EAGLE ULP to generate LitePlacer input file

[louis]

Is there any chance you could modify this to export actual part origins (instead of the mean x/y values)? I'm trying to work with TO-263 devices, which aren't symmetrical.

Thank you for posting this, by the way--it has been a great help already.

Louis

[LulaNord]

Hi...i am a new user here. As per my observation this zip file great with the initial LitePLacer but is slightly the wrong format for LitePlacer V2. Quotation marks and field naming are the main difference I noticed. Ill update with more details when I do some more testing.

[JuKu]

I'm bringing up an old thread for a potential customer: Does the problem still exist? If so, could someone please send me examples of the results? t is likely easy to adapt the software for this.

[johnswenson1]

I just tried to do my first board with parts on the bottom and strange things happened.

I'm using the ULP that comes with the latest version of Autodesk Eagle (9.1).

Anyway in the bottom CSV file the Y coordinates are all negative. The X coordinates are all positive. If I have the "Bottom" box checked when I load the CSV into the software, the X coordinates all get converted to negative, the Y coordinates stay negative. The machine is not pointing at anything right.

Looking at the CSV file I see the "layer" field is zero for both bottom and top files. Is this the problem?

So I guess the big question is "How is bottom placement supposed to work in the first place?" Then I can get into is this ULP doing the right thing.

Since bottom placement is doing stuff with negatives, am I to assume that the approach is to make X coords negative and add an X offset equal to the board width? If so then why are the Y coords negative? For a bottom placement you should only need one mirrored axis not two.

Anyway I can try changing th zeros to "B" and see if that makes any difference, but it would be nice to know how bottom placement is supposed to work in the first place.

Thanks,

John S.

[JuKu]

So I guess the big question is "How is bottom placement supposed to work in the first place?" Then I can get into is this ULP doing the right thing.

Since bottom placement is doing stuff with negatives, am I to assume that the approach is to make X coords negative and add an X offset equal to the board width? If so then why are the Y coords negative? For a bottom placement you should only need one mirrored axis not two.

The assumption is that you have the data where the part coordinates does not depend on the layer. Like, in design environment you can see two parts in same place, they would have same coordinates but are on different layers. This is how most CAD systems behave and present the data.

When you check the bottom layer, the software mirrors the X coordinates, making them negative, the Y coordinates are not affected. You flip the board from left to right. Origin goes right by board width, and you give the width in board offset. Origin is now furthest right, and negative coordinates are from there to left.

------

I don't have Eagle myself and of course, not the ULP either. if I understood you right, your ULP gives you a CSV with bottom side components only, and mirrors the Y data for you. If you load that as is (don't change the layer info), flip the board by bottom-up direction and put the board height to Y offset, the data should work.