Homebrew PCBs

So, now I have a nice ground plane and isolated traces on my bottom side. 
Alas, all is not perfectly well. These unplated through-holes really suck. I 
got clever and stuck SMT on the top, and through hole parts on the bottom, 
so everything could be soldered from just on top. The only headache was 
manually inserting a via where Eagle's autorouter would want to just use the 
component lead for a via. Some things, like RJ45 jacks, just can't be 
soldered from underneath. It wouldn't be so bad if Eagle didn't think itself 
smarter than you. You can't manually route a completely routed signal. I 
think it picks eligible signals from its ratsnest list. On a completely 
routed board, the list is empty. So you can't manually route a completely 
routed signal, and you can't ripup a thermal. I had to ripup the entire GND 
and reroute it all. It's not as bad as it might sound. You just have to know 
to do so. Autoroute restored it well enough that I can't see any difference, 
except for the one via and trace I added so it can be soldered from on top.)

Mike Young wrote:

>soldered from underneath. It wouldn't be so bad if Eagle didn't think itself 
>smarter than you. You can't manually route a completely routed signal. I 
>  
>

  Eagle lets you do just about everything possible if you want to, you 
just have to read the instructions beyond the point of being able to do 
a most boards, which is where most everyone stops reading them.  Try 
holding down the control key, and start routing from the middle of a 
completed trace for a new path.  Then rip up the old section.  Not 
positive that's even exactly what you were talking about from your 
description, but you can always route from anywhere.
  In general it's so easy to split and move the traces that I rarely do 
that, just moving them around as needed, or do a split and rip up one 
section at a time only back to the split..

  Haven't needed a thermal etc in a long time, but little doubt there is 
a way to rip just the areas wanted as well.

Alan

Hi Mike,
   
  Seemed like you have good handle of Eagle PCB software,
  I'm still trying to digest the instructions you posted, i'm still a newbie,
  is there any reference on the net you recommend?
   
  Thanks.
  

Mike Young <mikewhy@...> wrote:
  So, now I have a nice ground plane and isolated traces on my bottom side. 
Alas, all is not perfectly well. These unplated through-holes really suck. I 
got clever and stuck SMT on the top, and through hole parts on the bottom, 
so everything could be soldered from just on top. The only headache was 
manually inserting a via where Eagle's autorouter would want to just use the 
component lead for a via. Some things, like RJ45 jacks, just can't be 
soldered from underneath. It wouldn't be so bad if Eagle didn't think itself 
smarter than you. You can't manually route a completely routed signal. I 
think it picks eligible signals from its ratsnest list. On a completely 
routed board, the list is empty. So you can't manually route a completely 
routed signal, and you can't ripup a thermal. I had to ripup the entire GND 
and reroute it all. It's not as bad as it might sound. You just have to know 
to do so. Autoroute restored it well enough that I can't see any difference, 
except for the one via and trace I added so it can be soldered from on top.)



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

There's a tutorial and a reference manual on Eagle's site, but I'm not aware 
of any independent documents. It's as Alan says. :) You learn enough to get 
started, some more of it will fall into place as you work, and then one or 
two small things will finally aggravate you into finally reading the docs. 
It seems the nature of the beast. Once I get tired enough of flipping layers 
on and off to export images, I'll sit down and find the manual section on 
ULP's.

----- Original Message ----- 

From: <pinoy_nyc@...>
To: <Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Homebrew_PCBs] All is not well in paradise (ground planes)


> Hi Mike,
>
>  Seemed like you have good handle of Eagle PCB software,
>  I'm still trying to digest the instructions you posted, i'm still a 
> newbie,
>  is there any reference on the net you recommend?