PC boards and software

From: Paul Koning <pkoning_at_equallogic.com>
Date: Thu Apr 15 09:08:12 2004

>>>>> "Brad" == Brad Parker <brad_at_heeltoe.com> writes:

 Brad> der Mouse wrote:
>> I suspect that there are a lot of things I don't know because
>> I've never done anything of the sort before that everyone in the
>> industry takes for granted because it's always been done that way.

 Brad> (you may well find that in the end, there were/are actually
 Brad> good reasons for why things "have always been done that way"
 Brad> :-)

 Brad> You didn't ask, but if I was you, I'd do this:

 Brad> - grab a copy of the free eagle

 Brad> - fit your first design into the tiny dimensions the free
 Brad> version allows (and 2 layers).

 Brad> - capture the schematic and then do the layout by hand. you'll
 Brad> find you spend about 90% of your time creating library entries
 Brad> for parts and/or searching the existing libraries for parts
 Brad> which match. This means you'll end up with a .pdf file for
 Brad> *every* part and you'll know the footprint of each part very
 Brad> well. (this part is worth a lot of time - except for shorting
 Brad> power and ground, parts that don't fit on their pads/holes is
 Brad> the most common screwup imho).

Eagle has an extensive collection of libraries on the kit, and more
available for the download. Apart from some connectors and large
integrated circuits, you should find what you need already done.

I did a design that uses some DIP ICs, some large pin count ASICs,
assorted passive parts, and some connectors. The only parts I needed
to create from scratch were the ASICs, a DB-25 connector, an RJ45
connector, a BNC connector, and two MiniCircuits transformers. All
the rest was either already there, or most of it was and only signal
names needed adjusting.

Connectors and such can be created easily from mechanical drawings
that the manufacturers have on their websites. For the ASICs, I wrote
a small C program that generates an Eagle script to define the pads,
which is otherwise a time consuming task. (If anyone wants it, just
ask.)

      paul
Received on Thu Apr 15 2004 - 09:08:12 BST