Converting Fusion 360 Sketch Lines to Eagle PCB Traces

[cmcalduf]

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to figure out if it is possible to generate eagle pcb traces from fusion 360 sketch lines. My project requires the use of a custom board shape required by my company, and for our training we are to design a circuit that we then lay out on this custom board. Due to the uncommon shape, I have placed sketch lines where I think nets like VCC and GND should go, however I have struggled to find a way to convert these lines to routed traces, if that is even possible.

I attached a couple of pictures to show the lines and board. The first is a snapshot of the fusion 360 board with the sketch lines visible. I would like to turn the outer rings into VCC and GND traces. I would like to turn the rest of the center polygons into silkscreen. The second picture is the generated 2D brd file, and there are no sketch lines.

Thanks,

Carl

[jorge_garcia · Accepted solution]

Hi @cmcalduf,

I hope you're doing well. It's not possible to turn sketch lines into traces. I can definitely understand needing a specific shape for the outline but the VCC and GND signals are generally formed using planes.

Aesthetically it looks pleasing the way you drew it in Fusion (reminds me of a turtle) but routing generally is constrained by components and physics in such a way that unless you have very few components on the board that routing would likely no be possible.

If you can provide more information about exactly what you are trying to do then I'm sure we can figure the best way forward.

Best Regards,

[cmcalduf]

Hi @jorge_garcia,

Thanks for your reply. It's unfortunate that this isn't possible, but fortunately I believe I have found a workaround. 

This project is more of an art project than an engineering project, so I understand that I may be pushing the bounds of eagle and fusion a little beyond what they were designed for. Here's a little more background:

I was given a template board to build a circuit around, which was a PCB in the shape of a testudo shell (I attend the University of Maryland Clark School of Engineering & our mascot is Testudo). Unfortunately due to the size of the circuit I designed, the board was too small for the number of components I had, and I wanted to resize it. Since you can't scale PCB's, the only alternative I thought of was to re-design the template board from scratch in fusion and bring it into eagle due to the custom shape. Hence why I wondered if I could make PCB traces from sketch lines since they have much more freedom than routing lines.

Now to the workaround, I discovered a ULP called cmd-draw and I was able to use the dimensions of the sketch lines in fusion to generate the elliptical trace I was looking for. I attached a video that shows the process, and if anyone needs more detail feel free to reply and ask. (The grid spacing is 1.27 mm or 100 mil & in the ULP, I am entering mm)

While that took care of the ellipse, it didn't take care of the segmented plates, which I still needed to have aligned. In fusion, due to how the plates were connected, I was able to select a region that was just the drawing I made and export it as its own PCB. (See attached screenshot) Then, I imported this PCB into eagle, drew traces along the lines, connected the nets to the generated elliptical net, and then copied the entire group of wires to my actual project. (See attached screenshot)

While this works, I still think having the option to generate traces from fusion sketches would be nice to have and would save time. Again, I'm pushing the bounds of an engineering-design focused platform, but with how integrated fusion 360 and eagle are becoming, I can definitely see this happening.

Have a good day,
Carl