That's it! You've successfully designed a robust, reliable, ready to use device, and you can start using this part with confidence in your schematics and board layouts!

After saving your library, you should be able to see your new part (along with the descriptive text we added in the last step) by expanding the library in the main Eagle window, and selecting the appropriate part name from the treeview:
And here's out part in a PCB, along with the update labels, the physical part outline, the pin 1 indicator, etc.:
Note: The silkscreen on this part is slightly different than in the tutorial, since I needed to use this part in a very tight layout, and had to reduce the area taken up by the silkscreen.
It might have seemed like a Herculean effort doing this all the first time around, but I can promise this takes 10-15 minutes max once you get the hang of it.

But it's important to build up the right habits at the beginning, which is why we went into such detail in this tutorial. Learn to do things the right way now, and a future version of yourself will be very grateful, and you might even have a bit more money in your pocket avoiding a few board revisions due to poorly designed footprints!

1:1 Print Test

Before sending out to fabrication, be sure to do a 1:1 print test! Print out a paper copy of the PCB design and place the part over the pads, checking that the outline, pads and shape line up. A magnifying glass is handy here

Where to Now?

Like any complex software package, Eagle takes time, effort, and a certain amount of trial and error to master. We've covered the basics here in professional footprint design, but there's a lot more to be said about the subject.

But have a go at making more and more complex parts, be brave about putting your money where your mouth is having boards made, and most important ... learn from your mistakes! We've definitely made more than a few here, but that's the way you learn!

If you want to get all crazy on your footprints, you can also have a look at our other Eagle footprint learning guide: Creating Accurate Footprints in Eagle!

This guide was first published on Apr 22, 2013. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

This page (The End!) was last updated on Apr 22, 2013.

Text editor powered by tinymce.