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I have designed a very simple PCB in EAGLE that should be approximately W: 10mm, L: 30mm in size. This design is repeated 18 times (I need many of them).

However, for some reason, the whole PCB is huge. I simply cannot find a feature to re-scale my whole design to the dimensions that I want. Is this available in the free-version? If so, how do I access and use it?

Any help will be much appreciated.

GBean
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    What went wrong in the first place? Why is the PCB so huge? – Andy aka Oct 04 '16 at 10:07
  • I'm not sure. I though I had selected the correct units to work in (millimeters) but something seems to have happened to change that. It also appears to represent my cursor position in some sort of weird polar coordinate system rather than a Cartesian system. – GBean Oct 04 '16 at 10:10
  • I've never seen a feature like this in any package, free or not. Hey it's not a very big board so get cracking (LOL). You'll never make this mistake again! Hope you didn't have to create too many bespoke library footprints. – Andy aka Oct 04 '16 at 10:13
  • Just output the Gerbers for a single board. The PCB supplier can repeat it as many times as necessary. – Leon Heller Oct 04 '16 at 10:14
  • @Andyaka I'm worried that you're right about that. Just to be sure, where are the options for setting the units of the PCB on a fresh project? – GBean Oct 04 '16 at 10:21
  • Share a picture of the board. I hardly can understand what is wrong. In general there's layer called Dimension where you draw dimensions of your board. I never tried having nothing in this layer. Probably you just miss it and Eagle thinks that whole its workplace is you board, or in case issue is exhibited in Gerber viewer your CAM settings may be incorrect. – Anonymous Oct 04 '16 at 10:32
  • I want to know how to select a group and then change the size of that group and have the shape a relative positions of components be preserved. – GBean Oct 04 '16 at 10:43
  • You can not change the "size", or "scale down" the board - for simple reason: components' packages can not be scalable, they should comply to real component sizes. If you want to reduce the size of design, you need to redesign layout. You should give and show more information on your **real** issue. – Anonymous Oct 04 '16 at 10:48
  • That is my real issue. I'm not using any component packages or I would have otherwise notices the difference in size. – GBean Oct 04 '16 at 10:58
  • That's why I asked for picture and more detailed of explanation. – Anonymous Oct 04 '16 at 11:03

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It's hard to say exactly what the problem is from your vague description, but it seems you messed up something in the dimension layer. Start with only one copy of the board and verify it is correct. Then you can replicate that board after you know it's OK.

However, trying to panelize a board yourself is a bad idea in the first place. The board house is much better suited to do this, does this routinely, and has all the right tools for it. Send them a single copy of your board and tell them how many boards you want. They know the size of their panels, and for prototype services can rearrange your copies with that of others to fill up a panel.

Basically, this is a production detail that you as the electrical engineer shouldn't be in. Let the production people do the production in whatever way is most efficient for them. They tell you the price for different quantities of boards, and you tell them how many you want.

Olin Lathrop
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