Eagle: How I Add Artwork to the Board

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Ampersand
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Eagle: How I Add Artwork to the Board

Post by Ampersand » Thu Apr 25, 2019 3:02 pm

First off, I'm not saying this is the best way to do it, just a way I've found that works reliably.

This is to be done once you've finished everything else on your PCB, I recommend saving a backup of your board before starting.

You'll need a black and white .bmp to start. I usually make mine in Illustrator though I'm sure someone can leave some instructions on how to do the same using Inkscape or other software.

Let's use this as an example image:
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Image\
Easily cleaned up in Illustrator by turning on the Image Trace 'window'
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ill2.png
ill2.png (320 KiB) Viewed 6157 times
Set it to Black and White, click the Preview box, then adjust it until you get what you want.
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ill3.PNG
ill3.PNG (13.06 KiB) Viewed 6141 times
Export it as a Grayscale BMP:
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ill4.PNG
ill4.PNG (12.03 KiB) Viewed 6157 times
ill5.PNG
ill5.PNG (12.01 KiB) Viewed 6157 times
Now onto Eagle
Here's the board before:
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Blank.PNG
Blank.PNG (68.19 KiB) Viewed 6141 times
Select File>Run ULP type bmp to find this
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eag1.PNG
eag1.PNG (46.03 KiB) Viewed 6157 times
Click ok and find your image to see this:
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eag2.PNG
eag2.PNG (10.65 KiB) Viewed 6157 times
Click Scan used colors. Clear All and select just black:
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eag4.PNG
eag4.PNG (9.02 KiB) Viewed 6157 times
You'll see this next:
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eag5.PNG
eag5.PNG (18.79 KiB) Viewed 6157 times
Make sure you change this bottom number to either 51 for the tDocu layer or 52 for the bDocu layer to save yourself a headache.

Click ok and Run script.

You should now have something like this:
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eag7.PNG
eag7.PNG (71.87 KiB) Viewed 6157 times
It's on top of everything and made from a ton of tiny points, making it a pain to move around. This is why we put it on the tDocu/bDocu layer.
So click the layer button:
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eag8.PNG
eag8.PNG (14.89 KiB) Viewed 6141 times
Last edited by Ampersand on Thu Apr 25, 2019 3:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Eagle: How I Add Artwork to the Board

Post by Ampersand » Thu Apr 25, 2019 3:02 pm

Hide layers and show only either 51 or 52:
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eag9.PNG
eag9.PNG (28.45 KiB) Viewed 6154 times
Now choose the group tool and drag a box over this dumb line in the bottom corner of your artwork
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eag10.PNG
eag10.PNG (8.98 KiB) Viewed 6154 times
eag11.PNG
eag11.PNG (7.56 KiB) Viewed 6154 times
Hit delete to get rid of it. Then still using the Group tool, drag a box over the whole graphic. Because it's on the Docu layer and everything else is hidden, it should only select the artwork and nothing else. By dragging the Group tool box over it, it becomes the current group.

Now click the layers button again and choose Preset_top or Preset_bottom depending on where this is going. You should now be able to see everything on the top/bottom of your board.

Now click the Move tool:
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eag12.PNG
eag12.PNG (10.26 KiB) Viewed 6154 times
Right click over your graphic and select "Move: Group" from the list:
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eag13.png
eag13.png (31.28 KiB) Viewed 6154 times
You'll be able to move the graphic into position:
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eag14.PNG
eag14.PNG (94.67 KiB) Viewed 6154 times
Almost done. Once you're sure you have it where you want it, hopefully you still have it as the selected group (if not repeat the steps in this comment), click the Change button, then click Layer...
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eag15.png
eag15.png (265.98 KiB) Viewed 6154 times
and select either tPlace or bPlace
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eag 16.PNG
eag 16.PNG (23.42 KiB) Viewed 6154 times
Now right click and choose "Change: Group" from the menu to move it to the silk screen layer:
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eag17.png
eag17.png (141.11 KiB) Viewed 6154 times
All done!

You can see roughly how your board will look by clicking "Manufacturing" on the far right side of the screen:
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eag18.PNG
eag18.PNG (119.92 KiB) Viewed 6154 times
Notes:
Eagle is a bit of a pain when it comes to mirroring these, so if you want to place a graphic on the bottom side of the PCB, make a flipped version and import that instead.

Getting the sizing right involves some guesswork, I recommend changing the size of the image before you import it, alternatively you can change the scale factor when you're on this screen:
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eag6.PNG
eag6.PNG (18.79 KiB) Viewed 6154 times
Your grid settings will probably change when you do this, just set them back to what you had before once you're done.

I'm sure there are better ways to do this, but this works well enough so it will probably help at least one person. Feel free to suggest better ways!
Last edited by Ampersand on Thu Apr 25, 2019 3:50 pm, edited 5 times in total.

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Re: Eagle: How I Add Artwork to the Board

Post by Ampersand » Thu Apr 25, 2019 3:03 pm

Here's how the board turned out:
IMG_7863.JPG
IMG_7863.JPG (3.75 MiB) Viewed 6066 times
Last edited by Ampersand on Wed May 01, 2019 4:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Eagle: How I Add Artwork to the Board

Post by Ampersand » Thu Apr 25, 2019 3:03 pm

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