Eagle question, rotation of part names for panelized design

Using Arduino General Electronics
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Hi all. I am looking to get some PCB's made up and they are pretty small so I want to panelize.

I'm not sure if Itead studio supports internal cut outs? My boards are T shaped so if they don't support it I have to flip my design to avoid internal cutouts, but when I do all the part names don't flip? I hope that makes sense, or maybe the attached image will!

another thing is, all the signals have incremented as I have copied the design, IE. GHD has become GND1, GND2, GND3... is there a way to stop that also to make a ground fill layer easier to do?

panel.png
panel.png742×752 13.2 KB

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Hi, beacause of my bad english, I'm not 100% sure of what you asking exactly, but I'm 95% sure, that the answer to both your questions are in this video.

Was it.... How to make a Ground rail in all the board? and How to rotate names of components not rotating the components? If that's the case, then yes, the answers on that video.

PS: Note that's the 2nd part of the video, if you want take a look at the first one also.

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You're going to have to rename them by hand.

No, Itead doesn't do cut-outs. It's specified in the their directions.

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@ American2020 - thanks, not quite what I was asking but thanks anyhow, I will check out those video's :slight_smile:

@ codlink - thanks, that is a pitty they don't allow internal cutouts. I guess they are fine with irregular shapes though so my design should be OK? I best start renaming the parts then :frowning:

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dtokez:
@ codlink - thanks, that is a pitty they don't allow internal cutouts. I guess they are fine with irregular shapes though so my design should be OK? I best start renaming the parts then :frowning:

I do remember some people saying they will cut along the dimension lines, but I have have also heard of irregular boards coming back un-cut. I would email them to make sure. I forget their direct email, but you use the contact us page.

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Also, you need more space between your boards for the cutting bits...

"Smashed" text has a "spin" attribute that you can change that will allow it to be placed upside-down on your board.

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itead will do funny shapes - I designed a card that is crescent moon shaped, they came out nice.
Also curved corners.

Try making a copy of your design.
In the copy, close the schematic, and then copy the layout onto a new area of the board. That might work.

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there is a ULP called panelize
basically what it does is takes the names layer and copies it to another layer
so when you cut and paste the board, the component's DON'T have new names
then hide the real names layer, show the new one - job done

worth a look and a play
electrons are cheap enough!

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Get your individual design exactly how you want it.

If you know you will be rotating the full board to fit multiple copies onto the panel then make sure you set the 'Spin' property of any text, name and value items.

Save a copy of the .brd as *-to_panelise.brd

Open the *-tp_panalise.brd file.

Set all layers to visible.

Run panelize.ulp - this copies some layers, such as tNames and bNames to new layers, the numbers incremented by 100. i.e. 25 tNames to 125_tNames

Save the file

Do a group select of the whole board, still with all layers selected.

Select Copy from the file menu

Close the file

Create a new blank .brd file from within Eagle Control Panel

Select Paste from the file menu and paste copies of your board in as required, rotating to fit. If you have done it right then the text should all stay in the correct orientation.

Once done create an overall board outline in the 46 - Milling layer. Multiple Dimension outlines can cause issue when you output the board to a 3D renderer or Gerbers. Any copper fills also run to Dimension layers so this will preserve correct copper fill distances on individual sub boards.

Mark out any cut lines on the panel in a suitable layer, such as tPlace. I normally leave 4mm between sub boards.

When outputting the panel to print, Gerbers or 3D renderer then be sure to select the correct layers. Don't use 25 & 26 for Names, use the copied layers 125 & 126. Use 46 - Milling for overall board outline.

I've typed this quickly as I need to go out, but hopefully not forgotten anything.