Thanks for the input guys, sorry for not posting back sooner, I’ve been busy with work and don’t get much done at night before falling asleep…
So far I haven’t had a lot of luck with this… I probably wouldn’t have gone down this road had I known the challenges (to be honest, I could just make a simple model to act as a “keep out” zone for the purposes of my project), but I’m I like the idea of having an electrical schematic and board layout linked to a 3d solid model - so I guess you could say i’m committed now (or mostly just stubborn).
The initial method I came across of using a ULP to convert eagle board files is pretty tedious - the “generate_3d_data.ULP” will generate an IDF file, but it requires component heights be specified on an additional eagle layer, and I haven’t been able to make that work so far. So far it just leaves me a board with holes, which isn’t a bad start but less than i was hoping for. If I were inclined, I could use the board and add components to it, but I’m going to look into more automated solutions first.
Per ilmenator, I took a look at Eagle3d and KiCad, but as far as I can tell those generate mesh based models (think blender, maya, etc) rather than parametric models used in cad software… these tend to be difficult to bring into solid works and are more useful for visualisation. I did install kicad for testing though, but i haven’t done much with it yet.
The dxf.ulp mentioned by Imp is a similar situation, works to create a board, but still have to deal with adding components somehow.
Novski mentioned designspark, which so far looks like the best bet. It has capability to export an IDL file that is directly readable by circuitworks and brings in component information as well. I made up a simple test board in designspark to see if this is the automated solution i’m looking for.
Assuming that works, I’ll have to see if I can convert the eagle .brd files of the DIN/DOUT modules to designspark - there’s a note on the relevant pages:
There are no special eagle schematics available, since components have been netlisted in the .brd file directly!
Not sure what this means exactly, but maybe worst case scenario i would just need to re-identify/map the components in designspark?
For the CORE_LPC17, there’s actually a .step file included with the gerber files, which is good because there isn’t a .brd file. That one imports into solid works reasonably well, but the components are missing leads and other things. Probably good enough for my purposes, but I’d still be interested in rolling my own. That board actually needs an update to match the Rev C version of the LPC1769, so if/when someone gets around to that (long term these will be superseded by the stm32f4 I know) hopefully they can provide a .brd file as well.
Anyways, that’s what i’ve been up to… thanks for the feedback already provided and any more to come!
