Prototyping Board Layout & Schematics Available

For people creating their own Application Board variations, we've posted the schematics and board layout for the Prototyping Board as a template to get started. The files are in the Eagle PCB format, a free PCB editor. We hope this will make it easier to get started creating boards to plug the Make Controller into! http://www.makingthings.com/resources/schematics http://www.cadsoft.de (The creators of Eagle PCB)

Excellent.

I've got to ask, though; what's with the airwires?

And what's going on with the holes above and below R1, which are connected to N$840?

Some of the trace/ring clearances look pretty tight, but as long as it passes your fab's DRC, I guess it's ok.  Eagle's DRC is not happy at all.

Previously David Williams wrote:

Hey Lou,

We slapped a lot of vias on the board and copied some around the board.  Eagle was helpfully keeping them connected.  Hence the not very helpful airwires.

The holes above and below R1 allow R1 to be thru-hole rather than SMT.  Same with R2 & R3.  They're just vias, copied from elsewhere.

A little scruffy perhaps, but functional.

Thanks for looking the board over.

D.

As long as it works, I guess.

I was rather hoping to be able to use the Eagle model to lay out stuff to go on the prototyping board.  Alas, it was not to be.  Actually, that probably wouldn't have worked anyway, as it would have fought me tooth and nail as I tried to place parts on the ringed areas.  I didn't get very far with it before moving on to an easier project.

Maybe if I get bored one day, I'll have another go at it and try to show you what I mean.

Eagle does tend to make it not terribly easy to do unconnected solder rings.  I think that (for a long-ago project) I had to resort to making my own library parts, consisting of only unconnected rings, and placing those.  Or maybe that was an attempt that failed.  However I did it, assuming I even succeeded, it was a pain.

Also a pain is the alternate footprint thing you mentioned.  Usually, that takes the form of a special library footprint which actually encompasses both form factors; or one could do it the hard way by placing two parts for each part and only populating one of them (which makes the schematic harder to understand).  So I can see why you did it the way you did for a quickie design.  You lose the benefit of having Eagle be able to check for certain kinds of errors, though.