representation of a part for use in a PCB layout.
When you put all of these pieces together, you’ll get a tree structure that shows off how libraries in Autodesk EAGLE are organized. Check it out below.
An easy to follow visual representation of how libraries in Autodesk EAGLE are organized. It all starts at the top!
Creating Your Library
Now that you understand how libraries work in Autodesk EAGLE, it’s time to make your own! You can skip this step if you already have your personal library folder, otherwise:
- Open Autodesk EAGLE, and you’ll be greeted with the Control Panel.
- Next, select File » New Library to open your Library Window.
- Before creating any new parts, you need to save your library by selecting File » Save (or Cmd + S on Mac and Ctrl + S on Windows)
- Now that your library is saved, you just need to activate it. Go back to your ControlPanel, right-click your new library, and select Use. You’ll know if your library is ready to go if it has a green dot next to it in your Control Panel.
Your newly created library in the EAGLE Control Panel, with a separate directory for Packages and Symbols, which are empty (for now).
Learn to Love Datasheets
During part creation, you’ll find that datasheets are your new best friend. Try not to feel overwhelmed when you first open one up. There’s a ton of data, graphs, and specifications within, but you only need to understand one or two pages to get your part creation done.
The component that we’ll be creating in this Library Basics Series is a MOSFET switch from Texas Instruments. Here’s the TPS92411 datasheet that you’ll want to have handy during this guide. When you open this datasheet, you’ll want to go all the way to the bottom and take a look at pages 24 and 25.
Ok, now breathe!
These are the only two pages you need to worry about, ignore everything else! Unless you need some light bedtime reading.
A Brief Introduction to Packages
Packages serve a super important purpose when used on your PCB layout, offering a set of pads that provide both electrical connectivity and a way to solder parts onto your board. As you can imagine, making sure these pads are placed exactly where they need to be is a necessary challenge; otherwise, you’ll get a board back from manufacturing that doesn’t work! Check out the image below of the package you’ll be creating today. Here are all of the elements that you will start to work with:
Here’s the completed package we’ll be making today, an SOT23-5.
- Pads. The pads are the red rectangles on this part and are numbered according to your datasheet. When placed on a PCB, each of these pads will be connected to a trace and provide electrical connectivity for a part.
- Package Dimension. The package dimension is the rectangular gray outline that you see connecting all of the pads. This outline represents the actual physical dimensions of your part can help during your PCB layout process to see if you’re placing components too close together.
- Silkscreen Outline.The silkscreen outline is the rectangular yellow lines lying over the gray package dimension lines. While this piece is optional, it helps to provide a visual indicator for your manufacturer when they are assembling parts on your bare board.
- Name and Value. These text elements are placeholders and will come in handy during your PCB layout stage. As the text suggests, Name will be used to identify the unique name of your part when you place it on your PCB layout, and Value can be utilized for things like labeling the resistance of a resistor, capacitance of a capacitor, etc…
Just remember, in this step of the process we’re only making a package for our part, nothing else. And keep that datasheet close by, you’re going to need it!
Step 1 – Creating Your New Package
Alright, time to get rolling with the tutorial part of this guide. The very first step you need to complete is creating a new package in your library. Here’s how:
- Open Autodesk EAGLE, and you’ll be greeted with the Control Panel.
- Select the Arrowicon to expand the main Libraries and lbr folders, then right-click your personal library and select Open.
- This will open your Library Window. From here, choose the Package icon to open the Edit Dialog.
- Next, enter a name for your package in the New: field and select OK. If you’re following our example, then enter “SOT23-5.”
- Select Yes to confirm you want to create the new package.
Great, so with that complete you now have your first very package added to your personal library and a blank Package Editor should be open as shown below.
After adding a package name, you’ll have a new Package Editor ready for you to place pads on.
Step 2 – Changing Your Grid Size
Now’s the time to tweak some basic grid settings before you start placing any pads. Changing the grid size will allow you to quickly and precisely place pads according to your datasheet measurements.
- Select the Grid icon in the top-left corner of your interface.
- In the Grid dialog, change your Display from Off to On if it isn’t already enabled.
- Next, change your Size: from inch to mm, and enter “0.05” as the value.
- Select OK to save your grid settings.
Here are the two grid settings you’ll need to change – Display and Size.
After confirming your settings, you might notice that you can’t see your grid in the package editor. It’s not gone! You just need to zoom in a bit with the Zoom in icon until it becomes visible again.
That’s all the setup work you need to get the rest of the job done. Let’s dive into the datasheet now and start placing some pads!
Step 3 – Deciphering Your Datasheet
Alright, time for some datasheet detective work. Open your TPS92411 datasheet and head on down to the Land Pattern Data section on page 25. This page will give you all the information you need to precisely place your pads. Here’s what you need:
- Pad Dimension – This is the length and width of the pads that you’ll need to create in Autodesk EAGLE. Looking at our datasheet, this is clearly labeled in the bottom-left corner of page 25. It looks like our pad dimension is 0.6mm x 1.05mm.The pad dimension is easy to find in this datasheet. And we know it’s in millimeters by section A in the Notes.
- Pad Pitch – The pad pitch is the distance between the two of two pads on both the X and Y axis. Again, your datasheet has this clearly labeled in the top-left corner of page 25, under the label Example Board Layout.
Your pitch: An X axis pitch of 1.90mm and a Y axis pitch of 2.7mm.The pad pitch is always measured from the center of two pads.
You’ll also notice there’s a smaller X axis pitch of 0.95mm for the bottom pads, but this won’t be needed since you already have your larger 1.90mm pitc. - Pad Coordinates – Now, we will do some basic math to create a kind of coordinate grid system for precise pad placement. Take a look at the image below; we’ve created a basic XY graph with our Example Board Layout image on page 25.
You can use the existing pad dimension chart to create an easy to use XY graph for your pad placement.
The good news is that you only need to get the coordinate position of one pad and the rest will naturally follow. Let’s start with Pad 4, which is in the top-right corner.
- Starting from the origin point on your graph, move along the X axis until you line up with the center of Pad 4 and you’ll be at 0.95mm. How would you get this value? By dividing your X axis pitch of 1.90mm in half, which gives you an even 0.95 spread between both the left and right sides of your X axis.
- Next, move up on your Y axis and you’ll get to the center of Pad 4 at 1.35mm. How would you get this value? Again by dividing your Y axis pitch of 2.7mm in half, which gives you another even 1.35 spread between both the top and bottom sides of your Y axis.
- Put those two numbers together, and you now have your X and Y coordinates for Pad 4, which is (0.95mm, 1.35mm).
Now that you have the coordinates for Pad 4, the rest are super easy to figure out. Here’s what they are:
- Pin 1 (-.95mm, -1.35mm)
- Pin 2 (0mm, -1.35mm)
- Pin 3 (.95mm, -1.35mm)
- Pin 4 (.95mm, 1.35mm)
- Pin 5 (-.95mm, 1.35mm)
Step 4 – Placing Your Pads
Ok, now you have all of the data that you need to start creating and placing our pads in Autodesk EAGLE. In this step, you’ll just be creating our pads with the Pad Dimension that you found in Step 3. Here’s how:
- Select the Pad icon on the left-hand side of your interface.
- In the Size: field at the top of your interface, enter “0.6 x 1.05” and press enter on your keyboard to change the pad size.
- Lastly, drag your first pad anywhere on your grid, and left-click to place it. Repeat this step 4 times to place five pads in total.
You should now have all five of the pads placed that you’ll need for this part as shown below.
The five pads you’ll need for your package. Placement doesn’t matter right now, that happens later!
Step 5 – Renaming Your Pads
Before you start positioning your pads, now’s a good time rename them to match your datasheet. To do this:
- Select the Nameicon on the left-hand side of your interface.
- Left-click a pad to open the Name Dialog.
- Enter a name in the New name: field and press OK to save your change.
You’ll want to modify the name of each pad from its default P$(1,2,3,4,5) to simply be 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Here’s how it should look when you’re done:
Make sure to rename your pads according to your datasheet, the numbers matter!
Step 6 – Positioning Your Pads
Placing your pads will be super easy with a 0.05mm grid and the coordinates that you found in Step 3. It’s important that you place your pads in the order the pins are presented in your datasheet, check it out below.
Here you can see the counterclockwise pin numbering from 1-5, which your pad placement needs to match.
So we’ve got pins 1, 2 and 3 on the bottom, and pins 4 and 5 on the top. It all flows in a counterclockwise direction. And here again are the coordinates you’ll need for this task:
- Pad 1 (-.95mm, -1.35mm)
- Pad 2 (0mm, -1.35mm)
- Pad 3 (.95mm, -1.35mm)
- Pad 4 (.95mm, 1.35mm)
- Pad 5 (-.95mm, 1.35mm)
Oxygen xml editor 21 09. Let’s place Pad 4 first, and we’ll leave you to do the rest. Here’s how:
- Select the Move icon, and then Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) + left-click Pad 4. This should snap the pad’s center to your cursor regardless of where you move it.
- Next, move Pad 4 right along the X axis from the origin point until the coordinates in the top-left of your interface reads (0.95 0.00).
- Then move Pad 4 up along the Y axis until the coordinates read (0.95 1.35).
- Lastly, left-click to confirm the placement of Pad 4.
You can follow this same process to place all of the pads, following the X and Y coordinates for each that are listed above. When you finish, your pads should be placed similarly to ours below.
Eagle 1 9 23 Marzo
Our pads placed in relation to our center origin. Remember to place each pad in relation to the pin on your datasheet.
It’s Half Time
Congratulations! You just completed the most important step in creating a new package, the precise placement of your pads. Now that you know your pads are in the right location, you won’t have any trouble soldering parts onto your board. At this point, your job could be considered done, but we need to add a few bits of information to make this package readable not only for machines but for humans as well.
Step 7 – Adding Your Origin Point
You’ll need to add an origin point to Pad 1 so that your manufacturer knows the correct way to orient your part during assembly. Here’s how to do this:
- Select the Circle icon on the left-hand side of your interface.
- Select the Width: dropdown at the top of your interface and select 0.
- Select the Layer dropdown at the top of your interface and select layer 21 tPlace.
- Left-click in the bottom-left corner of Pad 1 and drag your cursor to the right to adjust the size of your circle.
- Left-click again to confirm the size of your circle and place it.
The size of your origin point is totally up to you. All that’s important is that it’s on Pin 1 so your manufacturer knows how to orient your part. If you need to move your origin point, use the Move tool.
A quick origin point added to Pad 1; now our manufacturer will know the orientation of our part.
Step 8 – Adding Your Package Dimension
You now need to add a package dimension, which will help you to see if your parts are placed too close together on your PCB layout. This process again requires some brief datasheet detective work. Let’s look at the Mechanical Data section on page 24 of your TPS92411 datasheet. There are four images on this page, but all you need to be concerned with is the one in the top-left corner.
The package outline has all the data we need to determine our package dimension.
This image shows you the exact physical dimensions of your part as it will appear in physical form. Most package dimensions come with tolerance, which is why there’s a fraction looking number for each dimension measurement. The top number is the maximum value, and the bottom is the minimum value. What value you choose is up to you. In our example we’ll just take the middle value for both, which ends up being:
- A package length of 2.9mm
- A package width of 1.6mm
And now that you have your length and width, creating a package dimension in Autodesk EAGLE is easy. Here’s how:
- Select the Lineicon on the left-hand side of your interface.
- Select the Layer dropdown at the top of your interface and choose layer 51 tDocu.
- Select the Width dropdown and change your width to 0.127 if it’s set at 0.
- Next, Move your cursor on the grid until you find your starting point at (1.45 0.8) and left-click to begin drawing your wire.
- Complete the outline of your package dimension following these coordinates:
- (1.45 -0.8)
- (-1.45 -0.8)
- (-1.45 0.8)
- And back to your starting point at (1.45 0.8)
- Press Esc on your keyboard to exit wiring mode.
Eagle 1 9 23 Kjv
When complete, your package dimension should look like ours below.
A completed package dimension will make it easy to spot overlapping components on your PCB layout.
Step 9 – Adding Your Silkscreen Outline
Now you just need to add a silkscreen outline, which is a helpful way to tell your manufacturer where your part will be placed. Here’s how to do it:
- Select the Wire on the left-hand side of your interface.
- Select the Layer dropdown at the top of your interface and choose layer 21 tPlace.
- You now need to draw three silkscreen wires on top of your package dimensions – one on the left side of your package, one on the right, and one in between pins 4 and 5. To do this, left-click on top of your existing package dimension, drag until you reach your ending point, and left-click again to place the wire.
Silkscreen outline with the grid and Layer 51 turned off so you can see how it will look on your PCB layout.
Step 10 – Adding Your Name and Value Placeholders
Alright, time to finish this up! The last thing you need to add is both a name and value placeholder to your package. This will allow EAGLE to create a unique identifier for each and every part on your PCB layout, making it easy to reference specific parts if you need to make changes down the road. Let’s do it:
- Select the Text icon on the left-hand side of your interface.
- In the Text Dialog, enter “>NAME” in the Enter text: field and select OK.
- Next, select the Layers dropdown at the top of your interface and choose layer 25 tNames.
- Optional: If the text size is too big for your liking, select the Size: dropdown at the top of your interface and choose a new size.
- And now drag your >NAME text over the top of your package and left-click to place it.
- Press Esc to exit text placement mode.
You’ll know that you put your >NAME text on the right layer if it displays in a gray colored font. Go ahead and repeat the steps above, this substituting >NAME for >VALUE on layer 27 tValues and place it on the bottom of your package. Here’s how your completed package should look:
At last, you’re done! This is how your completed package should look with its new name and value placeholders.
Nicely Done
That X marks the spot, you have successfully created your first package! This process required a ton of steps, and for good reason, it’s the most important process of your entire part creation workflow. The remaining parts in this Libraries Basics Series deal with the final two steps of part creation:
- In Library Basics Part 2, you’ll learn how to create your very first symbol, which is used on a schematic.
- In Library Basics Part 3, you’ll learn how to bring both your packages and symbols together in a device.
Hopefully you won’t have to do this too part creation journey many times, as you’re bound to find the parts you need in all of the free libraries that ship with Autodesk EAGLE. But if not, then at least you know how! See you next time Library Pirates, and nicely done.
Ladies and gentlemen, the next major update for Autodesk EAGLE has landed! This release is all about upgrading the professional tool that you know and love with some much needed intelligence and accessibility. Inside you’ll find new tools that help you cut out the busywork and focus on what really matters, designing professional electronic devices. We’ve got new features for routing, schematic capture, and design management that will level up your electronics design game. Here’s what’s new in this release:
Quick Route
First, a quick walk down memory lane. Cornette 1 9 – launch tasks automatically enable. The first commercially available ECAD tool came about in the 1980s. Before then it was all about tape and mylar. With ECAD, we took what was once a physical process of routing and just transferred it into the digital domain. The way we have been routing has largely remained unchanged.
Yep, we’re still doing this, just with a mouse. (Image source)
Today, this is a bit of a problem. We’re still manually routing PCBs the same way we did 30 years ago, but our board layouts have changed dramatically. Complexity has expanded, but our process has stalled. With Quick Route, we decided it’s time to move designers beyond the manual point-to-point mentality into a more intelligent way of working.
What it does
Quick Route lets you route single nets, multiple nets and differential pairs in rapid-fire with a single mouse click. No, this is not another autorouter, this is an intelligent routing aide. You get to decide which nets get routed, and Quick Route does the manual busywork of connecting that net from node to node for you.
With Quick Route we’ve designed a system that analyzes all of your nets holistically before deciding how to make a connection. How does this manifest? When Quick Route connects a net, the results look incredibly natural and human. You get the beauty of a flowing board layout without all of the manual busywork.
Today, Quick Route supports single-click finish for:
- Airwires
- Single or multiple nets
- Differential pairs
- Trace smoothing
How it works
Enter routing mode and you’ll discover four new Quick Route options to work with:
Quick Route Airwire
This mode completes airwire connections instantly in a single click for individual signals or differential pairs. There are two methods for using this mode. You can either click the beginning of an airwire connection and have it auto complete. Or you can start routing an airwire manually, and press Enter on your keyboard at any time to have Quick Route take over and complete the connection.
Quick Route Signal
Similar to Airwire, Quick Route Signal will complete an entire net connection in a single click for either individual nets or differential pairs. Again you can either let Quick Route take care of the job completely, or start routing your net and press Enter to complete the connection.
Quick Route Multiple Signals
Ready to throw a real challenge at the Quick Route engine? Left-click and drag to select multiple pads, then press Enter on your keyboard and all the signals are completed, instantly. You can route either multiple, unrelated nets or a logical bus, the choice is yours.
Smooth Signal
Got some traces you want to clean up? The Smooth Signal mode will automatically smooth out one or multiple traces by looking for overlapping segments and excess length.
Quick Connect
We’re all familiar with the challenging process of designing a schematic. The hardest part isn’t finding the parts or placing them. It’s spending an insane amount of time wiring every pin and making labels.
Take something like a 2K pin BGA. Breaking out all the pins and adding labels can literally take an entire workday. And what happens if you make a typo on a label or connect one of those pins incorrectly? This kind of work, while it’s something we’ve all accepted as part of the job, just isn’t worth our time. With Quick Connect, we’ve done away with the manual and error prone process of wiring schematic symbols and creating net labels.
This one might take a while. (Image source)
What it does
Place a symbol or bus down on a schematic and Quick Connect will automatically break out every pin and its label. This feature is priceless when working with high pin-count components. We’ve all spenta colossal amount of time breaking out BGAs or ICs, only to find out we made a simple mistake on a label or connection. These are all mistakes of the past.
How it works
EAGLE now has the ability to save buses for future reuse. By default there’s CAN, I2C, and SPI buses created out of the box. Need to create a new one? Select all of your desired signals, create a bus, and the signals get automatically added for you.
If you’re just wiring a bus without configuring it beforehand, all of the required signals can be added in the Bus Properties dialog. Give that bus a name and you have yourself a saved bus.
Bus Breakout
Need to break out all the signals on a bus you just created? Right click the bus and check out the new Breakout Bus options. Quick Connect will automatically add your signals with labels.
Signal Breakout
Eagle 1 9 23 Commentary
Let’s throw something more challenging at Quick Connect, like a 30+ pin integrated circuit. Imagine having to break out every pin and add labels manually on a symbol like this. That’s going to take you at least 30 minutes at a minimum.
Right click to use the new Breakout Pins feature, and watch what happens, instantly:
Connect Pins to Bus
How about connecting all of the pins from your IC to a bus? Another manual process that takes way too much time. With a preconfigured bus filled with signal names that match our IC, we can make this process happen instantly:
Design Manager
Navigating a modern PCB layout is anything but easy. Finding what you need visually through a dense maze of traces, vias, and components makes for seriously tedious work. We created the Design manager to give you greater visibility and control over your PCB layout from a single panel in Autodesk EAGLE.
Design Manager, the master console mixer for your PCB layout. (Image source)
What it does
You can think of the Design Manager like your master console for all things PCB design. Need to select a specific set of nets and rip them up? Next limit realflow 10 for mac free download. You can do that from here. Or maybe you need see only blind and buried vias? The Design Manager has you covered.
There are a variety of actions you can do from this one panel in EAGLE, including:
- Select single or multiple nets, and then route them with Quick Route
- Select single or multiple nets and rip them up
- Select single or multiple objects and highlight them on your board
- Select any object and apply any command
- Filter and sort objects to your heart’s content
How it works
When you open EAGLE 9 for the first time you’ll notice the Design Manager nestled on the right side of your interface. If this placement isn’t to your liking, no worries, you can dock the panel to the left side of the UI, float it around, or get rid of it entirely. Happen to close it accidentally? Open it again from View > Design Manager.
The Design Manager has two primary views to work from, Components and Nets. For the component view, there are a few standard component groups that help to quickly filter parts by the top and bottom side of your board. You can also search for parts manually. Once a component is selected in the Design Manager, it gets highlighted on your board.
Eagle 1923 Cabinet
A selected component will also be broken down into its individual elements in the Design Manager. This gives you greater visibility over individual silkscreen and pad features without having to open the library editor.
The real power of the Design Manager comes when working with nets. You can either search for nets in the search bar, or filter by your preconfigured net classes.
Like the component view, selecting a net will highlight it on your board layout. Right-click and you’ll get options to select the net in the editor, rip it up, or route with Quick Route.
Want to route multiple nets or differential pairs without ever laying hands on your PCB layout? Select them from Design Manager, right-click, and choose Quick Route. The same holds true for ripping up nets. What you used to do manually in your PCB layout editor can now be done automatically in the Design Manager.
Eagle 1 9 23 Zodiac
We’ve also expanded the riprup options available for a net within the Design Manager. Selecting a net from the Items section will allow you to ripup either traces and vias, connected copper, or connected copper on the same layer.
Get EAGLE 9.0 Now
We’re incredibly excited to push electronics design forward with EAGLE 9, leaving behind busywork that none of us will ever miss. Whether you’re just getting started with electronics design or you’re a seasoned veteran, we all share the same pains of dealing with manual routing, schematic wiring, and just plain ol’ navigating our designs. The new, intelligent features in EAGLE 9.0 help you stay focused on what really matters, creating professional electronic designs.
For our EAGLE Subscribers, this update will be ready and waiting to download the next time you start your software.
Not a Subscriber yet? No worries. You can try Autodesk EAGLE 9 today for free, download it now!