Eagle PCB Design and rectangles/polygons

[pyrohaz]

Hey guys,
I've recently started using Eagle to design PCB's and i'm a bit new to it!

I've designed a PCB that has copper pads on the topside (solely rectangular pads, which I want to be connected to the schematic). Now, I've designed this PCB using the rectangle tool but don't seem to be able to find a method to link them to the schematic. How can I go about doing this? I've currently got about 80 pads that I've precisely drawn out using the rectangle tool and applied all of the dimensions etc. I fear that the answer here may be "do it again with polygons" but just incase, I thought i'd ask.

How can I link rectangles to a net?

Cheers,

 

[ysba]

Well, it is true. In Eagle, rectangles have no name, so can't be linked to nets... If you want, you can draw everthing again with polygons, but there's no need. If you put a PCB trace over the rectangle, they will be linked by the copper. If you run the Desing Rules Check, it will indicate an 'overlap' error, but you can check it as 'approved', because this is your intention. Sometimes I need to use this trick, because in some cases it is faster than edit a component in a library, and the PCB manufacturers do not complain. They just care for the gerber files you generate. There's a file for each layer, and the file for the 'TOP' layer, in red, for example, will pick everything that's red. Doesn't matter if are single traces, nets, polygons, rectangles or texts.

 

[pyrohaz]

Thats actually brilliant! Really appreciate the quick reply, cheers

In the end, I just connected smd "test pads" to my schematic and placed these onto the copper pads with vias on top, so far it seems correct!

Thanks again,
Harris