PLACING AND ROTATING COMPONENTS

 

You’ve got your blank board layout, and how you choose to place your components is ultimately up to you. In a typical PCB component placement process, most engineers will go about placing all of their edge components first, things like USB ports, power jacks, headers, etc… These parts are stuck where they are and are determined by the mechanical enclosure that the board is going to be placed inside.

After the edge components, an engineer will then typically go about placing the largest components. Things like an integrated circuit with a large number of pins will have a huge effect on what components need to be placed around it. Our example design just so happens to include an IC, and you can use this big part as the first one you place. Here’s how:

1. Select the Move  tool on the left-hand side of your interface.

2. Left-click in the middle of the IC1 component and drag it inside of your board outline. You’ll notice all of the airwires move with the part.  

3. Now go ahead and rotate the part as you want by right-clicking. Each turn will spin it 90 degrees.

4. Lastly, go ahead and left-click where you want to place your IC.