I don’t use eagle 5 (4.16r2) and haven’t upgraded because of my license.
However, I don’t believe the layer stuff has changed that much. I believe that it mostly checks the copper layers. There is a mask tab that you could look at. Perhaps the masks on the part are too big or some such. Though, Dimension, drill and hole layers come into play but it’s the copper layers that are mostly getting flagged.
Try turning off all but top, bottom, via, pad and dimension so see what’s going on.
Are you sure that your feeder gnd has exactly the same name as the gnd you are joining it to? That could easily be the problem.
It sounds like you might be using the ‘wire’ button to place your wires, instead of the ‘route’ button above it?
With Eagle, you have to create a complete schematic using the schematic editor, then use the ‘route’ button to connect the pins that are joined with a thin yellow line (the airwires). If you just use the ‘wire’, then sometimes it will rename the trace correctly, and sometimes it won’t and you’ll have to rename it manually. ‘Route’ handles this automatically, and when you switch layers in the middle of a trace, it puts in the via for you too.
Hope that helps! (Incidentally, I also hope the button above ‘wire’ /is/ named ‘route’, because I don’t have Eagle open infront of me )
silic0re:
It sounds like you might be using the ‘wire’ button to place your wires, instead of the ‘route’ button above it?
That’s the problem! Don’t I feel dumb. So, if I run a route in place of an airwire, I suppose the airwire may disappear after the next ‘ratsnest command’?
edit: I just confirmed that this is indeed the way it works! It makes sooo much more sense! Arghhhh!
silic0re:
and when you switch layers in the middle of a trace, it puts in the via for you too.
this will be nice, especially if it uses the via size that I spec.
yeah, that’s a common mistake. I think eagle should have used different terminology.
so, in the schematic editor, you use “net” to connect pins. in the board editor, you use route to create traces. In the board editor, you use “wire” to make special purpose traces but use “name” make sure that they have the exact same name as what you want to hook them up to. I typically avoid wire and use a polygon to make special purpose shapes. You have to name the polys correctly. For example, I make a poly that covers the entire board, put it on, say, the bottom layer (top for SM devices) and name it “GND”. Then all my GND nets automatically connect to it when I hit “ratsnest”
Layers take a bit of learning. Basically when you are drawing a wire, routing, doing text and so on, you can change the layer (pull down in the upper left hand corner). That causes the operation to occur on the selected layer. Once you understand, it is very simple and quite powerful. For example, you can make vias - select route, click on an air wire, route a trace, switch the layer to another copper layer and continue routing. you will magically see a via. Another example, select the text tool. type in the text and then you can select which layer you want to drop it on (tnames, tdoc, …). You can drop it on a copper layer if you want. I do that to for version numbers when doing home made boards. Layers work similarly in the schematic, board and library editors. There is nothing magic about them though different layers do different things.
Great stuff there Philba, thanks. I see now how the ‘route’ tool does things that I was expecting the ‘wire’ tool to do, like starting the trace from the center of the pad/via it is connected to.
I like Eagle more now.
I also used the ‘wire’ tool instead of the ‘net’ tool in the schematic editor. I wonder how this is going to come back and bite me on this particular board?
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