Eagle Tutorial Eagle Tutorial

Eagle Output Tutorial -

After receiving quite a few emails requesting how to get Eagle to output a format we can accept, I finally sat down and played with the Eagle software a bit.

Eagle CAD Software

This tutorial will show you how to output the files necessary for the $2.50 deal.

The output process is a four step process that will be second nature after you run through it once or twice.

Files you will need:

This tutorial assumes that your design is complete and that you are ready to get your board fabricated.

Step 1: Make sure the extra stencil layers are turned on

You must be sure that layers 29 and 30 are turned on. These layers are responsible for the top and bottom solder mask. Without them, you will get a bare FR-4 board with exposed traces - you will be missing the nice green cover over the copper pads and traces.

From the View menu, select 'Display/hide layers'

Click on 29 and 30

I don't use Eagle so I can't explain why the hexapod.brd example layout will not let you turn on these two layers. It does not show the layers and I can't figure out how to turn them on. Someone who uses eagle and knows, please email us and fill us in... All other layouts should let you turn these layers on.

Step 2: Correcting the silk screen line widths

Eagle actually has a default 5mil width on all their libraries. This is too small for legibility. The minimum width is 8mil.

The silkscreen is the white lines that have no electrical function, but will help you (the assembler) with part identification and orientation. And you get to put fun text strings on your board to indicate what the board does, the board's title, the names of the creators, etc.

Download and save the silk_gen.ulp to the Eagle ULP directory.

Select the silk_gen.ulp

Select Execute

Magically, 5-10 seconds later, all line widths will be increased to 8mil!

Step 3: Generating the Gerber Files

Download and save the SFE-Special.cam to the Eagle CAM directory.

Now start the CAM Processor in Eagle:

 

Open a Job

Select SFE-Special.cam from the CAM directory.

Click on the 'Process Job' button

The job should run in 3-4 seconds with no errors. If you get an error that says:

This probably means that the CAM processor attempted to output one of the Solder Mask layers but you don't have them activated. Be sure you have the layers 29 and 30 activated as described above.

Step 4: Zipping and sending the files

You should now have all the files you need from Eagle. Find and zip these files together:

  • *.cmp - Top Component Layer (Top Copper)
  • *.sol - Bottom Solder Layer (Bottom Copper)
  • *.plc - Top Silk Screen Layer
  • *.pls - Bottom Silk Screen Layer
  • *.stc - Solder Stop Mask Layer (Top Solder Mask)
  • *.sts - Solder Stop Mask Layer (Bottom Solder Mask)
  • *.drd - Excellon Drill Data

Zip them together and email the file to ProtoPCB@sparkfun.com. Please include your order number within the email so that we can locate your address information.

A quick note about the board border

This is a fair example of the problems we want to avoid:

As you can see in this Eagle example board, there are two voltage regulators that stick off to the side. We will cut these off because they are outside the obvious border. You do not need a 'keep out layer' but you will need to make it painfully obvious to us what your board actually is. In the example above, if you need the PCB to continue under the regulators, extend the board border to include the items. Please describe any non-conventional borders in the email you write when you send the zip file.

Here are some sites I came across during google searches that you might find interesting: