How to make a through hole pad other than circular shape in Eagle?
I need an elongated circle / elliptical sort of pad. This is the best I could achieve:
This is what I did:
1) Made polygons on Pad layer, tStop layer and bStop layer.
2) Made a cutout polygon on Dimensions layer.
However I was unable to connect a pin to this while making the device. So, I added 4 pads so that their drill overlapped exactly with the area I wanted to be removed from my elongated pad. (I needed 1 pin to be connected to this but I added 4 pads so that their drills will ensure that whole central area gets removed even in case fab house doesn't make the cutout on dimension layer.)
I'm still not sure this will work though. Is there any better way to make a pad with elongated / square / random shaped drill?
Best Answer
Place the pad. Right click on it and open its properties. In the drop down menu for "shape", select "long".
Now you have a long pad.
If you also need the hole in the pad to be non-circular then you have to either make a cutout or a mill callout.
Cutout
Use the "cut out" layer to draw the shape you need. With the board shop I work with, at least, the minimum width of the cut-out is 100 mils.
The easiest way to do this is to draw a 100 mil wide line where you want your cut-out. You can either select the "cut out" layer before drawing the line or move it to that layer after it's drawn. It'll look something like this:
A full tutorial (where this image is from) is available at OSH Park, who will also make the boards for you rather inexpensively.
If this won't work for you, contact the board house you plan to use and ask them how they want such a feature specified. For instance, if you need the cutout to be less than 100 mils wide, or you need it to be plated, ask your board house.
Mill Callout
As described on the linked guide. A mill call out is a box drawn around a drill hole on the "mill" layer. Again, you'll need to check with the boardhouse on what exactly they'll do with the callouts you've made, there is a chance they'll simply ignore them.