Ground Pour |
Finally, click on the RATSNEST button or enter “rat” into the command line. Because I entered the command “set polygon_rat on” at the beginning of this tutorial, the RATSNEST command causes Eagle to fill in the ground pour and I get this final result:
The distance between the ground pour and the pads and traces of other nets was determined by the “ch iso 40″ command at the beginning of the tutorial. I will show you how to fiddle with this and some other characteristics of polygons further on in this tutorial.
Note that the upper right-hand corner is bevelled again. Eagle did not fill this in. You may have to experiment a bit to discover how to get Eagle to fill in the areas that you want. But I can pass on this hint: if a polygon does not contain a pad or the corner of a trace on the same net (in this case, GND) then Eagle will not fill in the polygon. Instead you will only see the highlighted outline of the polygon. Otherwise, you would never see it again, even though the polygon is there.
Here’s a trick that comes in handy sometimes: enter the ground pour polygon on the TOP layer and then change it to the BOTTOM layer. When you do this, it’s easier to see what’s going on. Here’s what I mean. Before starting the POLYGON command, type in
ch layer top
Now start the polygon as before and you will see something like this instead:
The TOP layer is red, instead of blue, so that the outline is easier to see as you make it. Once you have completed the rectangle and run the RATSNEST command, you will see this:
Now change the polygon to the bottom layer and you will have the final result shown at the top of this page. To change the layer of the polygon, type
ch layer bottom
and then click on the edge of the polygon. If you end up selecting something else first, keep right-clicking until the red outline is highlighted and then left-click. Presto! The ground pour turns blue and does not touch the other traces and pads.
Kirby said:
great tutorial… exactly what I was looking for
Posted 14.11.2007 at 9:44 am
gaussmarkov said:
Excellent.
There is more. I have the images already. I just have to find the time. 
Posted 14.11.2007 at 10:00 am
Auke Haarsma said:
Keep m coming! Great tutorial!
Posted 08.02.2008 at 5:16 am
the said:
ch lay bot does not work…
got a tip?
greets
Posted 01.03.2008 at 6:52 am
gaussmarkov said:
the,
your message is too cryptic to offer a tip. there are times when “change layer bottom” does not prevent the route tool from reverting to the top layer when you are starting a new trace from an existing trace that is in the top layer. that’s all that comes to mind and that’s just eagle. you have to take your mouse up to the route tool bar and click on the layer you want.
good luck, paul
Posted 03.03.2008 at 8:59 am
Roman said:
Thanks for the tutorial AND the libraries, this is extremely useful for noobs like me. Your detailed description of the ground pour is the best I’ve seen on the Net, thanks for taking time to do this!
Posted 24.03.2008 at 6:20 am
gaussmarkov said:
hey Roman,
it’s a pleasure to get appreciative feedback like yours!
cheers, paul
Posted 24.03.2008 at 8:44 pm
Allan said:
Loving these tutorials, got my first pcbs started with your help. Thanks.
I’m having trouble getting my top and bottom layer pours to ‘work together’ they are wiping out traces in each ones level. Like this:
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c143/ringworm_1974/Picture1.png
Any tips? is there a way to make a board with just a single layer, this would seem to make sense for small stompbox projects, or am i misunderstanding something fundamental about pcb design?
Posted 23.12.2008 at 4:29 am
Allan said:
I got it figured out! I was clicking on the pour rather than the traces to change the layer.
Posted 30.01.2009 at 7:02 am
Rufio said:
Great tutorail gauss, thanks for the librarys. I made my first pcb, i don’t know if its going to work, but looks ok.
Are you going to continue this tuto? I had trouble withe the tool “autorute”, didn’t like the way the ground line came out.
How do you make de ground line stays around the pcb?
And finally how do i export my pcb to another program, like photoshop, to print it, with other pcbs?
Posted 19.06.2009 at 5:20 pm
Anonymous said:
good tuto
Posted 12.09.2009 at 3:29 pm
Anonymous said:
nice ..
Posted 12.09.2009 at 3:29 pm
RNFR said:
i’ve found that ch wid 1 makes your ground pour edged much cleaner and nicer looking. give it a shot!
and thanks GM, i still refer here often!
Posted 07.11.2009 at 1:57 pm
Parker said:
Great tutorial, but what do those six commands actually do? Becasue now eagle thinks my board is actually 3.7 metres across and I cant seem to change it back…
Posted 08.03.2010 at 2:26 pm
Parker said:
Ah sorry my mistake I was assuming ‘mil’ was short for ‘millimetres’ which apparently it isnt? Must be a yank thing…
Again this is a fantastic tutorial – cheers
Posted 09.03.2010 at 11:40 am
Hawg said:
gm-
I also got the error when I entered the ch lay bot command, because I was still working from the new->schematic from the last tutorial.
If anyone else gets the error, it might be because you are working on a schematic instead of a board. Right click your project and go new ->board.
Posted 08.06.2010 at 12:48 pm
paijo said:
this is what i need…thanks
Posted 11.06.2010 at 1:55 am
John said:
Parker-
A ‘mil’ is 0.001 inches.
I’ve seen lots of people mistake it as an abbreviation for millimeter, however
1 mil = 0.0254 millimeters
Posted 02.09.2010 at 4:49 pm
Tony said:
could you change c4 or c1 to filter out some treble or simulate rolling your treble knob on your guitar back as I have had no luck wiring in a treble control in this circuit and I like with the treble all yhe way off
Posted 27.11.2010 at 1:16 pm
LC said:
Why does only the “square” package show up for every device in the supply library? Did I do something wrong?
Posted 05.02.2011 at 1:11 am