Eagle PCB Design Tutorial

If you have work with electronic circuits, you might have built several circuits on solder less breadboard. There are many situations where you would like to prototype your electronic circuit into actual PCB (Printed Circuit Board). In this EAGLE PCB Design Tutorial, we will take you through entire process of designing printed circuit board. Here we will not only design PCB but also show you how to generate Gerber files to send it to the board house and get PCB Manufactured. Let’s begin with quick introduction.

Introduction of EAGLE Software

EAGLE (Easily Applicable Graphical Layout Editor) PCB Design Software which use to draw circuit schematic and a board lay out to design PCB. EAGLE comes with schematic editor, a PCB editor and an Auto Router Module. The software is very popular among students and professionals. The reason behind this is EAGLE comes with extensive part libraries which includes ready to use electronic parts. The library editor is also available to design new parts for your circuit or modify existing. EAGLE is capable to design from simple Single layer to complex Multi-layer PCB. EAGLE is very intuitive and built for professional PCB Design. Autodesk (Former owner: CadSoft) provides great support and documentation.

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Setup and Install: Eagle PCB Design Software

Let’s begin with setup and installation of Eagle for PCB Design. EAGLE is free to download. In this lesson, we will be designing simple Voltage Regulator Circuit. We can download and install free version of EAGLE. This version is more than enough for us. It allows us to design PCB up to 2-layer. The video given below will take you through step-by-step to setup EAGLE. Also we will introduce you how to add, move, arrange and name a component while working with schematic drawing.

Download EAGLE for PCB Design

Specifications of EAGLE PCB design software (FREE VERSION)

  • Board Area: 80 cm2
  • Limited to 2-Schematic Sheets, 2-Signal Layers
  • Operating Systems: Windows, Mac and Linux
  • This version is for Students, Makers, and Professionals.

There are few components libraries we’ve used in this tutorial. You can download them from following links.

At this point, we’re ready with setup and installation of EAGLE. In the next section, we will start drawing actual schematic for Voltage Regulator Circuit.

There are four major steps to get PCB Design:

  • Draw Schematic for Electronic Circuit
  • Generate board file and route PCB tracks
  • Run DRC (Design Rule Check)
  • Generation of Gerber Files/Output Files

Schematic Design: Eagle PCB Design Tool

Let’s draw the schematic for voltage regulator circuit. We will learn from creating fresh new EAGLE project. The video below will show you how to work with Eagle Schematic Editor and explore different features that eagle provides for PCB Designer. Also while drawing circuit we’ll explore different section of EAGLE workspace such as Tool Box, Command Line, Sheet Display, Grid Setting, Tool Bar (which include tools like: move, copy, mirror, rotate, group, delete and many more). The designing schematic sheet divided into several subsections, each and every step will be covered in the video below. The entire schematic circuit we want to draw is given below for your reference.

schematic-of-voltage-regulator-circuit
Schematic of Voltage Regulator Circuit

Board Layout and Gerber Files in Eagle

In this section, we’ll learn how to turn our previously drawn schematic sheet into board layout to complete PCB Design process. Basically we will learn how to work with board file using Eagle PCB Design Software. This process include Creation of board file, Routing the traces, Run DRC (Design Rule Check) and Generation of Gerber files. Later on you can send these files to board house and get PCB Manufactured. All the necessary files are free to download, which will be posted in the end of this post.

pcb-design-voltage-regulator-circuit
PCB Design-Voltage Regulator Circuit

This is how we can turn our circuit schematic from rough sketch to actual fully functional PCB Printed Circuit Board. We hope you have enjoyed reading and watching videos of EAGLE PCB Design Tutorial. If you have any question or suggestions, then feel free to leave a comment. We’ll keep adding more and more to this post. Keep visiting Thanks.

Downloads: PCB Design Tutorial Project Files

In this section we’ve provided all the project files that you may need while following this post and videos.

Please Click Here to Download PCB Design Project: Voltage Regulator Circuit.
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About Umesh Lokhande

Umesh Lokhande holds a Master degree in Scientific Instrumentation from University of Applied Sciences Jena, Germany. and has previously worked at Orbotech, Alere Technologies etc. Umesh is also a founder and first author of BINARYUPDATES.COM

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