Page 121 - Make Your Own PCBs with EAGLE from Schematic Designs to Finished Boards

Delete

I have indicated that this is an important command, but actually it’s a command that is important that
you do not use in the Board Editor, at least on parts. If you want to delete parts, then you should do it
in the Schematic Editor. When you delete them there, they will automatically disappear from the
Board Editor. If you try to delete a part in the Board Editor, you will see the error message in Figure

5-4.

FIGURE 5-4 Trying to delete a part in the Board Editor.

The message is telling you that the change you are trying to make to the board cannot be applied
back to the schematic. The exception to this is that simple changes such as changing the value of a
component can be made in the Board Editor, and the change will then also appear in the Schematic
Editor. Generally, it is better to assume that the schematic is the important master copy and that any
design changes should be made there.

Name

You can safely change the name of a part in the Board Editor. Such a change will automatically
update the corresponding part in the Schematic Editor.

Route

The Route command is what you use to convert an air wire (connection needing to be made) into a
copper track. We will use the Route command extensively later on when we start laying out our

example board.
When the Route command is selected, the Parameter toolbar fills with all sorts of useful
parameters that we can set for the copper track we are about to route. We will see later that by using
design rules and net classes, these may get set for us automatically, although there is always the
option to tweak them manually. Figure 5-5 shows the Routing Parameter toolbar.

FIGURE 5-5 Routing Parameter toolbar.

From left to right, the icons are

• Grid. More on this later.