How do I modify a design block?

[Anonymous]

Hi!

I'm about to design a board that will have ~60 identical current loads. Each current load will be connected to one signal of a bus (from a DAC which controls the current), two signals to an A/D converter (to sense the current load), and two pins on a 78-pin connector (where the load will be connected)

The design block feature seems to be good for this application. I can't figure out how to modify a design block though. Say that I need to update the schematic somehow (e.g. adding a stabilizing cap). How can I do this? Your website states that

"Modular design blocks

Drag-and-drop reusable blocks of circuitry between your projects. Every change you make between schematic and PCB stays in-sync; it is that simple."

so it must be possible, but I can't figure out a way.

Is it possible to do something similar to Altium where a hierarchical sheet can be instanciated via a loop, or will I have to manually place 60 blocks?

[rachaelATWH4]

Hello,

I've only had a brief look at the design blocks feature so far. It seems to work by having pre-designed .sch and .brd files for a design block which you then import into you new design. For as many times as you import a block it will add all those as new sheets into the EAGLE schematic and will put a copy of it's layout into the board. If you want to edit that design block, you'll need to edit the external block, delete them all from your schematic and reimport them all again as far as I can tell. If your design block is simple and you don't want to have a lot of largely empty schematic sheets as a result you'll need to do some tidying up once you've done your import to get everything how you want it which will then need repeating if at a later date you want to change the design block and import it.

To be honest, I think for really simple design blocks, like some of their examples, its actually not a very useful feature. I think this is much more applicable to reasonably sizeable chunks of design which you may want to reuse on multiple boards. For example, I'd use this if I had a design like a switching power supply which I knew worked well, had been tested thoroughly, no EMI issues etc and I wanted to be able to plonk that known good design on other boards and it just work. The only changes I would then make would be component value changes to say change the output voltage, no structural changes to it.

The modules function is in some ways better as you define your schematic for the module once and instantiate as many copies of it as you need then any change gets propagated through everywhere you use that module in the schematic. Unfortunately there are some limitations / drawbacks. Firstly it doesn't allow you to replicate the placement / routing of one module layout into other instances. It also insists on using a prefix notation for all the components in a module. So you end up with e.g. MyModule1:R1, MyModule2:R1 etc instead of it renumbering the parts each time you dropped an instance in your design. In some ways it makes it easier to debug as you know within instances of each module what the references will be, but it make it hard to get all these reference on the silk screen on even a moderately populated board. Anything really dense and it's really difficult to sort out.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[Anonymous]

Is this really true?

If you would have to entirely delete a "design block" and re-import it again to propogate any updates, then how is this new feature any different to the existing feature of importing an "eagle drawing"?

[edwin.robledo]

Hi justynb,

Thanks for your participation on Forums, I hope that I can provide you insights regarding the new DesignBlock feature.  At first it might seem the same as "Import Drawing" but there are a few key advantages:

- Design Blocks are Searchable

- Importing a DesignBlock provides a block preview

- They can have detailed Descriptions

- Add attributes

I understand your concern regarding the limitation of updating a Blocks, once the block is placed on the board its no long tied to the block, so updates are not really possible as block, only its components in the library. This latest version of EAGLE has new key feature, but I can assure you the idea is to continue diligently working on it.

Thanks for your participation.

Best Regards,

Ed

[Anonymous]

To be honest that is really just a bit of dressing up of an existing feature.

Very disappointing.

[thomas.kuehne]

I agree with justynb, this is not really a new feature. If design blocks could be updated (in an easy way) or modules would have an layout part, that would be a new feature... and one I really much would like to see.

So without this being a new feature, Eagle 8 is rather a little bit disappointing. The new routing engine does not really has advantages (yet) and the group selecting thing is nice but also only a minor improvement. I am not sure about the BGA feature, I have not used it so far. So as I see it, the biggest new feature of Eagle 8 is the license change to a subscription model and that is only good for Autodesk (as sufficiently discussed in the forum, it is not better for the users, whatever Autodesk claims).

[edwin.robledo]

Hi justynb,

Please realize this is the first release of EAGLE under the Autodesk development team.  These were implementation that were done in a rather short time after acquisition. They addressed features that were being asked by the community and would be enhance your design experience.  Many more improvements and features will be continuously added.  Design Blocks is great feature, and improvements will be done to make it even better.  Continue adding your DB ideas to this thread and I will make sure dev team take a close look. 

I hope this helps!!

Best Regards,

Ed

[Anonymous]

Well, to me this feature "Continue adding your DB ideas to this thread and I will make sure dev team take a close look", is worth paying for.

In my previous Cadsoft experience, whether you paid or not, you had the right to be ignored and your ideas were lost in the flow of time.

Reading the forums, I noticed that from the time someone complained that 2 layers is simply nonsense for the 100 USD a year license, it took 3.5 days for Jose to come back with an answer that 4 layers are decided for the 100 USD/year license. The actual post announcing that appeared even sooner.

The reason for 4-layers MINIMUM for any commercial design is simple: the 2 core power supply layers for CPU and other high speed electronics. You simply can't make any CPU design without those.

My issue is rather different, my needs are... OLD-fashioned. I need to create BEAUTIFUL schematics, not the Farnell-governed hackjobs, and I made a sketch on how it should work. I will send it later. My other need is, one LARGE sheet, with the beatutiful schematics, all connected. That will require some modification of the current random state libraries. But about that later.

What I was thinking is that I'd like to have one CENTRAL sheet, which would contain everything all the other sheets have, quite literally everything, like the oldr schematics of TV reveivers used to have, you remember that? One piece of paper and it had all the modules, all the components and many times also sketches of what the integrated circuits had inside of them! I just want to have the same thing. But on a bigger piece of paper. Whether I will have to draw it all on one sheet or whether it could be simultaneously on the large sheet and in parts on smaller sheets I don't care at the moment.

What concerns me more is that I want all those blocks, boards and modules on one single layout in one single view into one large panel due to the manufacturing advantage of it. As some of the boards will be facing each other and some may be even placed horizontally, I would have to orient the boards in a way so that the down-facing boards will be actually laid out with SMD components on the top, which means mirrored. Not a big problem now, I was just thinking, how about going beyond Eagle Layout and making Eagle Composer instead? You see my problem with the board area limitations, 10x16cm is less than what the boards will take, even if by a small margin. But individually, the boards before separation (break of v-grooves and milled slots, etc) are way smaller area than 160 square centimeters.

And now to another funny thing: the original limitation of 10x8 and 16x10 centimeter boards were some "euro format boards"...nobody used that for anything anymore. Seriously. I think it would be appropriate to begin scientific board space rationing, do a study or straight upgrate to 100/200/infinite square centimeters area, or maybe 100/240/infinite square centimeters area?

Another problem: would you consider a double-system limitations, where I make a multi-board design and there is a separate dimensional limitation for a board and for the complete board set? Or some kind of a combination of the area limitation system. For example, someone makes a 80x80mm boards and wants to make a panel of 6x2 boards.

How would it work in the schematics: simple, as on the paper, you draw a dashed line around a certain schematic part, connector(s) or pins placed or connected to the dashed line, and above the dashed line the name of the board would be seen in dark brown (or what color you use). That would be AMAZING! Just like in the old days! As a bonus, I would connect inter-board nets in the schematics and not have them displayed in the board layout!

As I invented this feature here, I definitely, definitely want it!!! In the board layout, you would need the weird option of being able to lay-out the board one over-the-other (in background, shadowm whatever), so that you can properly mate elements that emit heat or ate too tall, or there are any holes or mounting parts that should be mating one against each other or you need to route some kind of flexible cable that way. I do NOT want 3D, none at all, I just want to be able to face heatsinks or shielding against each other properly.

Now back to the weird option: While I would be doing the layout with SMT components on the top layer on the lower board, I would want SMT components on the bottom on the upper board, so that I can face the components against each other, use a common heatsink or just face a LED diode with a phototransistor, or mate BNC or other coax connectors, or those hirose board mating connectors. And the weird option is: I want the boards to be placed SMT components UP for all boards, so that I can put them for manuracturing as a single board set, but still want the ability to edit it... Maybe some kind of a switch where the cutout is edited/viewed mirrored/upside-down? But still... duh! I said it before: we need two completely different board views! One is the composer view, where I edit just ONE board, with all the others in some kind of transparency mode, and the boards laying over each other in the way I would want them to be organized in the real life. The other edit mode is the standard mode where the boards would be all laid out in the way they will be exported for manufacturing!

Man, I'm good! When can I buy this feature?

All the boards I'd need would be 240 or 250 square centimeters in total. I'd price it at most at 200USD/year license. Because what I'm doing is rather simple and uses 4-layer board out of convenience and small price difference to a 2-layer board. The 100 USD a year is nice, but I can afford a bit more, but not 500 a year yet. Anyway, you may need to read my post more than once, sorry. This board activity is still semi-professional.

P.S. My expensive coffee costs 7 cents.

[Anonymous]

When trying the new feature of the design block, one problem occured. I had previously saved the preliminary version of a block, and as I made a new block, I was asked to describe what it is and then how to name the file to be saved under... OOPS on both accounts, I would like to be able to check on the previous design, so that I can develop a naming convention and/or name the versions in a systematic fashion. The two blocks have very different descriptions and file names.

I don't have an idea on how to implement it without breaking anything or freaking the living daylights out of users, but I think it is a very much important function to have.

[edwin.robledo]

Hi ADresden,

They will continue working on this feature and make it better as we continue deploying version of EAGLE.  As part of the support team, they developed a convention that way we all create blocks in the same way. Including the naming of attributes, description and reference links.  If edits need to be done, we simply build it again, devs on improving this feature.

I hope this helps:

Best Regards,

Ed

[Anonymous]

My window is titled "generate a design block" and has no way of seeing what files were already created or what they contain. That's what I was saying.

[edwin.robledo]

Hi ADresden,

This might be a path  issue, from the EAGLE control panel click on Options/Directory, add a path to your design block folder. 

Best Regards,

Ed

[Anonymous]

I can click on the browse and see some names that don't tell me anything at all, and I can't see the designs or descriptions either.

When you are doing successive improvements to your design block, you want to save it under a version name. I save design blocks (experimental still) from a main project file, that is, a small portion of the board and schematics. What did I do previously? I don't remember the file name or how did I describe it. I don't see the last 20 ones saved.

In the other a milimeter scale is displayed, in that other project for testing, inches are displayed, because of the settings there (not changed ), so that comment is obsolete..

[edwin.robledo]

Hi ADresden,

How about having multiple sessions of EAGLE open.  Use the second session to view your design blocks from the Autodesk EAGLE control panel or from a schematic, don't have the same schematic loaded on each session. 

Just an idea.

Best Regards,

Ed

[Anonymous]

Good idea, I didn't know that I could open one more session.

But that sounds all too much like "work" to me.

And I wand to avoid this thing the most: tedious work.

So, that is why I wanted some kind of preview (at least of my previous saves) when I'm trying to create a new block.

What more, I'd like to have the blocks arranged in preview, with a scale identical to all previews (the same as my current design), much like you have previews in pictures..

With descriptions in a tooltip... do you use XNview? (or maybe 20 years ago it was ACDsee that ruled)

Basically, I want something like this to view the saved design blocks, and... you know this is just one of the browsing modes, right?

In the same way, when having the "save design" window open, this section would be on the left, with the description visible in the tooltip, with me being able to scroll through all of them. The reason is that you need to be sure of what you are doing. Changing the zoom on the current block that is being created would change the zoom of the previews too.

It takes several seconds to scroll trough all 247 images in that folder and actually see them all. It takes ages to scroll trough current design blocks individually. You know I'm posting this because the official Autodesk statement was "we feel your pain" and also "why reinvent the wheel?". When I actually start working in Eagle, I expect to collect 200 useful blocks in a year. And of course I need those managed.

So then, ability to create a separator line (like in Bookmarks in Firefox or other browsers) between different groups od design blocks would be nice. Maybe designs stored in separate subfolders could be represented in the list this way. That way amplifier blocks and ADC blocks and power supply blocks could be located within several seconds instead of 2 minutes. Just scroll the mouse wheel up or down. Below the separator line could be a comment and the name of the folder.

Right clicking on the design block would bring a small drop-down menu, where editing of the description or even the design block file name would be selectable. And since separate instances of Eagle are possible, you could also give me the option to open the design in a temporary project file, where I could modify and save it (Save), or save it under a new file instead (Save as...). Just like we have done it in picture and text editors for the past 30 years.

How long does it take to modify Eagle executable so that it runs in a special design block editing mode? (no board outline, etc.)

Here I selected a different view (with the deescription mode active, but the pictures have no descriptions on them), I also turned the preview ON.

The weird scroll-volume slider on the right changes the picture preview size for all, it's very, very, very practical.

EDIT: One of the icons actually turns "Show files in subfolders" on and off! Amazing! Someone on these forums asked for the same in request concerning libraries. With my addition that files from different folders be separated by a tiny separating line.

[matt.berggren]

Hi @Anonymous

Totally agree that a preview of the design blocks of this sort is in order.  Also we should be looking for ways to organize them.  The concept of having a taxonomy and separators is key here and the folder structure is useful but we might also play with UX and see what accordions and other methods work to help make this more clear.  Overall, I'm in agreement with the premise that visualization (a full-view preview as well as thumbnails), search and organization could use work.  The feedback is appreciated.

FWIW, there is work going into editing of design blocks that should be in the next release or one shortly thereafter (weeks, not months).  Your feedback and feedback like this has driven that to the top of the priority list.  🙂  

I'll take it back to the dev org that we need to visualize these better to make the feature more useful!  We're on it!

Best regards

Matt Berggren

Director - Autodesk EAGLE

[Anonymous]

Woo-hoo!

Thank you very much!

If everyone tried XNview (windows version), you's see what customization and accessibility is all about 🙂 And that is the work of just one man.

I'm more concerned about the 4 simple tools to speed up drawing that I proposed, and after that I want to send someone the library improvements that I designed, it also plays with the subscription model and in general, should speed up drawing on par with paper. Basically, the first step up ever since Eagle was created.

I have a lot of sketches and pictures that explain it. I also don't want to break compatibility, so I designed it that way.

As far as the folder structure goes: many power users organize their stuff in folder structures, that is because of data portability and back-up, and general data ownership. While you can't see the description of the folder easily in the file browsers, it takes none time whatsoever to take the correct groups and copy them, even is Eagle has crashed.

But spend some time also on solving design defects that have been there always (bugs, etc.), like the UI command drop that happens when screen renders. Eagle is the only software in 2017 that has the tendency to forget that I released left the mouse button. Simple test, zoom in slowly with a scroll wheel. VERY quickly zoom out. Repeat ad infinitum. Due to the dropped commands you will only get closer and closer. While Zoom is only annoyance, there are important commands that can get dropped and cause anomalies.