Parts Layout and Drill Template with Eagle Cad

[hpdonat]

I am just starting out learning Eagle Cad software, and I am wondering if people use it to help with parts layout and drill templates? Looking for some consensus on what others recommend for layout and drilling.

 

[jessenator]

I'm resisting KiCad and sticking with Eagle as long as I can : P It's what I learned on.

But to your question, I do use it for the top control drill template. I do a lot of custom designs, but I've also made a few that match the PedalPCB Tayda drill patterns (again, only the top). For back side drilling (jacks and DC) I do all of the measurements in 3D, but I'm going to standardize that so I can use the Eagle enclosure footprints for drill templating.

I've borrowed quite a bit everything from Madbean's Eagle Library, and I've also added in some custom bits here and there. Here's a couple set up for 3 and 4 knob configurations (PPCB patterns)

And one for my 1590B3 adventuresL:


My other custom ones are sort of arbitrary, and followed a very inconsistent pattern.

Anyhow, that's how I do. Still using Eagle (and in mils, no less)

edit: the footswitch drill position varies, depending on the board size. I like to keep it away from the extreme end, so that diagram is adjustable.

Edit 2: up till about now, I've used Illustrator to do everything short of the schematic and board layout. It's nice to have the art, hardware, and drill patterns all in one file on respective layers. I still will use illustrator for the art, but for boards that aren't my own, I'll use their drill patterns (obvs). Still, all in one place in convenient.

 

[jimilee]

The madbean library is legendary across the intertubez.

 

[KR Sound]

I'm resisting KiCad and sticking with Eagle as long as I can : P It's what I learned on.

But to your question, I do use it for the top control drill template. I do a lot of custom designs, but I've also made a few that match the PedalPCB Tayda drill patterns (again, only the top). For back side drilling (jacks and DC) I do all of the measurements in 3D, but I'm going to standardize that so I can use the Eagle enclosure footprints for drill templating.

I've borrowed quite a bit from Madbean's Eagle Library, but I've also added in some custom bits. Here's a couple set up for 3 and 4 knob configurations (PPCB patterns)

View attachment 69332

And one for my 1590B3 adventuresL:
View attachment 69334

My other custom ones are sort of arbitrary, and followed a very inconsistent pattern.

Anyhow, that's how I do. Still using Eagle (and in mils, no less)

edit: the footswitch drill position varies, depending on the board size. I like to keep it away from the extreme end, so that diagram is adjustable.

Edit 2: up till about now, I've used Illustrator to do everything short of the schematic and board layout. It's nice to have the art, hardware, and drill patterns all in one file on respective layers. I still will use illustrator for the art, but for boards that aren't my own, I'll use their drill patterns (obvs). Still, all in one place in convenient.

I need to make these for KiCad! Or find some DXF files of these.

 

[jimilee]

Learning eagle really helped me understand circuits better, too.

 

[jessenator]

Updated the language in my post; didn't give enough credit to Bean.

I'm weird and I made a library from the Hammond engineering PDFs. However, they aren't all 100% scale.

I need to make these for KiCad! Or find some DXF files of these.

If you want, I have DXFs exported from Illustrator for all of the (main) Hammond 1590 series enclosure outlines. I can put them up on Dropbox.

 

[jessenator]

I need to make these for KiCad! Or find some DXF files of these.

let me know if these work. They are 1:1 scaled in mm (if that's important to the DXF import).

 

[KR Sound]

let me know if these work. They are 1:1 scaled in mm (if that's important to the DXF import).

Awesome- thanks!

 

[hpdonat]

Wow, thank you so much. This is really above and beyond helpful. If I can be so bold to ask one more question? Do you have any suggestions about learning Eagle i.e. tutorials, literature, videos?

 

[mdc]

This and the subsequent videos: