Electronics > Eagle

Creating parts which have multiple pins with the same name (eagle)

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Thermal Runaway:
Hi all,

Today I came across quite a useful feature in Eagle for giving multiple pins the same name. This can be useful when, for example, you have a device with more than one ground pin or more than one NC pin etc.

Previously I have always named my pins GND_n, where n is the pin number concerned, because although the pins will be connected together in the circuit, it is important for Eagle to know that they are actually different pins so they need to have individual names. Ineed, Eagle will actually prevent you from assigning multiple pins the same name. However, this naming convention is a little bit messy. Today I have learned of a better way:

If you're creating a symbol for a device that has multiple pins with the same name (let's use GND as an example) then you can use the following naming technique:

GND@N, where N is an instance of ground [GND@1, GND@2 etc] or - if you prefer - N can be a pin number, which personally I find more descriptive, and is a bit easier when it comes to connecting the pins to pads in the device creation.

Using this naming convention, Eagle will treat all the instances of GND@N as separate pins, but on your schematic it will show them all simply as "GND". This is much cleaner than having GND_n on your pins!

Just thought I'd share this for anyone else wanting to do the same thing.

Brian.


PS:  How about a dedicated PCB layout section of the forum for this kind of info/questions?

Thermal Runaway:
Here's an example of a part I created today:

DavidDLC:
That will be very useful for me.

Thanks for sharing.

ivan747:
Well done!
It took me a long while to figure that out.
Other hard to find features are:

When creating a device use the DESCRIPTION command to enter a description for your device.
Use the PREFIX text box on the device window. It's below the package panel. It is used to ad a prefix to the device's name like IC, so every time you add that part it will be named ICn, n being the lowest number not being used.

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