Eagle layout of SMD Headers

The Archive Product Creation
1

This is similar to but NOT the same as the topic discussed in Nov’15 (“Photon Eagle Lib w/ Headers”). I am looking for an EagleCAD part that uses a pair of SMD header strips and mates with a Photon with header pins.

  • It’s a Photon with header pins, so it’s removable
    (it’s NOT an SMD Photon, i.e., not a Photon with castellated pads)

  • It’s a pair of SMD header strips, for use with a reflow solder process
    (I don’t want hand-soldered, thru-hole headers on an otherwise SMD PCB)

The pair of SMD header strips need to line up at just the right width, which is Photon-specific. Nice if silkscreen is present too. I’ve never done any library-part creation for Eagle, but my fallback is to learn how to copy the “Photon with Headers” part and carefully swap each thru-hole header strip with SMD header strips.

MY QUESTION…

  • Is this part already available and I’m just not seeing it in an Eagle library?
  • If not, has someone done this and willing to add it to the Photon eagle library?
2

Not sure if this is helpful - https://github.com/spark/shields/tree/master/photon-shields/internet-button

The internet button uses that… But it’s reversed… As in the headers are at the other side of the board where the photon is inserted…

In the schematic, you should be able to locate the part used

3

Thanks for the tip. Not sure if those green circles mean thru-hole or not, but it’s certainly got pads for SMD.

I downloaded the pair of sch/brd files and tried to do something useful with it in Eagle. I removed everything but the Photon layout itself. It’s not clear to me that I’m getting somewhere helpful. Being on the bottom of the board may not be too bad, I can change part layers. But I couldn’t “extract” this to a “library part” such that I could add it to my other board layout. Or maybe it is a library part already … never having done anything but “use a part from a library” means I still have a lot to learn.

Short of a library part with known SMD headers, I think my best step may be to grab a pair of SMD header parts from the Eagle lib, identify the header spacing of the Photon header pins, then set them in place. Add a couple of restrict regions as the thru-hole parts show, and iterate.

4

Ok, if others follow down this path: note that typical 1x12 SMD headers have a “staggered pad” footprint, so they are VERY different from the “photon_smd” part in the photon library.