How to use the Sprint Laut program. Drawing boards in Sprint-Layout correctly from the first steps

After the schematic diagram, the question arises about creating the basis for its installation. To connect together parts of electrical equipment, for example, a machine tool in production, wires and cables are used. In electronic engineering, for these purposes, printed wiring is used, which is obtained by means of an unprotected, specially applied protective layer, a layer of copper foil.

As a result, from a piece of fiberglass with a glued layer of copper foil, which is called foil fiberglass, after etching, a printed circuit board is obtained. Exists different ways transfer of the protective track from the etching solution of the printed circuit board pattern, the most common method is LUT (laser-ironing technology) and drawing a pattern with a special marker for printed circuit boards.

The cost of such a marker in radio stores is about 55 rubles. As a last resort, you can draw a pattern on a printed circuit board with an ordinary permanent marker in several layers, but this method, due to the possibility of undergrazing, is less preferable than the LUT method.

Exists special programs for wiring printed circuit boards, both in manual and semi-automatic mode, with subsequent output either to print to a printer or to a file for printed circuit boards. The most widespread in radio amateur practice is the sprint layout program for manual layout of printed circuit boards. There are both regular ones requiring installation and portable ( Portable) version of the program.

Latest version the sixth program came out, and we will consider it in more detail. Moreover, all of them are not too different in the way they work. After launching it, we see the following program window:

In the central part, on dark background with a grid, the created printed circuit board is placed. In the following figure, in the purple window, the board dimensions (width and height) are set in millimeters. You can draw a printed circuit board by connecting ready-made parts in the form of macros with a track, or, in the simplest case, separate patches not connected in a macro.

To draw a track or set a patch for the output, you need to click on the icons with the designation Conductor and Contact ... If we need to establish a contact without a hole for the SMD pin, choose SMD - contact .

In the window located to the right of the board size selection window there is a window called macros, in it we can select ready-made macros consisting of graphic image details on the silkscreen layer on the back of the board and part pins on the print layer. You can create macros for further use yourself. This is done very simply: select with the mouse the part of the circuit from which we want to create a macro, and select File => Save As Macro ... and select the folder where we will save the macro. The resulting file with the extension .lmk and there will be our macro. You can view the board in both an enlarged and a reduced scale by scrolling the mouse wheel.

In the program, you can undo the last performed actions. In the lower left corner of the program window (in the figure below) there are settings (I list from top to bottom) the grid step, track width, outer diameter of the patches, inner diameter of the patches, SMD contact width, SMD contact height, the arrows shown below swap the dimensions of the height and width of SMD contact.

The program has a very useful function substitution of any picture with a background image, with the possibility of adjusting the size of parts in accordance with their real size. Let's take a closer look at why we need this, let's say we have a freehand drawing of a printed circuit board at any scale, both larger than the actual size of the board, and smaller.

For this purpose, even the drawing file itself is not necessary, a screen is sufficient or good photo shot at right angles. Suppose someone in a thread on a forum brought up a screen shot of their tracer program, and after that the topic was closed, or it is not possible to get the PCB file for some reason. To take advantage of this option, we select Advanced => Template :

We save that screen, cut it to fit the board in any graphics editor and substitute it as background image in the sprint layout program, adjust it to the desired size, taking for comparison any macro of the part present in the diagram. Having selected a template, a window will open in which you can move the board to the right - left or up - down, and also change the scale of the picture:

After that we outline the paths and patches directly from the drawing, as we have finished, we check with the source and get a finished printed circuit board, spending a minimum of time and effort. The figure below shows how a part of the track is outlined (in blue), the width of the tracks and the diameter of the patches can be selected to suit your needs:

When you print a printed circuit board file, the background of the picture, of course, will not be and only our printed circuit board will remain. The program has the ability to apply inscriptions, both mirrored and plain text. In order to apply the text you need to click on the icon Text .

In the window that opens, you can type text, select the display of the text at an angle, mirror or normal, and the font size. Mirroring is applied when using macros to mirror the printer on a printed circuit board. When printing in the program, it is possible to choose direct or mirror printing.

When choosing macros, sometimes they do not match the color of the layer in which the PCB is drawn, for example, red and green, blue and yellow. Then you need to select a macro or that part of the board that needs to be moved to the opposite layer, click on it right click mouse and select Move to Opposite Layer. And then the color pairs of the board pattern and silk-screen printing, green and red, will change to blue and yellow, or vice versa.

Very often, when applying inscriptions or when we draw a macro on our own, it happens to be necessary to transfer a part to another layer, but not to the opposite one, but for example to a silk-screen printing layer or vice versa, or even to any layer. This can be done by choosing Move to layer => and select the layer you want to move to.

The layers are called M1, K1, M2, K2, F... You can switch between viewing the layer on the board by selecting the desired layer in the lower left part of the program window:

When printing, you can place several boards on one sheet, as well as change their scale and location on the sheet. You can also choose the layout of the sheet, portrait or landscape. This window opens when printing:

You can also choose the color of printing tracks and silk-screen printing (inscriptions on the back of the board). The color of the printing of the tracks during use must be necessarily black; when using a different color, the density of the toner on the sheet will be less, and, accordingly, there may be undercut during etching. Also, when printing for LUT, you need to uncheck the box for the inscriptions layer, otherwise both layers will be printed on one sheet, and such a printout cannot be used for LUT.

There is an option in the sprint layout to fit the image size for certain printer models. This is necessary when printing a board for SMD parts, in such boards, even a slight discrepancy in the size of the resulting image specified in the program can lead to the impossibility of soldering a microcircuit or other multi-pin part with a small step of the legs. You can download the latest or previous versions of the program on the forum. Author - AKV.

Discuss the article SPRINT LAYOUT

Sprint Layout 6 Rus
15200 macros to the program Sprint Layout 6 Rus
Video tutorial on working in the program Sprint Layout 6 Rus
Portable version

Very good and widespread amateur radio program for creating printed circuit boards... The program is Russified (very good translation), does not require installation on a computer ( portable version). The program comes with over 15,000 macros. The archive of the program is located on my YandexDisk, you can download it from the link at the end of the article

This is how a printed circuit board might look in Sprint Layout 6 Rus:

If you do not know how to work in this program, then I suggest watching the video tutorial, which can be downloaded from the link at the end of the article: The video tutorial is also stored on YandexDisk, the file size is 99 megabytes, the video format is WMV, which allows you to view it in any video player.
The video tutorial is based on the 5th version of the program. In the 6th version, an interesting function has appeared - loading a printed circuit board pattern, which is not suitable for making a printed circuit board using the LUT method (from a magazine article or book), and on its basis you can re-route the device tracks.

Procedure:

1. We place the cursor in the working field and right-click. In the window that appears, select the "Properties" menu:

In the window that appears, set the dimensions of the board, usually they are indicated in the articles (for example - 70 by 45 mm).

2. Select the menu "Load drawing", a window appears through which we load our drawing of the printed circuit board:

Usually the picture of the loaded board does not fit into the dimensions we have set (70x45).

In this case, in the "Resolution" column, increasing or decreasing the readings, we enter the loaded image into our dimensions.

After all the contacts and tracks are drawn, through the "Load picture" menu, simply delete the loaded picture

Sprint Layout 4 RU

In amateur radio practice, and sometimes in professional work, we are faced with the need to manufacture printed circuit boards. Sprint-Layout, which is a specialized graphic editor for manual layout of printed circuit boards, can help with this. The description offered in this article is not the most new version this program was previously published in several radio engineering journals. The article is intended primarily for readers who have no experience with graphic editors and can be used as a self-instruction manual. Although it will be useful for an experienced user.

This article provides a detailed description of the 4th version of this program (Sprint-Layout 4.0 Rus). Currently, there are already 5th and 6th versions. They differ slightly from the 4th version, but according to the description given, they are quite understandable.

Sprint-Layout is simple and very convenient program for the development of single-sided and double-sided PCBs, the dimensions of which do not exceed 300 x 300 mm (default - 160 x 100 mm), which is sufficient for most designs. The program works in Windows environment 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and performs all the necessary functions. There are several versions of this program. A description of the earlier Russian-language version of Sprint-Layout 3.0R can be found in.

Picture 1

In amateur radio practice, and sometimes in professional work, we are faced with the need to manufacture printed circuit boards. Sprint-Layout, which is a specialized graphic editor for manual layout of printed circuit boards, can help with this. The description of the not newest version of this program proposed in this article was previously published in several radio engineering journals. The article is intended primarily for readers who have no experience with graphic editors and can be used as a self-instruction manual. Although it will be useful for an experienced user.

General Provisions

Sprint-Layout is a simple and very convenient program for the design of single-sided and double-sided printed circuit boards, the dimensions of which do not exceed 300 × 300 mm (by default - 160 × 100 mm), which is quite enough for most designs. The program works in Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and performs all the necessary functions. There are several versions of this program. A description of the earlier Russian-language version of Sprint-Layout 3.0R can be found in.

The version of the Sprint-Layout 4.0 Rus program also has a Russian-language interface (unlike Sprint-Layout 3.0 without the Rus suffix), which makes it easier to familiarize yourself and work with this program. In what follows, we will use exclusively the notation and terminology of the Russian version of the program. I would like to draw the reader's attention to the fact that the "Help" section of the Russian version of Sprint-Layout 4.0 Rus is written in English, in contrast to Sprint-Layout 3.0R, where this section is compiled in German.

Sprint-Layout contains tools for drawing pads (patches), tracks, polyhedrons, labels, and so on, a magnifying glass for choosing a convenient drawing viewing scale, and also has a library of components (macros). Drawing files have a lay extension, and component library files (macros) have an lmk extension. The Sprint-Layout 4.0 Rus program window with the loaded PCB file is shown in Fig. 1.

In fig. 3 shows the Menu Bar and the Standard Toolbar. The Purpose of the First Nine Icons of the Standard Toolbars are clear to every Windows user. Therefore, the assignments of the elements of this panel are signed only starting from the tenth icon. The main menu commands from the Menu bar are duplicated by the commands of the Context menu (see Fig. 4), which is invoked by pressing the right mouse button if the cursor is located on the working field.

Figure 3

A set of special tools is used directly for the layout of the boards, which is located in the left part of the program window (Fig. 1). The purpose of the tools (buttons) of this set is shown in Fig. 5.

The very bottom line of the Sprint-Layout 4.0 Rus program window (Fig. 1) in graphic editors is usually called the Information line. Its composition is shown in Fig. 6. Above this line you can see the PCB drawing tab. If the project contains several printed circuit boards, then there may be several drawings, and therefore bookmarks.

If you dear reader have some experience with any graphic editor, then you can master further work with Sprint-Layout on your own in half an hour of experiments. Therefore, the further description of the program and work with it is designed primarily for those who do not have such experience, although it will be useful for an experienced user.

Selecting the active layer, viewing layers (some errors in the Russian version of Sprint-Layout)

I want to note right away that in the Russian version of the Sprint-Layout 4.0 Rus program, just like in the previous Russian version of this program (Sprint-Layout 3.0R), the names of the Show and Active lines are confused. (see fig. 6). Top line should be named Show (sichtbar in the German version of the program, visible in English version), and the bottom line is Active. (aktiv in the German version of the program and active in the English version).

When you turn on Sprint-Layout 4.0 Rus for the first time, the F2 layer is activated by default, for editing, and all four layers are shown for viewing (under the working field in the Active line are highlighted in bold blue F1, bold red - M1, bold green - F2 and in bold yellow - M2, and in the Show line the point is under M2, which means that this layer is active and we are doing drawing and other operations in this layer). Turning off, and then turning on, any layer for viewing (displaying) is carried out by clicking the left mouse button on the corresponding multi-colored letter. When you turn off the display of the layer, the font of this letter becomes normal, and when it is turned on, it becomes bold or rather bold.

Activation of any layer for editing is carried out by clicking on the corresponding white circle-box in the Show line. In this case, the point disappears from the circle of the previously activated layer and appears in the circle in which the click was made. There are two other ways to control the activation and display of drawing layers. The first of these is the use of the commands of the Side menu, but the presence of many errors in this menu made me refuse to use it. One of the most convenient ways to activate and display layers is to use the keyboard function keys, which will function as follows:
F1 - activation of the F1 layer;
F2 - activation of the M1 layer;
F3 - activation of the F2 layer;
F4 - activation of the M2 layer;
· F5 - display of the F1 layer;
F6 - display of the M1 layer;
· F7 - display of the F2 layer;
· F8 - display of the M2 layer.

Working with macros. Creating and deleting macros

Let's start the Sprint-Layout 4.0 Rus program and activate the library of components (macros), if the last operation does not occur by default. Turning on (activating) and disabling the macro library is carried out by the penultimate button on the Standard Toolbar, which looks like a microcircuit with a red letter M in the middle, or by selecting the Macro Library line in the Options menu. When the macro library is activated, the working area of the program window is shortened and the inscription “Macros” appears on the right side, under which there is a button in the form of a folder, which is used to call the window for selecting a disk and a folder with the necessary macros. It should be noted that the first time you turn it on, there is usually a "glitch". The selected folder may not open; instead, a window opens with a request: “Please repeat the command again”. After re-selecting the required folder with macros, it opens normally. There are two windows under the button in the form of a folder (see Fig. 1). The upper of these windows shows the contents of the selected folder and is used to select the required macro (schematic element file). The lower window shows appearance selected part. To transfer this part from the window to the working field, you need to move the mouse cursor over the image of the part in the window, and by clicking left button, drag it with the mouse to the desired place in the working field. In the window with the macro there is a hint “Click and drag” (see Fig. 7). Above this window is a small panel with macro editing tools. It contains five buttons. The first allows you to save an object drawn and selected on the working area as a macro file. Clicking on the second button will delete the macro selected in the upper window. Button 3 (Fig. 7) - this button is the command button for plating holes in the macro drawing. Button 4 flips the macro horizontally, and button 5 moves the macro drawing to the other side of the board.

If you need a second part similar to the one previously dragged onto the working field, then you can repeat this operation, but there are other ways to “multiply” parts in the drawing. To do this, select the part, and then type the combination Ctrl + D, or click on? 2 on the Standard Toolbar, or select the Duplicate command from the Actions menu. In this case, a second drawing of the duplicated element will appear on the working area under the cursor, which must be dragged to the desired place and clicked with the left mouse button. Clicking the right button cancels the operation. To delete any element of the drawing, select this element and press the Del (Delete) button on the keyboard or select the Delete line in the Actions menu or left-click on the icon in the form of a cylinder (trash can) on the Standard Toolbar.

Let's create a drawing of some part ourselves and save it as a macro. For this we will choose any microcircuit in a standard SOT157 package. Powerful vertical scan microcircuits, UMZCH and pulse power supplies are “packed” into this case. The SOT157 package has 9 pins, which are located on one side with a pitch of 2.54 mm and are bent so that they are soldered into the board in a staggered manner with a row spacing of 5.4 mm.

We will take all this into account when drawing. Check and, if necessary, set the side of the grid cell of the working field equal to 2.54 mm. This is done by the corresponding button (in the form of a coordinate grid) of the Set of special tools, which opens a menu in which the size of the side of the grid cell is directly selected. Now select the Piglet line (menu) in the Special Tools Set, and the Circle line in this menu. By default, the outer diameter of the patch (contact pad) is 1.8 mm, and the inner diameter is 0.6 mm (see Fig. 5). Move the mouse cursor to the desired location in the working area and left-click. Piglet is positioned exactly at the intersection of the grid lines. Binding drawing elements to grid lines is a very important and convenient feature of Sprint-Layout. By moving the cursor to another point of the working area, and clicking with the left mouse button, we will set a new pad, etc. After setting the last site (see Fig. 8) to exit the mode of setting sites, you need to right-click.

For the sake of completeness, draw approximately the boundaries of the body itself. To do this, use the F2 key or the mouse to select the Show layer M1, and then the Explorer tool. It is desirable to set the thickness of the lines equal to 0.1 mm. Next, place the cursor in the desired place in the working field. By pressing the left mouse button and holding it, draw a rectangle. It will be drawn with a red line. As a result, we get a complete drawing shown in Fig. 8. To change the thickness of the lines or the size of the contact areas, move the cursor to the button in the form of two vertical parallel lines in front of the indicator of the corresponding value (see Fig. 5 below). The cursor will turn into a double-headed vertical arrow with a “+” sign at the top and a “-” sign at the bottom. If you press the left mouse button, the corresponding parameter will grow, and if you press the right button, then it will decrease. You can also change these parameters by typing the required value in the corresponding indicator field (window) with the numeric keys.

In order not to accidentally violate the mutual position of the drawing elements (contact pads and the body) during further work, we will group them, i.e. we will make it so that the program perceives all of them as a single whole. To do this, select all the elements that need to be grouped by tracing them in the Pointer mode with the mouse cursor with the left mouse button pressed, and then select the Group line from the Board Edit menu, or select the icon in the form of a closed lock on the Standard Toolbar, or press the keyboard combination Ctrl + G. Now, when you select any element in the group, the entire group will be selected. If necessary, ungroup the elements of a group, you must first select this group, and use one of four methods:
The Ungroup command from the Board Edit menu,
By clicking on the open padlock icon on the Standard Toolbar,
Keyboard shortcut Ctrl + U,
The Ungroup command from the context menu, which is invoked by pressing the right mouse button, if the cursor is located on the working area (in context menu there is also the previous command - Group).

The component created in this way can be saved for use in other projects as a separate file (macro). To do this, click on the button 1 in Fig. 7, which looks like a blue floppy disk. This will open the Save dialog box, in which you need to type the name of the added (saved) file (macro) and click the Save button.

Drafting (set) of PCB drawing components

To get a successful result in mastering the program, we will develop together a simple printed circuit board. For example, a board for assembling a RESET pulse indicator, a description of which is presented in. The adapted schematic diagram of this indicator is shown in Fig. nine.

Figure 9

For the convenience of further work, set the side of the grid cell of the working field equal to 1.27 mm. Drag the drawings of all the necessary details of the circuit to the working area. We only need three details:

Resistor length (including leads) 7.5 mm,

A capacitor with a distance between the terminals of 5 mm,

· Microcircuit in the DIP14 package. The file (macro) of this corpus DIL-14.lmk is located in the Dil folder.

The corresponding linear dimensions of the parts are encoded in the file (macro) name. For example, R (RM7.5) .LMK denotes that this is a resistor macro with a lead spacing of approximately 7.5 mm, and El-cap (RM5) is a macro for a barrel-shaped oxide (electrolytic) capacitor with a lead spacing of approximately 5 mm. It is these files and the LED file with a diameter of 5 mm (LED_5MM.LMK) that we need to find, select and drag onto the working field. The macros of the KT315I transistor and the KU101B thyristor are absent in the standard macro library, but it is easy to draw them yourself as described above.

If necessary, the drawing of any element can be rotated by an angle multiple of 90 °. To do this, select this element by clicking on it with the left mouse button. You can use one of three methods to rotate it 90 °:
Left-click on the red round arrow on the Standard Toolbar,
Select the Rotate by 90 ° command in the Board Edit menu,
· Or press the key combination Ctrl + R on the keyboard.

Taking advantage of schematic diagram, the previous experience in PCB design and presented in the first part of this article, let's arrange the details. The result is a view from the mounting side (see Fig. 10). The side of the foil will be mirrored in this illustration.

It would be very convenient if the parts were marked in accordance with the diagram, and its name and purpose were written on the board. Let's see how to do this.

Inscriptions. Auto numbering

The Specialty Toolbox contains a Text tool using a font that is generated by Sprint-Layout. This font has only the Latin alphabet. It has one indisputable advantage: it can be mirrored in the same way as any other element of the drawing. Let us sign the positional numbers of the circuit parts on the drawing so that they are etched onto the board. To do this, you need to activate the F2 layer. Select the Text tool in the Special Tool Box. The “Text” Settings dialog box will open (see Figure 11). In the Height box, set 1.8 ... 2.2 mm (in my opinion, this is the most convenient font height for numbering parts). In the Text box, type the inscription: “Indicator of RESET”. Select the Normal value for the Thickness and Spacing parameters. For the Rotation parameter, select the value 90 °, and for the Mirror parameter, select the Horizontal value. By clicking on the OK button of the dialog box, we will enter the mode of setting labels. The dialog box will close and the previously typed mirrored rotated inscription will appear near the mouse cursor, moving behind the cursor as if it were anchored. Let us bring it to the free space at the bottom right. Moreover, the inscription moves discretely with a minimum step of one grid cell. If necessary, you can “untie” the label from the grid and move it smoothly. To do this, while moving the mouse cursor, press and hold the Ctrl button on the keyboard. Next, let's left-click. The caption will be installed in the selected place and the dialog box Fig. eleven.

Let's choose the value of the Rotation parameter equal to 0 °. Set a “check mark” in the Text + Number box and the number 1 in the Start with No. box. In the Text box, enter the letter R. By clicking the OK button, we will enter the resistor auto-numbering mode. The cursor will be followed by a mirror inscription R1, which must be brought to the corresponding part on the board and set by pressing the left mouse button. In this case, the next position number (R2) will be “linked” to the cursor. After installing it, you can put down the numbers of the remaining resistors. To exit this mode, just right-click. As you can see, it is convenient to use auto-numbering by putting down the positional numbers of the parts in order. Setting the positional numbers of other parts is done in the same way and can be started from any number. As a result, we get an intermediate drawing (Fig. 12).

Now you can start directly drawing the conductors of the printed circuit board

Layout of printed conductors (tracks)

Press F3 to activate layer F2. Select the Track tool from the Special Toolbox and in the Track width or circle line width box, set the line thickness to 0.8 mm. Move the mouse cursor to the contact area marked as (2) and briefly press the left mouse button. When moving the mouse far away, a green guide line will follow the cursor from this area along the grid lines or diagonally. This track must be extended to pin 14 of the DD1 microcircuit. If the conductor at any point should turn, then, bringing it to this point, you need to click the left mouse button and then continue to lead it until the next turn or contact pad. If you need to finish drawing the conductor, then after clicking the left button, you need to click the right mouse button. The rest of the conductors of the board are drawn in the same way. If a certain conductor is drawn incorrectly, then it can be deleted in the same way as any other elements of the drawing are deleted (see above). The result will be a complete drawing (Fig. 13). Note that the tracks will be drawn in relation to the grid lines. If necessary, you can “untie” the tracks from the grid. To do this, while drawing tracks, press and hold the Ctrl key on the keyboard.

Setting board dimensions

The last figures show that all the details of the device fit on a 35 × 33 mm board. Let's set these dimensions on the board drawing. To do this, click on the indicator button Board size 160 x 100 mm in the Information line or select the line Set dimensions in the Board menu. In the dialog box that opens, set the required width and height, and, if desired, change the name (tab) of the board drawing, and click on the OK button in this window to close it. This completes the development of the board. The resulting drawing (Fig. 13) must be saved by assigning an arbitrary name to it (standard saving method).

Useful comments

Actually, in the figure below, two drawings are combined:

· Drawing of printed conductors in mirror image (layer F2);

· Drawing of the location of parts on the board (layer M1).

If you activate and select only the M1 layer for display in this drawing, then we will get a drawing of the arrangement of parts (see Fig. 14), and if only the F2 layer, then we will get a drawing of the printed conductors in a mirror image. How to get this drawing of conductors in the usual form?

To do this, you need to select only the F2 layer and all the elements of the drawing in this layer by typing the keyboard combination Ctrl + A or by selecting the Select All line in the Actions menu, and then mirroring the entire drawing horizontally in one of three ways:

· Click on the Horizontal Mirror icon (see Fig. 3) on the Standard Toolbar,

Type the keyboard combination Ctrl + H,

· Select the Mirror horizontally line in the Board Edit menu.

As a result, we get the usual drawing of the printed circuit board conductors (Fig. 15).

And now let's return to the saved drawing (Fig. 13), which can be done by performing the reverse actions or by closing and then opening this file again.

Printing drawings

To enter the print mode and output the drawing to the printer, you need to left-click, click on the printer icon on the Standard Toolbar, or select the Print line from the File menu. This will open the window Fig. 16.

Let's take a look at the basic settings of this window. The top four lines allow you to select one or more layers of the PCB drawing for subsequent printing. If you check the box only in the F2 box, then printed conductors and inscriptions made in the layer of these conductors will be printed. If you check the box only in the M1 box, then the location of the parts will be printed. Activation of the Mask and Drill lines is necessary for printing out drawings of templates for soldering and drilling. A check mark in the Mirror box will provide a mirror transformation of the drawing when printing. When you check the box Crosses, reference crosses will be printed in the corners of the board drawing. When you check the box Frame, a frame will be printed around the perimeter of the board drawing. Clicking the Settings button will open the standard window for setting up your printer. Now let's make a test print of the PCB drawing or the location of the parts. To do this, click on the Print button. Then we will measure the dimensions of the board on the resulting print. If they coincide with the calculated ones, then additional configuration is not required. If the dimensions of the board on the print do not coincide with the calculated ones, then it is necessary to calculate and enter the correction (scaling) factor. To calculate the scaling factor, use the formula:

n = lprint / l, where n is the correction factor, lprint is the length (width) of the printed circuit board, and l is the estimated length (width) of the board.

Moreover, there are cases when the horizontal and vertical correction coefficients do not coincide. To set the correction when printing, use the Correction menu and in the window that opens, set the values of the horizontal and vertical correction factors, which should be in the range 0.8 ... 1.2 (default 1.0). By default, the print scale is 1: 1. It is for this print scale that the corrections described above are provided. If desired, you can print enlarged and reduced drawings by activating the Selective line and setting the desired scaling factor from 10 to 1000% by scrolling, which is located under this line. If the boards are small and it is necessary to print several drawings on one sheet, then you need to click on the Quantity button and in the window that opens, set the number of drawings (or as they are named in this window - pages) horizontally and vertically, as well as the size of the gap between them ... Then you can print. In addition, there are two more useful features: prints the negative of the drawing and the background image (background). For this, there are Negative and Background buttons (see Fig. 16). For information on what a background is, see the "Tricky Features of Sprint-Layout" section of this article.

Some additional features of the program

The Shading and Polygon tools are very useful. from the Toolbox. These tools, like the others, are activated by clicking on the corresponding Set button. Externally Shading works in the same way as a Track, but after drawing a closed line, by clicking the right or left mouse button, the inner part of the working area, bounded by this closed line, will be painted in the color of the activated layer.

When you activate the Polygon tool. the Polyhedron Generator menu opens, in which you need to set its parameters (number of corners, radius, line thickness and offset). If the polyhedron inside must be painted over, then you must check the box in the Paint over box. After clicking on the OK button, the installation of polyhedrons is no different from the installation of patches.

The Jumpers tool, from the same Set, will allow you to set up the jumper on the drawing. The Help section of the program suggests connecting the elements with jumpers for memory before routing the printed conductors (Fig. 17).

Further, the tracks can be routed manually, or you can use a new feature - autorouting by clicking the Autorouting button on the Toolbox toolbar. In this case, this mode is activated (as indicated by the inscription AUTO attached to the cursor) and the Autorouting window will open (Fig. 18), in which you can set the width of the tracks and the minimum gap between them.

For autorouting in Sprint-Layout, you need to move the cursor one by one to the pads, between which the jumpers are set. One of these jumpers will be highlighted in magenta for control. Left-clicking the mouse will automatically draw a track corresponding to the highlighted jumper. Having drawn all the printed conductors, click on the Remove unnecessary jumpers icon on the Standard Toolbar (see Fig. 3) or select the line with the same name in the Drawing Edit menu. This will remove the jumpers, which are duplicated by printed conductors, and there will be jumpers between those parts, printed connections, between which we could not or forgot to draw. Highly convenient reminder... The tracks drawn by the program in the auto-routing mode by jumpers (fig. 17) are shown in fig. 19.

Files of other formats

If you need to use drawings made in Sprint-Layout 4.0 for reports or as drawings for an article, then the program allows you to export them to graphic formats* .bmp, * .gif, * .emf. To do this, in the File menu, select a submenu (line) Export file, and in it one of the lines Format * .bmp, Format *, gif or Format *. emf. The dialog box that opens will tell you what to do next. By the way, the file can be exported in Gerber and Excellon formats, used by professional PCB manufacturers.

Sprint-Layout tricky features

During his student years, the author of these lines had to rip (copy) drawings in light, using thick glass and a table lamp, and also make certain changes to these drawings. This process is somewhat reminiscent of another original feature of Sprint-Layout 4.0.

If you need to create a slightly different one based on a drawing of a printed circuit board from a magazine or the Internet, you must translate the drawing file of this printed circuit board into * .bmp format (if necessary, scan the drawing), and then place it as a background on the working area of the Sprint-Layout program (see Fig. 21). To do this, after opening the program window with a blank working area, left-click on the Background Image icon on the Standard Toolbar (see Fig. 3) or select the line with the same name in the Options menu. This will open a two-page Wallpaper window, see fig. twenty.

Each page of this window corresponds to one side of the printed circuit board. This means that you can create a different background for each side of the board. To select a bmp file for the background, you need to click on the Open File button and in the window that opens, select the file as usual for Windows way... After that, in the Wallpaper window, under the Open File button, the name of the selected file will appear, and a check mark will be installed in the Show image box. In this case, the background may not change yet. In order to set the background image and set its optimal size, it is necessary to change the resolution of this image using the scroll buttons in the Allowed box (Fig. 20). Using the scroll buttons in the Shift-X and Shift-Y windows, you can move the picture to the desired location in the working area, and by clicking on the Color box, we will open a window with a palette for changing the color of the background image (by default, the color of the background image is gray). After setting the parameters in the Wallpaper window, click the OK button.

Along the contours of the background image, using the tools of the Sprint-Layout program, it is easy to copy the entire board or its individual fragments, as well as make the necessary changes to its drawing. In fig. 21 you can see that the copying process has already started (DIP-14 case is installed).

When making boards for high-frequency devices, or simply to save solution when etching boards, unused areas of the board can be automatically painted in the drawing (see Figure 22). They will not be etched and can be used as a shield. This is done by clicking on the Common bus icon (automatic mode of drawing the common bus) at the bottom of the program window (see Fig. 6) or by selecting the Common bus (mass) line in the Options menu.

Sprint-Layout Keyboard Shortcuts

The keyboard shortcuts that have already been encountered in this article are used by experienced users to quickly execute a command. However, there is one problem - they must be remembered. For this, keyboard combinations of Sprint-Layout 4.0 are summarized by me in Table 1. They are performed in the same way for both English and Russian keyboard layouts.

Literature

1. Bezverkhny I. How to develop a printed circuit board? It is now very easy. Radio hobby №4 / 2002;

2. Bezverkhny I.B. Sprint-Layout 3.0R - simple program for PCB layout. Radioamator No. 12/2002, No. 1/2003;

3.http: //www.ua4fn.fatal.ru/soft5.htm;

4.http: //ra3ggi.qrz.ru;

5. Kryazhev A. Simple indicator of the RESET impulse. RET No. 7-8 / 2000.

The page was prepared based on materials from the sites http://chipmk.ru/ and http://www.radioprofessional.info/

A simple, yet very effective software package for the design and manual layout of printed circuit boards of small to medium complexity. The program is very popular among Russian radio amateurs.

The main advantage of Sprint-Layout is its intuitive interface, which includes only the most necessary tools for preparing printed circuit boards of 300 x 300 mm. The program allows you to work with two layers (conductors and markings) for each side of the board. Additional features- solder mask layer, metallization, SMD mask. The built-in router only helps you route the wires, and is not automatic. The growing library contains the most common electronic components. Sprint-Layout has the ability to export work results to the popular Excellon and Gerber formats, as well as create an HPGL file for finishing a printed circuit board on a software-controlled milling machine. The package is widely used for.

The program is hardly suitable for professionals, since its capabilities are limited by small boards with a low element density. But, thanks to its logical and understandable structure, Sprint-Layout is very easy to learn and is recommended for novice designers who do not want to waste their time learning more complex programs.

The language of the program is German or English. Domestic enthusiasts created a fully functional Russified version of the program, which was named Sprint-Layout 6 on the network (but has nothing to do with the official 6th version, released in 2013). The interface has been redesigned for greater convenience, a large number of electronic components have been added, and compatibility with all original Sprint-Layout versions up to version 5 has been maintained.

You can read about the innovations of the 6th version of Sprint-Layout in the article:

The program works stably in 32- or 64-bit operating systems Windows systems 98 / ME / NT / 2000 / XP / Vista / Win 7 / Win 8

Distribution of the program: Shareware (paid), price - 40 EUR

Sprint-Layout official website: http://www.abacom-online.de/uk/html/sprint-layout.html

Sprint-Layout file formats: LAY, LAY6, export to Gerber or Excellon

Download Sprint-Layout 6.0 (unofficial Russian version, actually 5.0)

LikBez> Programs for radio amateurs

Everyone has probably known for a long time a program for manufacturing printed circuit boards called Sprint-Layout.

The program itself is very simple and does not take much time to master, but it allows you to make boards of a sufficiently high quality.
As I said, the program itself is quite simple, but it has many buttons and menus to help us in our work. Therefore, we will divide our lesson in drawing a board into how many parts.
In the first part, we will get acquainted with the program and find out where and what is hiding in it. In the second part, we will draw a simple board, which will contain, for example, a pair of microcircuits in DIP packages (moreover, we will make these microcircuits with full zero), several resistors and capacitors, we will also see such an interesting feature of the program as the Macro Creator and use it to make a microcircuit case, for example, TQFP-32.
I will also show you how to outline the board from a picture or photograph.
Part 1: What and where we hide and how it helps us in drawing the printed circuit board.
After finding it, unpacking it from the archive and running it, we see such a window.

This is directly the window of our program, where we will later draw a scarf.
Let's start from the top bar
First, let's see what we have hidden behind the File.
We click on this inscription, and immediately we have a drop-down menu.

New, Open, Save, Save As, Printer Settings ..., Print ..., Exit With this brother, everything is clear anyway. Tea is not the first day we sit in Windows.
Save as a macro ... This option allows us to save a selected fragment of a schematic or other details as a macro, which has the extension .lmk, so as not to repeat the steps to create them again in the future.
Autosave .. In this option, you can configure the autosave of our files with the .bak extension and set the required interval in minutes.
Export In this option, we can export to one of the formats, that is, save our shawl as a picture, as a gerbera file for further transfer to production, save it as an Excellon drill file and also save it as contour files for later creating a shawl using a CNC machine. Usually comes in handy when preparing for factory production.
Directories ... In this option, we can configure the parameters of working with the program, such as the combination of keys for file location, macros, layer colors, etc.

Go to the next item Editor

Undo, Redo, Copy, Cut, Paste, Delete, Select All Everything is also familiar and standard.
Double By Quick Make a duplicate of the selected part. Although, IMHO, ctrl + C ctrl + V is more familiar.
Copies…

When you select this item, the following window will open:

In which, we can specify how many copies of the selected part we need to make horizontally and vertically and how to arrange them either in tiles or just in a row. It is convenient when you need to make a matrix of something. For example spots or some resistors.

The next menu item is Project:

Add a board ... Here we can add another board to our file, for example, it is very convenient when you draw a main board and a block with buttons, so you can make a main board on one tab, then click Add a board ... and draw a block with buttons on a new tab. And additional boards are one of the few ways to drag a piece of mounting from board to board.
Board Properties ... In this option we can configure the properties of our board, such as height and width, as well as give it a name, for example "My Scarf". By the way, this is easier to do from the info menu on the main panel.

Copy board In this option, we can copy our board in order to make small changes on the copy, for example, to put a slightly different connector somewhere.
Remove the board - and so everything is clear :)
Place Last, Place First, Move Right, Move Shawl Left This shuffles the order of the boards in the drawing. Almost useless feature.
Import from ... But in my opinion the most useful option, because it allows you to insert into the scarf another scarf from the ones created earlier, for example, it helps a lot when I drew a complex body and forgot how to save the macro.

The next item we have is Action

Rotate, Mirror horizontally, Mirror vertically Explanations, I think, are not required. Unless the rotation is done at a fixed angle, which is set in the options, and the details are mirrored on the same layer. Like a picture. However, it is better to poke yourself once than to read this dregs :)
Group, Ungroup You can link parts into blocks. Thus, for example, you can make a macro. And when copying, objects are grouped. Sometimes it pisses me off, and sometimes I like it. It depends on the situation.
Move to Opposite Layer - moves the part to the corresponding layer on the other side. Copper on copper, silk on silk.
Move to Layer - Same top menu, but with a slight difference, allows you to directly select the layer where we will move our part.

Snap to grid In my opinion, a very convenient feature (which, by the way, is lacking in more serious programs, for example, in such as Eagle) in the program when you draw a scarf with different details, each has its own lead step and when you lay conductors between them. Moreover, you can set any grid in two clicks.
Delete Connections Sprint-Layout has such a feature as air connections. Usually they denote jumpers, for example, between two holes, first we put two spots, made a connection between them, it will be a thin green line, and then on another layer a path was drawn between these two spots, and this option was selected, then the program will analyze normally connected spots and will remove all unnecessary air connections.
Delete elements outside the board The entire working screen with a grid in the program is considered as a board, so if some element falls on its border, then this item simply deletes everything that goes beyond these borders.
Restoring the mask ... When this option is selected, we see such a window

The mask is applied on the fabrication boards. This is the same "green" which is covered with the boards at the factory, leaving only open contacts for soldering. If you drop the mask and give it to the factory, then you will get hellish hemorrhoids with scratching of this varnish on all contact pads. To tear it off is not an easy and very tedious task. On the first version of the Pinboard, one of the contact pads was mistakenly covered by a mask. The installers have gotten used up.

Next on the list we have Options.

Installations ...
When you select this option, we will open a window for setting the main parameters of our program, so we will dwell on it in more detail.

So, the first point, we have to configure the main parameters. We can specify the units of length in our case mm, indicate the color of the hole in the contact pad, in our case it coincides with the background color and will be black if later our background is red, then the color of the hole in the contact pad will also be red. Alternatively, you can simply choose the color of the hole white, and it will be white no matter what background we have.
The second item we have is Virtual nodes and traces, this item, if it is checked, gives a very interesting property in the program, it puts on the explorer which we draw several virtual nodes.

Here they are thin blue circles, which later, if you drag them with the mouse cursor, you can turn them into a full-fledged node, and thus change the paved path.

And the program will automatically add a few more virtual nodes in the sections between the real nodes and we have the opportunity to further edit our track. This is very convenient when you have to drag the third track, for example, between two already laid ones.
Mirror macros and back text
If this item is activated, then when inserting a text or a macro on a layer, the program will itself look to mirror it or not so that later the details or inscriptions have correct display on our finished board.
The next item we have is the Board Map, this item has one interesting joke, if it is activated, then a small window appears on the left side of our program.

It's like a miniature copy of our scarves, whether to include it or not, it's up to everyone to decide for me personally. Fans of the RTS genre will also appreciate :)
Pop-up windows are basically all sorts of hints in the program - obviously.
Limit font height (min 0.15mm)
This is the check mark that many beginners and not only users of this program are looking for, if it is there when we write on the board or on the elements, then we cannot make the size of the letters less than 1.5 mm. So if it is necessary, somewhere to put the text less than 1.5 mm in size, then I recommend removing it. But when sending to production, this must be taken into account. Silk-screen printing of such a small resolution cannot be printed everywhere.
Go ahead and see another interesting fad, namely Ctrl + mouse for memorizing the parameters of the selected objects, if this item is activated, then one interesting thing appears. For example, we drew two contact pads and laid a track between them, say 0.6 mm wide, then did something else and something else, and in the end we simply forgot what the width of this track was, of course, you can just click on it and in the track width setting we will display its width,

here, instead of 0.55, our width will become 0.60, but then it's lazy to tweak the slider to the right of the number in order to adjust the width by 0.6, but if we click on the same track with the Ctrl button held down, then our value is 0, 6 will be immediately remembered in this window and a new track, we will draw already 0.6 mm thick.
Using a step of 0.3937 instead of 0.4.
The translator is, of course, very clumsy in the original, this paragraph is written like this HPGL-Skalierung mit Faktor 0.3937 statt 0.4 in general, this paragraph is responsible for creating an HPGL file for subsequent transfer to the coordinate machine, and indicates whether to use one decimal place or, depending on the machine, use four characters after the comma.
We have finished with the first point and will now move on to the second point of our window, it is called Colors for us and let's see what is hiding there.

Here everything is very simple for us and we set the colors for our program for the background, grid, lines, layers, or we choose from several proposed options, here, as they say, there are no comrades for taste and color, and everyone puts them under himself.
Go ahead and item Directories

There is nothing special here either, we just indicate the paths where and what we have located, this setting takes place if we install the program from the distribution kit downloaded from the official site, but because the program works great for us without any installation, then we simply can not change anything and go further.
And then we will go to the item Library

Also, in principle, we do not see anything particularly interesting, we just indicate where we will store the library of our macros, because our program is smart, it itself determines the location of our library with macros.
Go to Return

Here, too, everything is quite simple and we just indicate the number to which the program will be able to roll back the changes, if where something was screwed up when drawing our board, I set the maximum number 50.
We pass to the next item, and we call it Imax

We set the estimated thickness of copper on our workpiece and the estimated temperature, so that the built-in simple calculator shows us the current and voltage that can pass through the conductor.
And the last item in our setting is the Keys item.

In it, we see keyboard shortcuts for certain operations and if something we can change them, although I didn't really bother with this and left everything as it is by default.
We are done with the Settings item and will see the rest of the options in the Options drop-down menu.
Properties
If we select this item, then a window will open on the right in the program.

Properties where we can set the size of our shawl in width and height, as well as its name.
DRC control
When you select this item, another window will open on the right.

Which will allow us to control our drawn shawl to put constraint gaps, etc. An arch-convenient and extremely necessary thing. Especially when sending boards for production, and even in artisanal conditions, it comes in handy. The bottom line is what. We set, for example, the minimum clearance of 0.3mm and the minimum track not less than 0.2mm, and during the DRC check, the program will find all the places where these norms are not met. And since they are not fulfilled, then there may be jambs in the manufacture of the board. For example, the tracks stick together or some other problem. It also checks hole diameters and other geometric parameters.
Library
When we select this item, we will see another window on the right side of the program.

Namely, a window with macros, that is, a window where we can select our finished parts and cases for their subsequent insertion into our scarf.
Sample…
If you select this item, we will see such a window

A very interesting point, it allows us to put a picture as a background on our table in the program where we draw a scarf. I will not describe it in detail for now, but I will return to it.
Metallization
When this option is selected, the program fills us all the free area with copper, but at the same time leaves gaps around the drawn wires.

These gaps can sometimes be very useful to us, and the board with this approach turns out to be more beautiful and more aesthetic, where I will also dwell in more detail on adjusting the width of the gap when we draw the scarf.
Whole board
We select this option, the scale will decrease on the screen, and we will see our entire scarf as a whole.
All components
Similar to the top point, with the only difference that it will zoom out depending on how many components are scattered over the scarf.
All selected
This item will adjust the screen size up or down depending on which components are in this moment we have highlighted.
Previous scale
Return to the previous scale, everything is simple.

Refresh Image
A simple option just updates the image on our screen. Useful if some visual artifacts have appeared on the screen. Sometimes there is such a glitch. Especially when copying and pasting large pieces of schematic.
About the project…
If you select this option, then you can write something about the project itself, and then remember, especially after yesterday, that I drew there, then it looks like this.

Hole table ...
Quite an interesting menu item that displays how many holes are on our board and what drills are needed to drill them, although I use it mainly in order to bring all points on the contact pads to a single indicator for subsequent drilling and set their size to usually 0.6 mm ...
This is what it looks like on a really drawn board.

Here we see that we drill 56 holes and we need to adjust five of them so that the inner point on the contact pad is 0.6 mm.
Macro creator ...
A very, very, very, useful item in the program that allows us to draw a complex corpus, such as SSOP, MLF, TQFP or some other in a minute or two. When you click on this item, such a window will open.

Here we can select and customize the drawing of our case, looking at the data from the datasheet on this or that microcircuit. We select the type of sites, the distance between them. Location type and oops! There is a ready-made set of pads on the board. It remains only to arrange them on the silk-screen layer (for example, to frame them) and save them as a macro. Everything!
The following points, such as Registration and a question mark, that is, I will not describe the help because there is absolutely nothing in them that will help us in the further drawing of our scarves, although the help will be useful to those who are friends with the German language.
Uf described the same little items in the drop-down menus, but all these items have their own icons in the form of pictures on the panel just below, that is, all the options necessary for the operation of this panel are taken there.

I will not dwell on it in too much detail, because it duplicates menu items, but during further drawing I will simply refer to these icons so as not to obstruct the perception with phrases like, Select the menu item File, New.
As I said, I will describe these icons, I will move from left to right and simply list them if the icon has some thread setting, then I will dwell in more detail.
Let's go from left to right New, Open file, Save file, Print file, Undo action, Repeat action, Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, Duplicate, Rotate and here we will make the first stop, and look at this item in more detail, if you choose which one then the component on our shawl and click on the small triangle next to the rotation icon, then we will see the following.

This is where we can choose the angle to which we should rotate our part as I said above, it was by default 90 degrees and here it is 45 and 15 and 5 and we can even put our own, for example, as I set 0.5, i.e. half a degree.
Now let's have fun! We put the complete sets on the board, unfold it at random, at arbitrary angles. We spread all this with crooked lines ala Topor and brag to friends about stoned boards with psychedelic wiring :)
Move on.
Flip Vertically, Flip Horizontally, Align ...
At this point, I will also dwell in more detail, the point is actually very good, it helps to give a beautiful and aesthetic look to the scarf so that in the future you can boast to your friends how everything is neat and beautiful, for example, we put SMD parts on our board and they are all at random and viscous. for snapping to the grid, and then select a few details and choose alignment to the left and everything looks neat.

Here in the picture you can clearly see the process before and after alignment.
Move on.
Snap to Grid, Remove Connections, Group, Ungroup, Scale ...

Refresh, Template, Properties, Control, Library, About and Transparency
Transparency is also quite an interesting point, which allows you to see the layers, especially useful when you are making a double-sided board and a lot of wires on each layer, if you press this button, it will look something like this.

It turns out that all the layers become, as it were, transparent, and you can see one layer through another.
Now let's turn our attention to the panel on the left.

In it, let's go from top to bottom.
Cursor This item, when you click on it, simply represents a cursor that allows us to select some element on the board and drag it across the board while holding the left mouse button
Scale When you click on this icon, the pointer will change to a lens with plus and minus signs at the edges and, accordingly, if you press the left mouse button, the image will be enlarged; if the right, then it will decrease. In principle, when drawing shawls, this item can not be selected, but scroll the mouse wheel forward or backward, respectively, the scale will increase and decrease backward.
Explorer When this icon is selected, the pointer changes to a dot with a cross and allows us to draw a track from one pad to another. The track is drawn on the active layer, which is selected at the bottom.

Contact This icon allows us to choose the shape of the contact area.

If you select the line "with metallization", then the contact pad will change color to bluish, with a thin red circle inside, this will mean that metallization is taking place in this hole and that this hole is transitional from one side of the board to the other. It is also very convenient to put such contact pads on double-sided boards, because during the subsequent printing, these contact pads will be printed on both sides of our future board.
SMD-contact When choosing this icon, it becomes possible to place small smd contacts on our board.
Arc This icon allows us to draw a circle or make an arc.

In order to turn the circle into an arc, it is enough to select a point on the circle and just drag it a little; as a result, we will get an arc from the circle as in the image on the right.
Polygon This icon allows us to draw a closed polygon on our shawl in order to give it more beautiful view... Also, if you slightly change its properties, you can get a polygon from the mesh.

This is especially true for those who make their scarves using the LUT technology and for whom, when printing on a laser printer, the printer does not make large painted areas perfectly black. In the settings, you can also choose the thickness of the border to adjust the roundness of the corners of our polygon.
Figure
If you select this icon, then a window opens from which you can draw or what kind of thread a figurine, or you can depict a fancy spiral.

Text When this icon is selected, a window opens where you can enter text and then insert it into any place on the board, for example, sign elements, microcircuits, or insert your unique name on the scarf. By default, the text size is 5 mm, but it is adjusted to a parameter of 1.5 mm, but if you need to put text less than 1.5 mm in size, then I wrote above that you need to remove it in the setting and then you can write at least 0.1 mm in text.

Compound
When you select this icon, the pointer becomes small and the "air" connection mode is turned on, just click on one contact pad and then on the other and such a wonderful green thread will appear between them, which many use to show jumpers on the board, which will then be needed solder. Here are just jumpers, I would not advise her to do it. The fact is that they do not provide a connection during an electrical check. It is best to make jumpers in tracks on the second layer, connecting them through through metallized holes. In this case, an electrical check will show the contact. So, IMHO, joining is a useless thing.

Highway
An incredibly simple semblance of a car breeder. It just works. First, we connect the pins through the "connection", and then poke them with the autorouter tool. Oops ..

Another useless thing :) However, maybe sometimes it helps to find a path in a tricky place. Yes, she walks on the grid, so if you want it to work better, make the grid smaller.
Control
Electrical control. Finds all closed circuits. An extremely useful thing when wiring. Especially when you already have dofig of all sorts of chains and the eye refuses to perceive this mess. And so he poked the tester - everything lit up. The beauty! It is especially useful to calculate land and nutrition. In order not to forget to power up anything. The main thing is to make jumpers not through the “connection”, but along the second layer.

Meter
It allows you to measure the distance from point to point, it is very convenient when you estimate the approximate size of the board, and in addition to everything else, you can still see whether the angle is there or not.

Photovid
In general, it's a cool thing to see how the scarf will look if it is made in production, or you need to put a more beautiful drawing somewhere on a forum or website. And it is also good to look at the solder mask on it, where it is and where it is not. Well, you can admire the silk-screen printing. In general, a useful feature. It also allows you to catch bugs with mirroring letters / components or if something is mistakenly placed on the wrong layer.

Mask
If you click on this icon, you can see how the mask for soldering will look like, if in the future you have to order a scarf in production.

You can delete in this mode or, on the contrary, cover the parts with a mask. Just poking through the wires. There is white - it means open.
Now we come to the small settings.
The first item we have is setting the grid step, the first seven points of the grid step are hammered by the program manufacturer and they cannot be changed in any way, you can only select, but also in the grid settings you can add your own sizes, just click "Add grid step ..." and enter your parameters that I and made by adding mesh spacing 1mm, 0.5mm, 0.25mm, 0.10mm 0.05mm and 0.01mm

The currently active grid step is displayed with a tick and is currently 1 mm
You can also delete the marked grid step or turn it off altogether by clicking on the corresponding line. And if you move with the Ctrl key pressed, the grid step is ignored. Convenient when you need to move something off the grid.
The following three configurable items:
Adjusting the width of the wire, where we adjust the width of our wire.
Setting the size of the pad, here we set the outer and inner diameters.
And the last setting is to adjust the size of the SMD pad horizontally and vertically.
You can also create your own line / area sizes and save them so that you can later select from the list.
Now only the bottom panel is left:

Everything is simple here, on the left we have the position of the cursor and 5 working layers, the active working layer is currently marked with a dot.
Next, we have a button, Plating free areas of the board with metal, this button covers the entire free area of the board with copper and makes gaps around the conductors, here in this windows the size of the required gap is adjusted. It should only be noted that the gap is set for each line separately! Those. it is useless to click this counter. It is necessary to select the entire board (or a specific posting) and only then adjust.
Below it is another icon, a shaded rectangle. It has one interesting property, if you click on it, then we can free the area that we select from the fill on the board.
There really is one subtlety here. The fact is that if we try to connect our fill with wiring, then nothing will come of it. Because the fill will scatter to the sides in panic. The solution is simple - we throw from the ground point to the fill and make a gap for this conductor equal to zero. Everything!
You can also make a negative inscription on the fill. It is also done simply - we put the inscription on the fill (the fill runs away from the inscription in different directions), and then in the properties we put a tick “No gap”. That's it, the inscription has become in the form of slots in the fill.
And I also forgot about such a small hint that appears if you click on a small question.

Let's draw a simple scarf, create a TQFP-32 case and learn how to draw a scarf found on the Internet.
In the last part, we got acquainted with the program, learned what, where, hides, what is configurable and what is not, learned the little tricks that are in the program.
Now let's try, after reading in the first part, draw a simple board.
Take as a sample simple scheme, I dug it up in one of the old magazines, which I will not say, maybe some of the site visitors will remember this magazine.

We see that the old scheme has gone through a lot of things, and edits with a pencil and filling with alcohol-rosin flux, but for our purposes it is ideal because of its simplicity.
Before we draw our scarf, let's analyze the diagram for what we need from the details.

Two microcircuits in DIP packages with 14 legs for each microcircuit.
Six resistors.
One polarized capacitor and two conventional capacitors.
One diode.
One transistor.
Three LEDs.

Let's start drawing our parts, and first, let's decide how our microcircuits look and what sizes they are.

This is how these microcircuits look in DIP packages, and have dimensions between the legs that are 2.54 mm and between the rows of legs these dimensions are 7.62 mm.
Now we will draw these microcircuits and save them as a macro, so as not to draw again in the future and we will have a ready-made macro for future projects.
We launch our program and set the active layer K2, the size of the contact pad is equal to 1.3 mm, its shape is chosen "Rounded vertically", the width of the conductor is equal to 0.5 mm, and the grid spacing is set equal to 2.54 mm.
Now, according to the dimensions that I gave above, we will draw our microcircuit.

Now let's check its dimensions. However, if you do it on the grid, this is not required. Where will she go from the submarine?

Everything worked out as planned.
Then we will save our future board. Click on the floppy disk icon and enter the file name in the field.
We drew the location of the microcircuit legs, but our microcircuit has some kind of unfinished look and looks lonely, we need to give it a more neat look. It is necessary to make a silkscreen outline.
To do this, switch the grid step to 0.3175, set the conductor thickness to 0.1 mm and make the B1 layer active.

Now click on the Explorer icon and draw a small outline, left-click when you need to put a point, and right-click when you need to complete the line, then click on the Polygon icon and make a small triangle on the left side of this path.

With this triangle, we will designate where we will have the first pin of the microcircuit.
Why did I draw this way?
Everything is very simple, in our program, by default, there are five layers: layers K1, B1, K2, B2, U.
The K2 layer is the soldering side (bottom) of the components, the B1 layer is the marking of the components, that is, where to put what or a silkscreen layer that can then be applied to the front side of the board.
The K1 layer is the top side of the board if we make the board double-sided, respectively, the B2 layer is the marking or silkscreen layer for the top side and, accordingly, the U layer is the board outline.
Now our microcircuit looks more neat and tidy.
Why am I doing this? Yes, just because I am depressed by the boards made in some way and in a hurry it happens that you download some thread for a scarf from the network, and there are only contact pads and nothing else. We have to check each connection according to the scheme, what came from where, what should go where ...
But I digress. We made our microcircuit in the DIP-14 package, now we need to save it as a macro so that we do not draw something like that later, but simply take it from the library and transfer it to the board. By the way, you will hardly find an SL5 without macros, just do it. Some minimal set of standard frames is already in the macros folder. And whole sets of macro assemblies go around the network.
Now hold down the left mouse button and select everything that we just drew.

Then click on the lock icon and group it up. Better to remember hotkeys and use them.

And all of our three objects will be grouped into one
After that, select File, Save as Macro ...

And let's name it DIP-14. It also doesn't hurt to create a folder tree in the macros directory. And do not dump all assemblies into one trash heap, but sort them into sections.
Now let's click on the macros button:

Here it is the letter M on the microcircuit.
And let's see in the macro window our newly created macro

Here is our newly created macro highlighted in the window on the bottom right.
Now you can simply drag it from there onto the grid with the mouse.

Excellent, but it would not hurt to decide what size our board will be, I figured out how roughly they can be scattered by the dimensions of the parts and counted in the end my size turned out to be 51mm by 26mm.
Switch to the U layer - the milling layer or the board border. At the factory, this contour will be cut by a cutter during manufacture.

We set the thickness of the conductor to 0.1 mm

Choose a grid step equal to 1 mm

And we draw the outline of our future board.

An observant person will say yes, the starting point of the contour does not lie directly at zero and will be absolutely right, for example, when I draw my boards, I always retreat from above and to the left by 1 mm. This is due to the fact that in the future the payment will be made either
using the LUT method or using a photoresist, and in the latter, it is necessary that there are negative tracks on the template, that is, white tracks on a dark background, and with this approach in designing the board, it is easier to cut the finished template, make several copies on one sheet. And the board itself looks much more beautiful with this approach. Many probably downloaded the boards from the network and the joke turns out when you open such a board and there, a drawing in the middle of a huge sheet and some kind of pancake crosses around the edges.
Now let's change the grid spacing to 0.635 mm.

And roughly put our microcircuits

Now we need to draw a capacitor.
Selecting Contact, Circle

Leave the grid spacing the same equal to 0.635 mm.
Let's put the outer circle of our platform equal to 2mm and the inner circle 0.6 mm

And put two pads at a distance of 2.54 mm

In the circuit, we have a small capacitor and such a distance between the terminals will be quite enough.
Now let's switch to layer B1.

And on it we will draw the approximate radius of our capacitor, for this we need the arc tool

Select it and we will have a crosshair on the screen, and the cursor will change its appearance. So we will put it just in the middle of our two contacts.
Now, holding the left mouse button, draw a little by drawing a circle under our capacitor diameter, and also using a conductor, draw a plus sign and a conventional image of the capacitor. We draw, of course, on the silkscreen layer.

So we got our capacitor, we look at the circuit and see that it is connected to pins 4,5 and 1 of the microcircuit, and we'll stick it in there.
Now we set the track width to 0.8 mm and start connecting the legs of the microcircuit, we connect it very simply, first click on one leg of the microcircuit with the left button of the microcircuit, then on the other, and after bringing the conductor (track) to where we wanted to click with the right, after how clicked the right track will no longer continue.

Now, according to a similar principle, we build parts, putting them in our board, draw conductors between them, scratch in the back of the head when it is not possible to lay the conductor somewhere, we think, laying the conductors again and in some places do not forget to change the width of the conductor, thus gradually building the board, also when laying conductors, press the space bar on the keyboard, this button changes the bending angles of the conductor, I recommend trying a cool thing. Separately, I want to dwell on the grouping of objects, several objects can be assembled into one by clicking on them with the left button of the bear holding the shift key, and then pressing the grouping. So, we draw, we draw, As a result, we get this:

Among other things in layers, there is one interesting thing, such as turning off the visibility of a layer, just click on the name of the INACTIVE layer to make it invisible. It is convenient when you check the board so that all sorts of extra lines did not blaspheme and did not distract.

As a result, the board looks like this:

Now our scarf is ready, there is nothing left to add a few mounting holes, in general, it is better to design the holes at the very first stage of creating the board.
We will make the holes with the same pads, after etching, we will have small dots, and we will accurately drill the holes for fastening.

Now a little explanation on printing a mirrored / non-mirrored image. Usually, the problem arises with LUT, when, due to inexperience, you print an image in the wrong display. The problem is really simple to solve.
In all PCB layout programs, it is accepted that the textolite is "transparent" so we draw the tracks as if looking through the board. It's easier this way, in the sense that the numbering of the pins of the microcircuits turns out to be natural, and not mirrored and you don't get confused. So that's it. The bottom layer is already mirrored. We print it as it is.
But the top one needs to be mirrored. So when you make a double-sided (although I do not advise, most of the boards can be separated on one side), then its upper side will need to be mirrored when printing.
Here we have drawn a simple scarf, there are only a few small strokes left.
Reduce the overall size of the working area and print. However, you can just print it as it is.

If you are printing for LUT or a photomask for a resist, then the color should be as dark and opaque as possible. And the paths are green by default and will be gray when printed. This can be easily solved by choosing black for printing. You also need to turn off all other layers. Such as silk-screen printing and the reverse side of the board. Otherwise, there will be porridge.

Let's set up a few copies, you never know if we suddenly screw it up:

So we drew a simple scarf, placed several copies on the sheet, printed, made and enjoy the finished one.

All this, of course, is good, but the scarf itself would not hurt to finish, bring it to mind, and put it in the archive, suddenly when it comes in handy, or it will be necessary to send it to someone later, and we have not even signed the elements of what and where it is, in principle it is possible and so we all remember, but here's another person to whom we will give it will be swearing for a long time, checking according to the scheme. Let's make the final touch, put the designations of the elements and their denomination.
First, let's switch to layer B1.

Now we select the text icon, put the font size 1.0 mm in it (I already wrote how to do it so that you can write in a font less than 1.5 mm, so we look carefully) turn on the English language on the keyboard and begin to arrange the designations of the elements depending on the element before setting the inscription, we will press the buttons with font rotation angles of 0.90, 180, or 270 degrees.

After we have placed all the designations of the elements, we can align them so that it looks more neat, after all these actions, our scarf looks like this:

Now the most interesting thing remains, it is to put down the denominations of the parts, select with the left button any part and click on it with the right mouse button, in the drop-down menu select the item, Designate.

And in the field we write our value of the resistor R1 according to the scheme, we have 1.5K
We wrote, click OK and then if we bring the pointer to the resistor R1, then we will display its value.

Thus, we put down the denominations of all the parts and if there is nothing else, then we send the scarf to the archive. The only thing we do not forget is one thing, the program does not like Russian letters, so all the inscriptions are done exclusively on English language... However, this does not apply to denomination designations in tooltips.
So we made a simple board.
Creating the TQFP-32 enclosure
Going further, now we will draw a slightly complex case, namely the TQFP-32, for this we will make a second tab on our scarf. It is done very easily, click here

Right-click on the label and select New board in the drop-down menu. Then we answer in the affirmative to the question, open the properties of the new scarf and name it TQFP-32.
Now we open the datasheet on the microcircuit that we are going to draw, for example, looking at the datasheet from ATmega-8.

Here is what they write to us in the datasheet itself. The parameters are dofig, but nothing. First, we will reduce the grid size to 0.15785 mm just in case, and then open such a program feature as the Macro Creator.
Options -> Macro Creator.
Once opened, we see such a window in front of us.

We look in the datasheet on the microcircuit and see a square with a pancake on each side of the legs, well, it doesn't matter, just in the top drop-down menu, select another location, namely Four-sided and click on the SMD contact. That's all now, looking into the datasheet, and in this window we look where to enter which parameter, as a result, we fill in all the fields, and we get the following result:

Now click on the OK button. Our body turns red and is attached to the mouse and then we click anywhere on the screen.

Now we have a very small touch left to zoom in on the image by spinning the mouse wheel away from us, switch to the B2 layer, and draw the outline of the microcircuit and designate where we will have the first leg.

That's all, our case for the TQFP-32 microcircuit has been created, now if something can be printed, attach the microcircuit to a piece of paper, and if a little bit wrong, then slightly correct the parameters, and then save it as a macro so as not to draw a similar case in the future.
Drawing a picture
And the last step of our lesson, I will tell you how to make a scarf from an image of a board found in a magazine or on the Internet.
To do this, create the next tab and name it Internet.
In order not to look for a repetition for a long time, we will go to the Internet and type in a search engine “ Printed circuit board»The search engine will throw out a bunch of links and pictures, we will choose something from them just like that.

Here we see such a picture from the left side, we only need the dimensions and they are all 37.5 by 30 mm.
Here we are with these dimensions and draw a path on the U layer.

After drawing, take our image and using graphic editor we will remove everything that we have on the left side, in principle we do not need it, and the right side will be saved to a file with the .mp extension. If we scan a scarf from a magazine, then it is better to scan with a resolution of 600 dip and save it to a file.VMP After saving it in the program, go to the K2 layer, click on the TEMPLATE icon.

Here it is a square divided into two parts, green and yellow, and tracks are drawn on it.
After clicking, we will have such a window.

Click the Load ... button and select our file. After that, the screen will look like this

It will be big, won't it? Here I am about that. Now we are looking at what we can push off from on this board, that is, the dimensions of which we know for sure, and we have two of them, the dimensions of the board and the microcircuit in the DIP package, excellent for these dimensions we will be changing the parameters in the Size, ShiftX boxes ShiftY to fit our image to an acceptable criterion.
I did it with these parameters.

That's all, now we just outline this picture with details. It is quite possible that the details may not fall from 100% to the one drawn in the picture, this is not scary, the main thing is there is a picture on the background layer and a set of macros with a fixed size and this is the most important thing. Sprint-Layout has a great set of macros, and gradually, when new details are drawn, it will also be replenished with its own.

When a template is superimposed on the background and we sketch it, then in addition you can play with these two buttons

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