SparkFun Forums

[Chupa]

I want to take a board layout and duplicate it, so i have 2 copys of the same thing in my design. I think its called an array by most board houses? How does one go about doing this in Eagle?

[trialex]

This has been covered in previous topics, but the basic process, assuming you are 100% done, and don't want to make changes to the schematic or the layout. The schematic and board will no longer be associated, and changes to one instance of the board do not update to the other pasted versions.

[1] File -> Save as to make a copy of the .sch and .brd files.
[2] In the Eagle control panel, right click and delete the copied schematic
[3] open the board file
[4] Group everything you want to copy.
[5] Edit -> Cut -> "GO" (traffic lights) to select everything
[6] Edit -> Paste and repeat as necessary

Some board houses will panelise for you. Check with them the best way for them and the way it works out cheapest for you

[Philba]

Don't bother with eagle for that - make your single board gerber and use gerbmerge to panelize it. There are lots of reasons why you should use gerbmerge and not do it in Eagle:
- if you make a change to the design, you will be sorry.
- panelizing with gerbmerge is trivially repeatable (if you make a second set)
- gerbmerge can produce a score file
- gerbmerge gives you precise control of the placement of the individual boards on the panel
- gerbmerge gives you more documentation including fab drawing

Granted, gerbmerge is a bit clunky at first but it works really well and once set up needs almost no fussing. http://claymore.engineer.gvsu.edu/~ster ... gerbmerge/

[Chupa]

Ill try GerbMerge. thanks. I will be using 4pcb.com for this so if you have experience in doing this with them i would appreciate it.

[Andrew02E]

Another problem with cut/pasting with Eagle is your part names get screwed up.
If you have a board with, say, 7 resistors named R1-R7, when you paste the board again it will change the names to R8-R14 (and higher for every subsequent paste). If you don't plan on having any part names on your board though, then it's probably not a problem.

[Philba]

some might say that's a virtue - if you want to sneak multiple boards past an outfit that disallows it. They often look for duplicate part numbers.

[Chupa]

I got gerbmerge working with only minor difficulties. It works great. The only thing that messed me up with the config files are the file paths and folders. I dont fully understand what (dot dot forward slash) means and things like that. But I managed to get it working. Thanks for the info!

On an unrelated note, you cannot type (dot dot forward slash) in a post on these forums. you get an error when you try to submit/preview it.

and also i now realize that copys is not a word, copies was what i was looking for. heh

[Philba]

dot dot slash is a unix/linux thing. typically, a trailing slash on a path means it is a directory. this is usually not necessary, though. dot dot, of course, means the parent of the current directory. so, dot dot slash is simply the parent of the current directory. the slash is unnecessary.

[Chupa]

What is the "current directory" when running this script?

c:\Python25 or C:\Python25\gerbmerge or something else?

Ide like to have all the files in a folder off the root drive...

[Philba]

it could be when the script was started or it could have been set earlier in the script - you have to follow the execution.