Eagle automation

Eagle automation provides a more Unix-like and scriptable interface to the CadSoft Eagle electronics design package. It is meant to make open hardware development a bit more convenient for anyone that is used to the procedures usually employed by open source software projects (for example using source control tools and one-step builds).

Note these scripts have only been tested using Eagle 5.11.0. If you are using a newer version of Eagle, you might want to try Guyzmo's largely refactored and updated fork at https://github.com/guyzmo/eagle-automation

This repository currently contains the following:

eaglediff - Commandline diff tool for schematics, board layouts and libraries that is compatible with git-difftool.

	For schematics and board layouts, a visual diff is
	displayed.

	For libraries, a textual comparison of library elements is
	shown.

eagleexport - A tool that exposes a unified commandline interface to various different ways Eagle offers for exporting artwork.

            It currently supports exporting Eagle files to Gerber, PDF and
            PNG formats, generating Excellon drill files and files needed
            for pick & place machines.

eagledrl - Generate .drl files from .dri without any annoying dialogs.

skel/Makefile - An example Makefile that demonstrates how fabrication and assembly documentation for a project can be generated automatically with GNU Make.

Installation

Run:

$ python setup.py install $ git config --global --add difftool.eaglediff.cmd 'eaglediff $LOCAL $REMOTE'

Usage

You can find a Makefile in the skel/ subdirectory that shows how you can automatically build your project's documentation using make from .sch and .brd files.

To show differences to the design that have not yet been committed:

$ git difftool -t eaglediff

To show differences between two tagged versions:

$ git difftool -t eaglediff v1.0..v2.0

Note that Eagle windows will blink on and off during the use of these tools. Try not to touch anything while they are doing that.

Also, Eagle sometimes behaves weirdly if more than one instance of it is running: it might occasionally stop in the middle of a script or throw a random error dialog. Because of the closed nature of this software there is nothing that can be done about that. If that bothers you, consider switching to a free EDA tool.

Configuration

These tools make a distinction between "export layers" (e.g. layer names used on the eagleexport command line) and "Eagle layers" (layer names as they appear in the Eagle user interface). One export layer typically corresponds to one mask and consists of one or more Eagle layers.

For example "topcopper" export layer by default includes "Top", "Pads" and "Vias" Eagle layers.

A configuration file provides a mapping between export layers and Eagle layers and some other tweakable settings. Default configuration is installed by setup.py. It should work for most simple one- or two-layer boards.

Should you want to adjust something, you can place your own configuration file to one of the following locations. Settings in later locations override earlier ones:

/etc/eagle_automation.conf
$HOME/.config/eagle_automation.conf
./eagle_automation.conf

You can use the 'eagle_automation/default.conf' file as a template.

Known problems

When exporting to PDF using eagleexport, default print settings are used. To set them, go to File -> Print setup, make changes, then quit Eagle so that the settings are saved.

Exporting and diffing multi-page schematics doesn't work well. Only one page can be compared at a time and you have to specify the page number on the command line using --page.

License

Eagle automation, set of commandline tools for use with CadSoft Eagle Copyright (C) 2014 Tomaz Solc [email protected]

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.