thursdaycustoms
Offline
Cleveland, OH
kitsch wrote:

from the EAGLE Manual wink

"
8.11 Components with Oblong Holes

If the board manufacturer have to mill oblong holes, you have to draw the
milling contour of oblong holes in a separate layer. Usually this is layer 46, Milling.

The milling contour for components that need oblong holes can be drawn
with WIRE (and possibly ARC) with a very fine wire width near or even 0 in the Package Editor. Take a pad that has a drill diameter which lies inside the milling contour, or SMDs, for example in Top and Bottom layer, as basis for the oblong hole.

In case of a multilayer board you should draw a WIRE in the used inner
layers at the position of the oblong holes so that it covers the milling contour and leaves a kind of restring around the opening.

Please inform your board manufacturer that they have to take care on the
milling data drawn in this layer. Also tell them whether they should be
plated-through or not.
"

hope that helps!  its not too bad. 

you all may also want to create a custom library called "oblong holes" if you have a need of them individually (rather than as a part's footprint).  its a time saver

Nice! Thanks, Matt! It only sounds slightly easier than my method. An oblong library is a good idea though! I wouldn't be surprised if there is already one out there.

Last edited by thursdaycustoms (Mar 8, 2014 5:53 pm)

kitsch
Offline
matt's mind

there probably is!

cadsoft maintains a big library database here: 

URL linking is temp broken on this site it seems

http://www.cadsoftusa.com/downloads/libraries?language=en

some have licensing txt files and stuff with the download, so pay attention to that too if anyone is planning on commercially applied PCBs or whatever...

bit 9
Offline
Seattle, WA
thursdaycustoms wrote:

Here's how I do it. I'm no expert, just an addict so there could be a better way. This is just the method I've come up with:

Thanks for that fantastic tutorial!
I was able to wrap my head around it pretty easily, but then kitsch posted another method. So now I'm not sure - If it works, it works. But I've never used the milling layer, and without pretty pictures, I can only guess how it would work without messing about in eagle and assuming I've got it right (having never sent anything to a board-house).
Kitsch, is it basically the same method thursdaycustoms showed, 'milling' instead of 'dimension'? Do you outline the edge of hole with milling. Is the only real difference between these two methods the use of 'restrict'? You still have to 'stop', right?
I get the just of the process, but won't you get slammed with layer abuse warnings?

Also, kitsch, the link is broken for me.

thursdaycustoms
Offline
Cleveland, OH

Try uploading your board to oshpark.com. It will generate an image of what your board should look like. It shows you all the main layers so you will see how either layer will affect the outcome.

kitsch
Offline
matt's mind

hmmm, URL redirects from this site have changed and are broken now.

i'll fix the link!

(sorry, in a slight rush)...  but, to answer you quickly, i didn't read over justin's close enough to tell you how it differs, but i copied my post directly from the eagle manual, so if I were a betting man I'd say go with what the manual says. 

ok, fixing link, my bad

kitsch
Offline
matt's mind

changed the link.  hyperlinks are broken here it seems.  will bring it up with staff

thursdaycustoms
Offline
Cleveland, OH

And yes I think you will still need "restrict" and "stop" layers on top of either method. If you're making a part though they should be included in whatever pad you use. So "milling" should not affect the distance of the ground plain from the pad but "dimension" certainly will. Making a part is starting to sound a lot easier to me now!

kitsch
Offline
matt's mind
thursdaycustoms wrote:

Try uploading your board to oshpark.com. It will generate an image of what your board should look like. It shows you all the main layers so you will see how either layer will affect the outcome.

i've had three orders now where the drill sizes in my file and the board they sent did not match.  i think they are limiting the drill sizes down to a small set to save on manufacturing costs (drill bit changes increase tooling costs)

so, big heads up on that!  its made my last order from them essentially unusable.  the file viewer on their site is right, but they're opting to drill with alternative sizes.

thursdaycustoms
Offline
Cleveland, OH

Ah yeah that's true. I've never had an actual problem with my boards like that though I have noticed pads that were supposed to have different drills ended up being exactly the same. Didn't hurt anything though. But as you said the preview will at least be correct for reference.

thursdaycustoms
Offline
Cleveland, OH

Okay. So instead of making new parts I will sometimes just go and edit parts that I know I would never use otherwise.
If you right click an object on the board page you can select "Open Package". This allows you to edit it however you like.
So I set the pad shape to "long" and added a "milling" layer(you can barely see it since it's a light bluish color but I promise it's there!).
*side note: the text on the pad is just my own notes. i write them in the "tDoc" layer so it doesn't mess with the actual upload. this has been very helpful since i often edit parts like this*
Eagle was able to connect the pad using ground planing exactly how I wanted it to but Oshparks preview did NOT recognize the "milling" layer:

So I changed the "milling" lines to "dimension" lines. This of course would not allow the ground plane to reach the pads since I have the distance set at 20mils. I forgot that Oshparks preview doesn't actually show them being milled out but it does show the lines. This has always worked flawlessly for me as:

So maybe I will order a batch of PCBs with the "milling" lines and see if it ends up getting cut out! If not then at least all you have to do now is add tracing lines and not tStop, bStop, tRestrict and bRestrict. Either way this definitely makes it a whole lot easier!

One very small downside is that when you choose shapes in the "Design rules" you have to chose "as in Library" for the pads to be long. Otherwise they will be whatever option you chose. So basically you may have to go back and edit all the pads in the packages to be round or whatever shape you prefer.

Okay. I think I have to sign off. I've spent wayyy too much time on this today! I gotta get some work done!

kitsch
Offline
matt's mind

from the last part of that manual snippet:

"Please inform your board manufacturer that they have to take care on the
milling data drawn in this layer. Also tell them whether they should be
plated-through or not."

wink

you'll want it plated-through

thursdaycustoms
Offline
Cleveland, OH
kitsch wrote:

from the last part of that manual snippet:

"Please inform your board manufacturer that they have to take care on the
milling data drawn in this layer. Also tell them whether they should be
plated-through or not."

wink

you'll want it plated-through

Right. Oshpark simply doesn't answer emails though hmm so I just have to see what happens. They automatically have platted slots in the past so maybe this will work out! Just ordered a few PCBs to see what happens.

kitsch
Offline
matt's mind

oh, cool.  let us know!

haven't had emails about my last order replied to either

thursdaycustoms
Offline
Cleveland, OH

Will do!

That's lame hmm I was trying to place a large batch order too!

thursdaycustoms
Offline
Cleveland, OH
bit 9 wrote:

I’d imagine most everyone here would recognize this image. (In someone else’s words:) “It's surprising how much good that crayon drawing has done for the chiptune world…” I hope I’m not stepping on anyone’s toes when I say it could be a little more readable.


So that’s why I’ve added this.
It has Gameboy Genius’ fix to prevent lost MIDI notes when running off GB power. An addition I wouldn’t mind being better known, because it took me some time to come across it. So, while I’m dumping technical documents like so much unwanted bologna, I’m hoping someone who Googles to this page learns about it faster than I did.

And while I’m at it

This
This is a fairly small, 1 sided Arduinoboy measuring in at 1.875 x 1.55 in. The thought I had in addition to making it a companion to the schematic above is that this is an easily etch-able circuit board. If you don’t know what I’m talking about check this out, but there are several other ways to do this.


That’s why there’s this black and white version for you to print out. If you are going to etch this, make sure you flip it if your method requires it. This image is at 1000dpi, because I can, and a decent laser printer can do it. Eagle outputs aliased images, so high-res-ing the image is a way to get around any jaggy problems. I took the liberty to make the holes smaller so that when you drill you’ll have copper right at the edge. If you do use this, post it here and let me know how it went!

Also, also: if you've googled to this and don't know what this is - this is the answer you're looking for.

This is really great. You should see if Trash80 would be willing to replace the current schematic with this one as well as add these board images.

kitsch
Offline
matt's mind
bit 9 wrote:
thursdaycustoms wrote:

I'm a complete Eagle CAD addict!

Ok, so let me pick your brain for a moment. How on earth do you make oblong through-holes? I'm doing unspeakable things with layers to get the battery contact points, DC jack, switch, and link port to look right. Part of my reluctance of releasing the file is that whole 'there has to be a better way to do this' thought.

check this out, we discussed this very thing farther down in this thread wink

http://chipmusic.org/forums/post/202935/#p202935