Combining Multiple EAGLE PCBs Into One

If you are a PCB designer or a beginner and you like using EAGLE CAD PCB Design program, at some point, you will want to combine multiple PCBs so that they be like one PCB on a common PCB board. There are different reasons that may drive you into wanting to combine multiple PCBs. One of the most common reason is that, you may have made many di erent small boards and after testing them, you nd that they function well and would be great if they were manufactured. Sending separate boards to a PCB manufacturer will cost much more money as compared to sending all the designs on one board as if it were just one PCB. In this post, we shall discuss how to combine multiple PCBs into one using EAGLE CAD program since it is one of the most commonly used.

Prepare all the boards that are to be combined. Make sure that the designs are individually complete as you would want them to be manufactured. To start o , open each PCB design that you want to combine; one at a time. The schematic may open up but note that we will not be dealing with the schematic since the initial design was already completed. Go to the PCB layer setting section and select all layers for that PCB. Select the whole PCB layout and group the whole board design. Now you should be able to copy the PCB design. Some older versions will not do well with the copying option. In this case, CUT the design instead of copying.

From here, make a new PCB board le and paste the copied or the cut le by clicking on the paste icon. Now you can position the PCBs the way you want. You can also make changes but it is advisable that you avoid any major changes since the board was already complete and ready for manufacture. In addition, making PCB components or traces changes will result to errors since the board have no associated schematics. If you feel that you should make major changes on the PCB, it is advisable that you make make the changes to the original PCB design then when all is well complete, you can proceed to PCB combining steps.

Using the same process, you can add as many boards as you want. As you combine the boards, you need to keep in mind the manufacturer's capability and capacity. Following your manufacturer's PCB rules will ensure that your board will be manufactured awlessly. After you are satis ed with the number of boards on the board, you can comfortably generate the required les as usual; as if it were a single board.