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(Eagle) Copying part from schematic to library and mofiying the package

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Pavius

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I've been working with Eagle and the experience is... interesting. I'd very much like to meet the UI designer and see just how much genetic code it shares with the human species.

Anyways, I bought a device from Sparkfun (a seven segment display x4) but it does not appear in their (impressive) eagle library. After a bit of searching I found a Sparkfun schematic which uses this exact same part. I was able to copy (i mean cut :rolleyes:) the part to my schematic and even used it to lay out the board.

Not surprisingly the package does not match the actual device (missing two pins), but i cannot for the life of me get the part from my schematic to a library (a first step in actually editing the package - for which some tutorials exist). Is there any way to do this?
 
Let me make sure I understand, you want to copy part of an Eagle schematic (the .sch file) so that you can paste it into the library and use it as the symbol for your new part? The only useful part you might get from the schematic would go towards defining the symbol. The package would need to be defined seperately or copied for a board (.brd) file. A device needs both a symbol and a package to be defined.
 
Hi Pavius,

you can't edit a package in the library. Attempting to add or remove pads will result in the error message "Package in use".

This is very logical. Editing a package will have effect on all devices sharing that package - resulting in most likely pin/pad errors in the schematic and PCB layout.

If your package is similar to the one found copy it using another name. Load it into the editor and you're free to add or delete pads, resize, reshape and renumber them as well as changing the package dimension.

The same applies to the symbol.

When both - package and symbol are completed create a device using the symbol first and assign the new package.

Here is an example for a 4-digit LED display, one to create a PCB for manufacturing and the other one for representation purposes. (3641F was created by copying 3641)

Boncuk
 

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Last edited:
DirtyLude pointed to the solution to my problem - now I have the part exported into a new library. Still some work from there but I think it's easier from here. vne147, using DirtyLude's link it's possible to take both the symbol and the package, apparently.

Boncuk - thanks for the heads up, i'll be sure to keep it in mind for future issues (and there will be many).
 
Last edited:
Pavius said:
vne147, using DirtyLude's link it's possible to take both the symbol and the package, apparently.
Click to expand...

I went and read DirtyLude's link last night. Good stuff. I have never used that ULP before although there were times when I know it would have come in handy.

I wasn't saying with my post that you couldn't get both the symbol and the package. What I was saying was that you can only get the symbol from the schematic. Even when using this ULP, the package (i.e. footprint) still comes from the board editor, not the schematic. And from what I can tell, the ULP does exactly what I said you would need to do anyway. It just does it easily in a script instead of you having to do all the steps manually.

At any rate, I'm glad you got it working.
 
vne147 said:
It just does it easily in a script instead of you having to do all the steps manually.
Click to expand...

Ya, I reread the original message later and realized it looks like he already had both symbol and package, just the package was not exactly correct. Oh well, glad it worked out.
 
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